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deeeeeleeeeete

Need affordable alternative to Fancy Feast!

Debbie Downer
10 years ago

Hello all, got my two boys off of dry food entirely - just get canned Fancy Feast supplemented with fresh grass and nip, andpieces of chicken or meat for treats - aka the "Catkins" diet.

There just was no dry food they really did well on - they tended to binge eat it, put on the pounds, and if I tried to cut back would whine incessantly. They are doing really well - look great and have lots more energy, go charging around the house like kittens, rarely puke anymore (used to be a daily occurrence). And, their poop does not reek to high heavens like it used to.

So what's the problem you say. All those dang little cans piling up everyday. The cost - about $5/day.

Re: other canned foods, I'm not finding anything comparable in terms of being low enough carb (I know FF has some, but its negligible compared to other brands) and being something they like to eat and not smelling like rotted flesh like so many of them do (even the supposedly healthy brands).

I could try making my own but am just not finding good info about what vitamin/nutritional supplements that would need to be added to the food. Ideally there would be some sort of vitamin/mineral mix I could just mix into the food on a per volume or per weight basis, but not having any luck. Just finding pills/capsules that supplement processed pet food, not take the place of the store bought pet food (that has the vits and minerals added in).

Any suggestions?

Comments (14)

  • annzgw
    10 years ago

    Try Trader Joes. Their canned food comes in 5.5 oz cans and are cheaper per oz than FF. The ingredients appear to be better than FF (only grain is rice, no corn or wheat) but unfortunately my cat won't touch it : (. She's a picky eater, loves her FF and won't touch any treats or table food.

    What are you paying for FF? I pay .52 cents a can at Petsmart and my cat goes thru about 4 cans a day.

  • Rudebekia
    10 years ago

    Fancy Feast has been called "kitty crack" for good reason. Some years ago one of my cats stopped eating, and the vet suggested I try FF. It worked, but I then tried in vain, for quite awhile and at great expense, to get them to eat something more healthy. Never could. However, my cats eat both dry and wet food, so the two eat only 2 cans of FF per day. That seems plenty for them. I watch for sales, clip coupons, etc. I've found the lowest prices tend to be at Walmart or Target. Prices are much higher at other grocery stores, Petco, etc. so shop around!

  • Debbie Downer
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    "More healthy" - I'm not sure what that means in cat food terms! A lot of the organic and ones made w "better" ingredients have a lot of grain and/or other carbs and smell really bad - so bad the cat's reaction is to try to bury it and all I can do with it is throw it away. I suspect that the organic/natural foods industry has a similar system for taking meat that s not people quality and turning it into pet food.

    My 2 cats go thru about 7-8 cans a day x 80 cents ea. - ouch!

    But.... not stepping into slippery wet steaming piles o puke every day- priceless!

    Dont' have a car so I can't get out to the big box stores but when I do - I'll stock up.

    BTW, what makes it into kitty crack? The ingredients in the label sound innocuous but I wonder if there isn't some kind of flavoring agent in it (like fast food industry uses).

  • Rudebekia
    10 years ago

    Target hovers around $.55/can. I nearly always find coupons as well for a free can or a $1.00 off the purchase of 20, etc.

  • lzrddr
    10 years ago

    Walmart often as low as $0.45 a can... this is where I get my cat's Fancy Feast... I also feed mine Friskies canned (pate form only) and though my cat does not like it as much, he will eat it OK. Larger cans, cost less, but when you add up the uneaten food, works out to be about the same.

  • murraysmom Zone 6a OH
    10 years ago

    I had been feeding my cat Wellness canned food. He ate a case worth and when I bought the next case, after one can, decided he didn't like it anymore.

    I took the rest of that case to a cat shelter near me and was talking with the lady and she told me her cats loved Whiskas filet mignon pate. It's not in a can. It's in the little square plastic container.

    Well, Rocket loves this. It even smells good to me. I give him a quarter of a container, twice a day. He gets Fancy Feast filet mignon dry food too. I think the Whiskas costs about 65 cents at PetSmart.

    It sometimes seems impossible to make them happy, doesn't it?

  • Kristine Walker
    8 years ago

    Just found out Fancy Feast gets its fish from Thai fishermen who have slave labour on their vessels and decapitate those who protest; throw overboard those who are too slow. I am now trying to boycott Fancy Feast, but since I have 4 cats that eat it, I need to find an alternative quickly.

  • SaltiDawg
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Incredibly inflammatory accusation. Any source?

    (I see the NY Times article reporting conditions on some Thai Fishing Craft. I also see a poster on some forum says the can of Fancy Feast says that the fish is a product of Thailand..... quit a leap to marry the two. Maybe the Fancy Feast fish were raised in home fish tanks by responsible breeders. lol)

    PS I see that now in 2015 Fancy Feast is going for less than 50 cents a can with free prime shipping on amazon.com

  • Mike G
    8 years ago

    Check Chewy.com, I just purchased FF gravy lovers w/ free shipping for orders over $49. It's about 53cents a can which is the cheapest I can find right now. I'm also watching Amazon but so far Chewy is the best price at least for gravy lovers but I figure the others might be good prices too.

  • Debbie Downer
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Well we're still on FF, Friskies, with a few low carb crunchies on the side (Taste of the Wild). But I recently came across this website with home made catfood recipes by a DVM - http://www.catinfo.org/

    This vet really knows her stuff (unlike some recipes I came across that were downright dangerous and would be harmful to feed long term - ie lacking taurine, etc.) We really need to be careful about what we read on the internet!

  • junebug1961
    8 years ago

    This is a little off topic, but I see that many of you ditch or donate the unused cans of cat food. My mom is on a fixed income and her cat is notoriously finicky- he will be wild about a particular type of food and suddenly turn his nose up at it often leaving her with most of a case left of the now scorned food. We take it back to Mound's and they will credit her the amount of the remaining cans.

    Maybe check with the store you bought the food from to see if they have a similar policy.

  • junebug1961
    8 years ago

    kashka, my old girls are now deceased, but they always had puking issues while on dry food, too. It was so nice to not have to run into all that puke on a daily basis! : )

    Good luck in your quest.

  • petra_gw
    8 years ago

    Another vote for chewy.com! Great prices, and great customer service. As for reasonably priced cans everyone will eat, tall order. :) We used to feed them Wellness until I read up on Carageenan, so no more of that. And a lot of the other foods contain fish in every flavor, so no go on those. We've rotated between Natural Balance Delectable Delights (in the little tubs), Weruva (they like it occasionally), Lotus (they all hated it), Merrick, they like it for a while. Right now, have more NB tubs on order, and also something called Holistic Select Turkey Pate Recipe Grain Free. It costs $28.49 for a case of 12, 13 ounce cans. Fingers crossed everyone likes it. Kashka, if your cats liked that one, that would save you quite a bit of money because you could split up a can a day between the 2.