So in my quest to find a better food for the cats to eat (at the moment, they eat Purina, and they have tried Nutro and Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul without success), I decided to try Natura Healthwise, because it's supposed to help with hairballs and I can say that Purina Indoor does help with hairballs (well, unless someone gets overly anxious after eating and upchucks. Not that I'm naming names *Zoey*. But anyway.)
They did not like Nutro, and they hated the Chicken Soup cat formula. I wasn't all that fond of it either, for that matter. (They did like the Nutro kitten formula, though; not a surprise, really.)
I ordered from Pet Food Direct, where I could get a 16.5 lb bag of Healthwise for $20 and change, plus 22% off my total, which ended up being half the shipping, so the total was around $25. Not too bad, considering some of the brands I looked at would have been upwards of $40 with shipping.
I do like the idea of automatic shipping every number of weeks, which Pet Food Direct offers. And their shipping price isn't horrible, either. We'll see how the cats take to this new food, though, especially after the last two bombed.
Along with that was my attempt to cheapen the price of litter. I use clumping litter, because I have six litterboxes in the house, and each litterbox holds about 14 lbs of clumping litter. The dust is everywhere, and not good for anyone to breathe in anyway, and I'd really like to use something else, but I don't like fragrances and I don't care for the price of the corn-based or natural litter. Not to mention the fact that I can't buy it anywhere around here, and I refuse to pay shipping for 40 lbs. of cat litter. Cat food, sure. But litter? No way.
So today on my break, I looked up alternatives to cat litter. And I discovered that you can use cracked corn--chicken feed, in truth. A 50 lb. bag costs $6 or less, depending on where I buy it. If my darlings take to it, and it actually works like they say it does, then not only will I have cut my costs (running upwards of $10-$11 a pop for litter), the extra cost of the more expensive food won't matter, because I'll be saving so much money on litter. So we'll see how it works.
So far, they've sniffed it and stared at me, but I haven't actually seen anyone use one of the litterboxes I put the corn in yet. (I'm using about half and half at the moment in some but not all of the litterboxes.)
The corn is a bit dusty when poured, but if it makes sense, it's a heavier dust and it doesn't spread nearly as much. So my fingers are crossed that this actually works. It would be nice to use something more natural and less expensive.
If the cat food is a success, my biggest question will be how long does it last? At the moment, I free feed, and I buy two bags of Purina (one regular and one indoor to mix) about once a month. That runs about $20-$22, so if a bag of Healthwise lasts as long, that would be nice. But even if it lasts a bit less than a month, that's still not too bad. After all, I was buying Mabel a 55 lb. bag of Pedigree in the beginning every month, and now she goes through a 35 lb. bag of Chicken Soup dog food every month and a half. So if I do it by the week, with Pedigree it cost $4.25 per week to feed her, and with Chicken Soup, it costs $4.33. Big cost increase, hmm?
Gee, I hadn't done that calculation until now. That's really interesting!
If Healthwise lasts a month, then it would cost me about $1.00 more a week to feed them. If it lasts longer, and I'm not thinking it will, but who knows, then it would be even less of a difference. That would be nice.
And then I get to think about the outdoor cats. I'm not sure I want to be feeding strays expensive cat food. I don't know. I did give Hodge an extra can of food tonight, because he came late and looked quite sad that there wasn't any left. Poor thing.
Right now, the outdoor cats get 2 cups of dry food in the morning, and then a can (split between whoever is present) in the evenings. Since I'm not sure how much the indoor cats eat, I can't really figure out the amounts they eat, but they all share a can of food in the evenings, and they seem to be okay with sharing one can among themselves. I guess what I could really do is measure how much food goes into their three bowls, and then keep track of how long it takes to fill the bowls. I usually have to fill them completely about every 5-6 days.
But anyway, we'll see how they like this food. I told them if they used the new litter and it worked out, I'd buy them expensive cat food. So we'll see if bribes work, too. :)
They did not like Nutro, and they hated the Chicken Soup cat formula. I wasn't all that fond of it either, for that matter. (They did like the Nutro kitten formula, though; not a surprise, really.)
I ordered from Pet Food Direct, where I could get a 16.5 lb bag of Healthwise for $20 and change, plus 22% off my total, which ended up being half the shipping, so the total was around $25. Not too bad, considering some of the brands I looked at would have been upwards of $40 with shipping.
I do like the idea of automatic shipping every number of weeks, which Pet Food Direct offers. And their shipping price isn't horrible, either. We'll see how the cats take to this new food, though, especially after the last two bombed.
Along with that was my attempt to cheapen the price of litter. I use clumping litter, because I have six litterboxes in the house, and each litterbox holds about 14 lbs of clumping litter. The dust is everywhere, and not good for anyone to breathe in anyway, and I'd really like to use something else, but I don't like fragrances and I don't care for the price of the corn-based or natural litter. Not to mention the fact that I can't buy it anywhere around here, and I refuse to pay shipping for 40 lbs. of cat litter. Cat food, sure. But litter? No way.
So today on my break, I looked up alternatives to cat litter. And I discovered that you can use cracked corn--chicken feed, in truth. A 50 lb. bag costs $6 or less, depending on where I buy it. If my darlings take to it, and it actually works like they say it does, then not only will I have cut my costs (running upwards of $10-$11 a pop for litter), the extra cost of the more expensive food won't matter, because I'll be saving so much money on litter. So we'll see how it works.
So far, they've sniffed it and stared at me, but I haven't actually seen anyone use one of the litterboxes I put the corn in yet. (I'm using about half and half at the moment in some but not all of the litterboxes.)
The corn is a bit dusty when poured, but if it makes sense, it's a heavier dust and it doesn't spread nearly as much. So my fingers are crossed that this actually works. It would be nice to use something more natural and less expensive.
If the cat food is a success, my biggest question will be how long does it last? At the moment, I free feed, and I buy two bags of Purina (one regular and one indoor to mix) about once a month. That runs about $20-$22, so if a bag of Healthwise lasts as long, that would be nice. But even if it lasts a bit less than a month, that's still not too bad. After all, I was buying Mabel a 55 lb. bag of Pedigree in the beginning every month, and now she goes through a 35 lb. bag of Chicken Soup dog food every month and a half. So if I do it by the week, with Pedigree it cost $4.25 per week to feed her, and with Chicken Soup, it costs $4.33. Big cost increase, hmm?
Gee, I hadn't done that calculation until now. That's really interesting!
If Healthwise lasts a month, then it would cost me about $1.00 more a week to feed them. If it lasts longer, and I'm not thinking it will, but who knows, then it would be even less of a difference. That would be nice.
And then I get to think about the outdoor cats. I'm not sure I want to be feeding strays expensive cat food. I don't know. I did give Hodge an extra can of food tonight, because he came late and looked quite sad that there wasn't any left. Poor thing.
Right now, the outdoor cats get 2 cups of dry food in the morning, and then a can (split between whoever is present) in the evenings. Since I'm not sure how much the indoor cats eat, I can't really figure out the amounts they eat, but they all share a can of food in the evenings, and they seem to be okay with sharing one can among themselves. I guess what I could really do is measure how much food goes into their three bowls, and then keep track of how long it takes to fill the bowls. I usually have to fill them completely about every 5-6 days.
But anyway, we'll see how they like this food. I told them if they used the new litter and it worked out, I'd buy them expensive cat food. So we'll see if bribes work, too. :)
Comments