Hi to all,
I usually feed both my cats with Science Plan from the vets. At the moment I simply cannot afford the 40€ for their respective diets and I'm going to run out before I manage to earn anymore money.
Can somebody recommend a brand that I can buy to tide me over until the end of the month?
I am buying for a young cat (6 months old) and a senior who prefers kitten food!!! and is 15 years old.
Many thanks :)
It is a difficult one Damaris, and your vet should be the one to give the best advice. if she has a limited time, then as you say, why not let her have what she likes and enjoy it!
Sounds like you've got your hands full with her medication!
Best of luck and well done for finding your secret stash - good idea too!!
The point is moot....I just found my secret stash for a rainy day which I had completely forgotten! Off to the vets I go for my science plan! Thanks to all for the advice :D
Namaste <3
Hi Lynn,
Thanks for the advice. They will actually only be eating whatever I buy until the end of next week, when I can go back to their normal vet diet. The vet will let me pay by chèque after the 23rd of the month and only put it in the bank a week later.
The vet has advised me to give the older cat whatever she will eat as she is truly on borrowed time. Trying to insist on the renal diet meant that her weight dropped to under 2 kilos, she became very lethargic and didn't interact at all. Plus I had to give her manalox tablets for the constipation every day. She is on Vasotop every day too. She also had a daily tablet for the strokes but all these chemicals in such a small body were simply killing her so we stopped the stroke tablet, took her off of the renal food and just kept the Vasotop going. She has greatly improved and has even put a few hundred grams back on.
The vet has advised that he can give her weekly cortizone shots if I am happy to improve her quality of life and maybe have her for less time. We are not at that point and the vet was surprised she even survived this long, but then we are in Lourdes and miracles do happen... ;)
We hear of so many cats with cancers related to feeding cheap foods over long periods, as Regina and Kate say try out medicanimal, zooplus(sometimes zooplus.co.uk is cheaper than the french site and if you order a certin quantity postage is free), especially at the moment there are lots on sale, also wanimo.fr.
Normally, the cheaper foods are full of salt, fat and cereals so a cat has to eat more, the better quality foods contain a better nutritional value and the cat tends to eat less, so you could argue it is false economy.
With your cat with kidney disease you really need to consult your vet as feeding some foods may make the problem worse and give you a lot of high vet bills in the process. Ask the vet if they'll accept payment in 2 or 3 cheques, they usually accomodate.
Thank you ladies. I wanted to check that there were no real no, no's on supermarket food. The eldest has kidney disease but the renal food from the vets doesn't suit her at all. She was constantly constipted and didn't enjoy it so lost at least 400g, which given that she only weighed 2.4 kilos to start with wasn't good! I am now in the quality over quantity of life stage with her, so I basically let her eat whatever she enjoys best.
The youngest is a rescue from the garden so she was used to eating whatever her mother hunted...she is also very fond of madelaines and will pinch them out of the bag given half a chance!!
I am going to look into seeng if one of the mentioned sites ships James Wellbeloved food. I always used to give that to Diddy in the UK. It's full of natural ingredients, not too high in protein and doesn't break the bank either. She also loves the taste which will make it worth shipping out here!
I use Canaillou(?) from intermarché, we have 5 cats from 6months to 14 years and they all tuck in! for crunchies they get friskies or bikkies, both of which disappear very rapidly. They have never had anything else, on advice from my vet, some of the more expensive foods have too much protein and can cause kidney problems later. We have a belgian shepherd dog, who has been very sick witha liver problem and I HAVE to buy the cheapest of food for her as she cannot under any circumstances have much protein!!! She is doing fine on Intermarché!!!
Have you looked at www.medicanimal.com - much cheaper than the vets.........
We've struggled to find anything better than Whiskers (pouches with gelee) that our cats will eat and the ingredients are as good as we could find in supermarket food, but they still waste a lot - sometimes they just lick off the jelly!
Since then though, we've been grinding up raw rabbit and chicken (bones too) and adding taurine, vit E, B, fish oil and feeding them that and they eat it all so it's cheaper once you factor in the waste - but then it's a pain to make. And to store (freezer). And then to defrost... Not sure how this would suit a 6 month old cat either. It seems pretty good for our 10+ aged ones...