Cat Chat Feline Forum

A friends has asked me about feeling cereal-free tins and pouches. I do still try to keep the cereal content down with my gang, but since old Minnie died I've not had to be as careful as I used to be. I know that Butchers Classic and the basic Felix chunks in jelly don't contain cereals (though both the meat and fish varieties contain fish), but I don't trust the online ingredients lists as they often don't get updated. Does anyone know of any others, please?

I think Lidl's Coshida (jelly) pouches are cereal free. Haven't bought it for a while as my lot have gone off it!

Crewella
I've just looked through Tilly's food stocks. Only brands I can find of which all the varieties Tilly has are definitely cereal free are Thrive (Chicken breast, Chicken breast and Liver, Tuna) and Lily's Kitchen (Fish dinner). Sheba Fine flakes with Salmon is also cereal free, but other Sheba pouches contain Cereals. Gourmet Mon Petit may be - depends what Vegetable protein extract contains! Hope this helps.

I've just checked a box of Lidl Premium pouches in jelly and there's no cereal listed in the ingredients - good value at £1.99 for 12 x 100g.

My two are fond of Lidl and Aldi pate food in foil trays, but they mention 'derivatives of vegetable origin' - I've just tried to check in case this could include cereals, but it would appear not, so at 19p a tray they might be worth a try, if there's a convenient branch of either store.

Bozita contains no cereals or other nasties, and seems to be more filling than some other brands

That's brilliant, thanks guys.

I might get this wrong but when I was in Pets at Home they were selling a Wainwrights grain free cat food for £6 for 12 sachets but it is in gravy. I prefer jelly as it's easier to get out of the sachet.

I'm getting a bit fed up of three cats with three different diets. Midnight (bladder problem), Midnight (allergic skin problem) and Lola (will eat anything including pizza crusts but prefers Felix). At the moment the girls are eating the Wainwrights but Lola has been pulling faces. She has a bit of a junk food predilection.

Sorry. Mis info. It's James Wellbeloved Grain free.

£6 for 12 sachets!!! Get down to Lidl where you'll get 12 sachets, in jelly, for £1.99 - yellow boxes, but avoid the ones with vegetables.

Re the Lidl food - the premium Coshida pouches in gravy also contain cereals. I just buy the ones in jelly. Another good thing is that they don't contain any added sugars. Instead, they contain Inulin, a probiotic fibre. Zooplus also sell the same pouches under the brand Catessy. The only difference is that the flavours are slightly different.

Lidl also sell a range called Coshida basics, which is totally different. From what I can make out, it is the same stuff (made in Ireland) that Tesco used to sell under the name Claude.

Hello
I was just revisiting this thread and wondered if anyone knew if the recommendations below are still good?
My lot are simply refusing to eat Butchers since they have re packaged it so I'm assuming they have also changed the ingredients. The shelter down the road are having the same issue so something is amis and we urgently need a new food substitute! One of my cats has an extremely sensitive stomach and I've currently got them on Felix pouches, very expensive for 9 cats!
Julie

Have you considered raw or home cooked? My two thrive on the DAF pet minces, with a pinch of taurine, a chicken wing or two to help their teeth, and the occasional tin of sardines for omega 3. Cheaper even than Lidl (it works out around 25p per cat per day), and you know exactly what they are getting. A little more work than opening pouches, and does need some freezer space, but very easy once you get into the swing of it.

Hello, yes I've tried the raw food, a couple of them will eat it, but the others refuse point blank.
Even the ones who used to eat it are turning their nose up at it, I think unfortunately they are too used to the rubbish food now, I have perservered but ended up throwing out the last 2 batches to the foxes.
I'm surprised to see that Felix is cereal free so I've got some of that and they are enjoying it, but I note they don't do tins any more, when did that happen?!! Pouches are so expensive when you are feeding 9 cats!! They have one pouch a day each, spread over 2 meals plus RC light bics. We have an aging population, and except for my poorly cat, they are all 'well nourished'!

tins are still around Julie but maybe not in all supermarkets?

http://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/ ... -400g-tins

Ah thanks Kay! I'm a convert to Fetch Deliveries now (having kitty litter delivered to your door in a 2 hour timeslot...wow!) and they didn't have it so I jumped to this assumption - doh!

Zooplus have Felix cans, too - 6 for £3.99 or 24 for £14.99, but the packs are single flavour, not assorted. You'd need to be confident about them liking a flavour to order 24 of the same!

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/cann ... felix#Cans

The majority of food you buy in a supermarket WILL contain cereals, I'm afraid. It's not a legal requirement to declare all the ingredients on the packaging for cat or dog food in the UK (a HUGE bugbear of mine).

Some rules of thumb for selecting a good-quality food:

1) Avoid anything that says it contains 4%min meat or animal derivatives. Cats are carnivores. That 4% means it contains stuff that was once part of an animal. ANY part of the animal. You know how all human medicine is supposedly plant-based because it has compounds from nature? Same sort of thing. Legally, cat and dog food HAS to have at least 4% meat or derivatives on it. But what meat? Where from? What are they classifying as meat? Even more importantly, if your cat needs meat in his/her diet, 4% ain't gonna cut it! If you were biologically evolved to have an entirely meat-based diet, you wouldn't want to have a bunch of other junk in it. But more to the point, what is that other junk? In most cases it's cereals. Well, you don't see cats prowling round a wheat field or rice paddy. Why? Because it's not a natural part of their diet. It's added by cheap companies who bulk up their food with rubbish so they can sell it at a price that makes you think 'Oooh! £1.45 for 12 sachets!? Bargain!' It's not a bargain. it's the equivalent of only feeding yourself KFC.

2) Avoid any foods that don't list all their ingredients. If it was good quality, they wouldn't need to hide it.

3) Think outside the box. Don't just buy your pet food at the supermarket because it's more convenient. You're responsible for this furry friend's wellbeing so it's a good idea to put a little more effort in and visit a couple of pet shops. Pets Corner is great for this because they can recommend foods that aren't available in most other places, and they can recommend a food based on your cat's current needs. Two of our cats are on Canagan wet food and all of them are on Canagan biscuits. It has a very high content of REAL meat (no derivatives here), it's grain free, so it's nice and natural, and it's got all sort of good stuff in for their joints, digestion and urinary tract function. Most importantly for me, they list EVERYTHING on the ingredients so you aren't left wondering what the rest of the food is!

You can decide not to listen to this advice if you like. Plenty of cats have lived well into old age on foods like Sheba, Whiskas or Felix, just as some people who smoke go on to be 100 years old. But the bottom line is that even if we smoke, drank and ate rubbish every day, most of us would suffer from a variety of health problems. Eating natural foods might not be as much 'fun' but living a healthy, longer life as a result is worth it. And it's worth the extra effort. I'm more than happy to do the same for my cat.

Alice wrote:Zooplus have Felix cans, too - 6 for £3.99 or 24 for £14.99, but the packs are single flavour, not assorted. You'd need to be confident about them liking a flavour to order 24 of the same!

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/cann ... felix#Cans

Ha - Alice, I fell for this -

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/cann ... es/gourmet

Has to be cheaper than Sainsburys and ordered it yesterday, coming today Was just subsiding into sloth and going to cook lunch but I'll survive temporary starvation ... THEY (cats) will be very pleased, got tuna and chicken

Thanks for the link

I suspect they will indeed be happy, Lilith - my two have resisted all my efforts to get them to eat anything other than Gourmet Gold, and although I know there is a lot of healthier stuff, having tried it all on them, I know when I'm beaten

Lilith - Lucky cats! And you can smile at the price - yours works out at £3.46 for 12 x 85g cans, but it's £5.25 for the same at Sainsburys.

I looked up the Canagan, recommended on here, but it's £13.99 for 12 x 75g cans. It would cost more to feed one cat on that than I spend on a healthy diet for myself

Better than I thought then and it's not too bad about delivery - as long as there's someone in to deal with it at sudden notice, like today, as Yodel now let you track the number of drops before yours so you know roughly when it will arrive. I shall be using Zooplus more for food supplies, I think ...

Alice wrote:Lilith - Lucky cats! And you can smile at the price - yours works out at £3.46 for 12 x 85g cans, but it's £5.25 for the same at Sainsburys.

I looked up the Canagan, recommended on here, but it's £13.99 for 12 x 75g cans. It would cost more to feed one cat on that than I spend on a healthy diet for myself

It can be expensive but you feed them less in terms of biscuits than you would need to with a lower quality biscuit because it's the nutrition that fills them up, not the portion size.

We've got 3 cats. I only work 3 days a week and we still manage to feed them all Canagan, so I can honestly say it isn't as bad as it might seem. One can of Canagan a day per cat, split between morning and night, and then a few biscuits each a couple of times throughout the day. Their fur is softer and shinier, their skin is better, and they're all a lot more lively. Of course, it can't guarantee permanent good health, the same way our healthy diets can't, but I'd rather spend a little more and be certain I'm looking after them as best I can than save a few pennies and given them something I know contains virtually no nutrition at all.

Wow, that doesn't sound a lot of food, think Lucy would be attacking me with those amounts!

Excellent advice and I have a 10% off code for Zooplus.

It's a difficult situation with 9 cats, I want them to have the best, but I work full time (to pay their bills!) so I also need some degree of convenience. They stay in at night/in the cat run, so my life is an endless round of vet trips, litter trays and washing up/cleaning up after them. With one very poorly cat too being assisted fed, I'm quite exhausted at the moment. Deliveries are a godsend, especially Fetch 2 hour slots, I simply can't be home for most of the other couriers, although will try for Zooplus as I'm off next week!
On the plus side, everything tends to get eaten eventually - sick cats get first dibs, then the elderly, then the dustbin cats hoover up most of whats left and if there is anything else it goes out for the birds or foxes to eat.

If you use DPD when you do your Zooplus order, they will give you a one hour slot on the day, and you have the option of changing the day or having it delivered to a safe place, they are incredibly good.

booktigger wrote:Wow, that doesn't sound a lot of food, think Lucy would be attacking me with those amounts!

Better quality foods though, the cats need to eat a lot less, I found this when I was trying the raw food especially. Trouble is, after years of rubbish, you have to get them to eat the good stuff!