Does Feeding Raw Really Save Money?

[sabrinah]

I'm considering transitioning to raw, but as a broke college student, the cost of it is critical. Right now my cat eats half wet half dry, and even with feeding raw I would keep the dry around because she loves it and I want her to be able to graze if she gets hungry since I can't leave the raw out all day. It costs me about $20 a month to feed the canned and I'm guessing around $10 a month for the dry but I really have no idea.

I plan, at least to start, to use grocery store boneless meats and a supplement like Alnutrin with calcium. I don't mind adding in liver or eggs. I don't have a grinder, I can't afford a grinder, so I would see if putting boneless meats in a blender works. If it doesn't I'll spend a century chopping it up small enough for my cat. She's not a chewer. I also don't have enough freezer space to make tons of food at once, and the power bill is already too high to add another freezer, so I would be making small batches. Since raw will only be half her diet she'll only be eating a few ounces a day, so a pound of food will probably last a week+ if it doesn't take much to fill her up. If I get the Alnutrin that I weigh out myself a $20 bag should last 30-40 pounds or 30-40 weeks. That puts me at $0.67 - $0.50 a week in supplements (not including the cost of shipping). If I buy meat on sale will it keep within the $20 a month range? I don't eat meat so I have absolutely no idea what the cost of it is.

 

[abby2932]

My raw food spend is approximately $40/month per cat. Slightly less than what I was spending in a high quality canned food diet. I have seen people on the forum that do have a lower monthly cost so I know it is possible. My cost is so high because my cat is allergic to chicken and is intolerant to beef (vomits it right up) so I have to splurge on more expensive proteins such as Rabbit/Goat/Llama, etc.

If you're going the Alnutrin with Calcium route, you need:
- meat
- liver
- fish oil
- egg yolks (optional but very nutritious)

I like to recommend the supplement EZ Complete. It is a bit pricier than Alnutrin but if you are using EZ Complete, the only thing you need to have is the ground meat since the supplement already contains organs, eggshell calcium, Omega 3's, egg yolks and the other necessary vitamins to balance the raw meat diet & make it a complete meal. Here is the link if you're interested:
EZComplete Fur Cats - 130 Servings

I'm not sure how well a blender would work with raw meat or how long the blender would hold up for. I found a meat grinder on Amazon for only $23 that could work for you. It is for meat only (no bones) but could really be worth the small, initial investment. Here is the link:

Be careful buying meat at supermarkets. You need to make sure it is not enhanced with a sodium solution. Usually, you can find chicken, beef & turkey without it but whenever I try to find pork, it is always enhanced.

To answer your question, if you look for whole (not ground) chicken thighs, turkey thighs or beef trim on sale at the market and are only feeding raw as part of the diet (about 1-1 & a half lb per week), I do think you can stick to a ~$20 per month budget. Your cat will also be much healthier with the incorporation of fresh food with living enzymes to its diet.

 

[sabrinah]

EZ complete is quite a bit more expensive considering it costs $15 more and makes far less. If I feed a pound per week it will cost me around $12 a month just for the supplement. I do plan on eventually mixing my own supplements but only if raw works out really well. I don't suppose EZ complete ever has sales?
Thank you for the link to the meat grinder! I'll definitely take a look at it.
Is it usually ok to get meats from butcher shops? I live in a farming area now and I've seen a fair number of butcher shops that claim to sell locally produced meats. It seems like everyone has some kind of livestock or another.

 

[Ardina]

You can ask the company that sells alnutrin for a sample or buy a small package to start with. Once you get the hang of it, you can transition to buying separate supplements. It'll be a higher upfront cost, but it'll last you ages and it's no harder than using a premix.

If you have a lot of farms around you, meat will probably be quite a bit cheaper, so you may be able to stay under budget. Here's how you can figure out approximate costs - if you were to only feed raw, most cats would eat 3% of their body weight per day. So a 10 lb cat would eat about 4.8 oz per day. Over a month, that would be 9 lbs of meat. If you can get meat for $2/lb or cheaper, that would leave you $12 in your monthly budget for supplements, eggs, organs, etc. I've definitely seen chicken for that price, not sure about beef or pork.

If you do end up keeping dry food for her to munch on, try not to feed dry and raw within the same meal. It can cause stomach upsets.

 

[EmmiTemmi]

Alnutrin with calcium has been the cheapest supplement premix I've looked at, and I've been using it for the last few weeks. I calculated out the pricing for feeding a cat 4oz a day assuming a meat cost of $4/lb, it results in a roughly $35/month/cat cost. If you can get your meat even cheaper, that's fantastic. Since 4oz isn't quite enough for the boys I do keep a small amount of dry in their diet as well. Like was previously mentioned, most people don't suggest feeding dry and raw close together, but my boys have never had a problem with it. You just have to know your cat and what they can handle. Good luck feeding raw!

 

[sabrinah]

She's around 12.5 pounds so that would be 6oz if I fed all raw, but since it'll only be half of her diet 3oz. In reality probably less for her. I've found every feeding guideline to be far more than she can possibly eat in a day. About 5.5 pounds of meat a month. I asked my dad what he pays for mean since he's the biggest carnivore I know and he said about $2/lb for chicken. He mentioned Safeway having a manager's special on meat approaching expiration that doesn't look half bad sometimes. If they don't have extra sodium added (how would I know if it did? Does it say on the package?) and look pretty good is it safe? If the butcher shops look good and fairly clean I would buy from them first, but if the prices are too high I'll be reduced to Safeway. To be on the safe side I'll say $2.50/lb, just under $13 a month. Alnutrin with calcium, assuming it makes 30 pounds of food instead of 40, would add $0.67 a week or (rounding up because of shipping cost and taxes) $3ish a month. That puts me at $16 a month, plus eggs, liver, and fish oil. I've never purchased liver so I couldn't guess the cost of it. Shopping sales I may be able to stay around $20 a month. She would get her portion of raw and then her dry after she finishes it to munch on while I'm gone during the day and before bed at night.

If I fed all raw It would be around 11.25 lb/week, $28-ish. Plus alnutrin, $31. I don't know how much liver is, eggs are fairly cheap, and I rarely use fish oil so I don't know the price of that either. Feeding all raw is definitely pushing the budget a bit far considering I don't have much wiggle room with money. Do any supplement brands ever go on sale? Is mixing supplements separately significantly cheaper?

 

[Ardina]

Mixing supplements yourself has a higher upfront cost, but is cheaper in the long run. For example, I bought a 500 g tub of taurine powder for $13. That tub will last years since I use about 15 g a month. It's not much more time either - think how long it takes you to pull out a few capsules and empty them vs scooping a powder.

I did some math when I was trying to figure this all out. With Alnutrin, which is the cheapest premix, it was adding $0.50-$1.00 per pound of raw food I made. Versus a few cents for mixing your own supplements.

 

[sabrinah]

I will definitely have to look a the cost of buying individual supplements if I decide raw food will be a permanent thing. Overall raw certainly doesn't seem like a money saver, despite many websites claiming it is.

 

[LTS3]

In theory, feeding a raw diet can potentially minimize future vet bill expenses. That's what most people seem to mean when they say raw saves money. Commercial cat foods, particularly dry food, can result in obesity and other health issues as a cat gets older and that means more money spent on vet bills, treatments, medicine, etc.

You can get samples of EZComplete and Alnutrin to try from those web sites. Some cats are picky and may not like certain pre-mixes.

If they don't have extra sodium added (how would I know if it did? Does it say on the package?) and look pretty good is it safe?

The package should have teeny tiny print that says if the meat has been enhanced with broth or other stuff. If you're not sure, ask someone in the meat department. Avoid the Shady Brook Farms brand of turkey meats. The meats have added broths and spices.

Independent pet stores often sell chubs of meat that you can use in your own raw recipe. They come in boneless and with bone and organs. Primal chubs have bones and organs included. Bravo has both boneless and with bone and organs. There are other brands of chubs.

 

[lalagimp]

Yeah I can't do Alnutrin because of costs. Once you get the hang of doing the supplements yourself 2-3 times, it gets much easier. Raw does save me money at about $40-45 per adult male cat vs the $1.80-2.20 per can I was paying for 5 oz cans, and they were needing more than 1 can per day calorically. My initial investment in the large stainless bowl and all the ice cube trays has already paid itself off in the last year over what I would have paid if I weren't making my own food.
I have never had an issue with Shady Brook Farms using their plain turkey thighs, so I guess maybe it's a problem with their grinds? I also buy skinned whole ground rabbit from Hare-Today.com

 

[nansiludie]

Depends really but honestly if you're trying to save money and time, being a college student, you may want to just feed canned. If you're not opposed to it, Friskies pate is really not a bad budget canned cat food and its sold at walmart and dollar stores in economy sized cans for $1. Otherwise, Fancy feast is not a bad option either. I usually get a case of 24 three ounce cans for $12.

 

[sabrinah]

I've only found Rad Cat, Nature's Variety, and Stella & Chewy frozen foods here. There are a couple more stores I can check though. Do you know how much the chubs usually cost? I'm assuming more than a couple dollars a pound.

In terms of canned, I avoid anything with unspecified meats and shop sales online. She gets Avoderm (chicken only), Nulo, and Whole Earth Farms. I max out at $1.30/ 5.5 oz. Since she eats dry as well (Instinct or Merrick right now, probably switching to Blue Wilderness mainly with whatever is on sale locally rotated in every few weeks) a can lasts 2 days.

 

[LTS3]

Chubs are typically available in 1 lb, 2 lb, and 5 lb size. You pay for the chub, not by pound. Price varies depnding on the protein and the brand. Chicken, being the most common protein, can cost around $10 for a 2 lb chub with bone and organ. More unusual proteins like goat might cost $15 or more for a 2 lb chub with bone and organ. Boneless would cost a bit less. Sometimes pet store will special order products for you.

You can check to see if there is a raw pet food co-op in your area: DogAware.com: Raw Dog Food Co-ops and Local Groups

 

[Ardina]

I would say that raw is generally more expensive than dry only. Homemade raw for me is cheaper than the high-end canned foods and, in fact, turns out be cheaper than feeding canned Fancy Feast. Commercial raw will be more expensive than all but the highest-end canned foods.

But personally, I refuse to feed dry food, and Saipha refuses to eat any canned food besides Fancy Feast. So homemade raw it is. Plus, the benefits I've seen in their poop, energy level, and coat make it worth it for me.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

Feeding raw becomes much more economical when you have the storage for the meats/grinds/chubs/whatever you buy because you can get everything in bulk. My in-laws happened to give us a small chest freezer for Christmas two years ago, and that has proven incredibly useful in transitioning our two to raw.

It seems to me that grinds would be the best way to go for you. This is a company that I will probably order from in the very near future, as I am intrigued by a grind that is already at the 80/10/10 meat/bone/organ ratio:

Free Shipping! Grass-fed, pastured, raw pet food FREE delivery

Since it is already that perfect ratio, all you would need to do is add supplements. I dropped a handsome chunk of change on my supplements when I first started about a year ago, but I am still using them and not even halfway done with the containers! Check Amazon for prices. If you have one nearby, Kroger will occasionally do a BOGO on vitamins. I (and a lot of other users) follow this recipe (halfway down page):

Easy Raw Diet Feeding for the Busy Person - Feline Nutrition Foundation

I feed mine (11 and 9lbs) raw twice a day and they get 1/4 can of Nature's Variety wet food before my husband goes to bed (he usually goes to sleep later than me). If I broke it down, that's $1.25/cat/day (including the canned food, which I get for $1/can at Big Lots), which is cheaper than feeding any other type of food that I would consider feeding them.

 

[sabrinah]

There are no co-ops even remotely close to my area, unfortunately. We really out to have one considering the amount of livestock everywhere and constant talk of hunting.

The feline nutrition recipe is one of the ones I bookmarked! That and Dr. Piersons. Of course, I would have to add calcium to it since I definitely can't afford a meat grinder that can handle bone, and it seems that chubs of any kind are out of my price range.
Unfortunately ordering online is hard where I recently moved. It's very frustrating. This community was built for the workers at a lumber mill and only recently, after being bought out, have the homes become available to everyone for purchase. There is no home delivery here. Everyone has a PO box because the houses don't have mailboxes. The home addresses aren't even recognized as valid online. Just to get mail to the post office takes significantly longer than usual because it is detoured to multiple other post offices before finally making it to this one. Amazon Prime isn't 2 day here, it's 1- 1 1/2 weeks. Overnight shipping takes days. I also don't qualify for the Reel Raw free shipping since I'm in zone 5, which royally sucks.

 

[lalagimp]

Hare-Today has it set up that you can have your order sent to a FedEx location, rather than FedEx to your home.

 

[sabrinah]

Oh, how I wish I could afford Hare-Today. It looks amazing and I would love to be able to feed my cat a wide variety of proteins with bones and organs ground in. I truly would. At $4+/lb plus shipping it's not even close to an option.

 

[sabrinah]

Would she still get benefits from raw even if it wasn't half her diet? All raw is just too expensive and even though half raw is only a little over what I spend now I may not be able to handle even that slight price increase. I really want her to get at least some of the benefits of raw though. Could feeding it a few times a week still be worth it?

 

[abby2932]

In my opinion, a few raw meals a week is better than no raw at all.