Does Feeding Raw Really Save Money?

[EmersonandEvie]

Darwin's Naturals (which is located on the west cost) has an introductory offer for their food. Check out their website.

It's how I fully transitioned my two to raw. You could literally just use that introductory offer and make it stretch...after all, your one cat will eat only 2ish oz of raw per meal. You could make an 8oz pack last a week or more if you gave it sparingly. As far as getting it...try and talking to their customer service. They were wonderful when I spoke to them a while back. Do you have any friends that don't live in your complex and you could maybe send the package to them and pick it up? Or they may deliver to PO boxes. It's worth a call.

But honestly if I were you, just keep doing canned! I was a college student (catless at the time), so I completely, 100% understand that financial struggle. There isn't anything wrong with canned and if it is more economical for you, then by all means keep feeding it. Focus on the more pricey/time consuming raw when you get out of school and actually have a little free time!

 

[EmersonandEvie]

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.

I didn't see this before I replied. Most cats (~10 lbs) will eat 4 oz of raw per day. At 16oz in a lb/4oz per day, one pound is enough food for 4 days for 1 cat, so it comes over to slightly over $1/day (when you add shipping costs). That is what people mean when they talk about how economical raw is...i's sort of a bulk price up front, but the same amount, if not cheaper than what they currently feed, overall. I hope that makes sense!

 

[sophie1]

Unfortunately, the cheaper you go with raw food, the more you have to invest with up front costs and also time - but I think you'll be pleased with the results: happier cats, less litterbox smell, softer fur, less shedding & hairballs. Given the money people throw into fancy smell-reducing litterboxes & odor control products, hairball formulas etc, raw is most definitely more economical compared to dry food than you might think.

Dr. Pierson's recipe which requires the grinder is the rock bottom cheapest you can get. The eggs are optional and Dr. Pierson herself says she doesn't use them. Buying boneless meat costs more than bone-in (~$4 vs $2, usually) but you can get inventive by shopping sales and buying hearts & gizzards to keep the costs down. You'll find hearts & gizzards next to the 1 lb tubs of chicken livers, if your store carries them. You can make boneless mixes in a food processor or hand crank grinder, which you can find in a thrift shop. Or even just with a pair of scissors if you're willing to train your cat to eat chunks. If you have the scissors you can give this a go right now if you want to try it out. Try just chicken thigh meat first, then add the liver & supplements later.

Definitely make your own supplement mix if cost is a concern. It's WAY cheaper. If you eat eggs, save the shells, bake them in the oven, and spin through a coffee grinder. If you use the scissor/one meal at a time method, you can make batches of dry supplement mix and sprinkle it on at feeding time.

I agree with what others have said: if you can't afford to feed half raw, then feed a quarter. Anything you can do beyond dry food will be a bonus.

 

[sabrinah]

She's 12.5 lbs, so 6 oz a day if she only ate raw. I'll get a cheap hand crank grinder if I need to since she doesn't have all her teeth and may need to get more pulled this year. I don't eat eggs often but I could start asking people to rinse and save their eggs shells... I also don't have a coffee grinder, but I can give a blender a shot.
It does make sense for others. It currently costs me just under a dollar per day to feed her. At 12.5 lbs, if she ate 6 oz a day with no dry and assuming meat is $2.50/lb...
$28 meat + $3 Alnutrin + $4 Liver = $35 plus fish oil cost. That certainly isn't in the budget. Raw will definitely have to be a few times a week thing unless the sale prices of meat are truly magical. Now, if getting her blood work done comes back with issues and feeding raw comes out as cheaper than prescription food with most of the same benefits, I may have to start selling everything I own.

 

[sophie1]

Actually, 12.5 lbs is still only 4-5 oz/day for a housebound adult cat (2% of body weight). Don't forget you feed less raw than canned. My 15 lb monster doesn't eat 6 oz/day.

Also the liver isn't extra, it's part of the meat cost. Let's say you average $3/lb and feed 5 oz day. That comes to just over $28/month for full time raw. Supplements will add another dollar, tops if you make it yourself. Round out and say $30. That's 6 coffees from Starbucks a month, to put that in perspective. Anyway...whatever it is you can spend, half or a quarter raw or whatever, is worth it.

What are you doing for litter & toys?

 

[sabrinah]

So it's 2% of body weight, not 3%? I really need to get to the store and price things. Now, since I most certainly can't get a grinder that handles bone, I'll be using eggshells or bone meal. Some websites say eggshells aren't good for long-term, other's say it's fine. Opinions?
Drinking Starbucks 6 times a month would be wonderful! Unfortunately, I only get it if someone gives me a gift card.

Litter is Dr. Elsey's Ultra. I go through one 40lb bag a month because she likes to dig a lot and if it isn't deep she'll dig to the bottom and pee directly on the bottom of the box. Every month I dump it all and scrub away.
Toys she doesn't like. She's gone through balls, bells, mice, feathers, laser pointers. Won't acknowledge any of them. A small piece of paper or a twist tie, on the other hand, is apparently the greatest thing in the world.

 

[lalagimp]

It would be really useful if I had a plasma center around here. I used to sell to cover pet food costs. It was $25 for an hour, and then another $40 if you could come back during the same month. First come first serve, so if you weren't there by like 9:30am, you weren't getting in that day.

 

[sophie1]

Well, eggshells or a similar source of elemental calcium is what's in canned and some raw (e.g. Rad Cat) foods, not to mention Alnutrin. Cats manage OK on this for their lifetimes, so I assume it's not a problem for the time you're in college. After you've graduated and have some income to your name, then you can either invest in the grinder or buy Hare Today grinds.

BUT...ah ha! We have found you some savings! When I used clay litter I also had to use 4-6" worth, but I scooped carefully, cleaned stuck-on spots with white vinegar, and only had to change out the box every 6 months. The bad news is that I found that just 1/4 diet of dry food was enough to turn poop stinky, but hopefully with half raw you at least won't get those soft sticky piles of yuck that probably are driving you to make those frequent litter changes.

I hear you on the toys. My cat's ultra favorite pure-bliss interactive toy is the black plastic cap that the feathers stick into in da Bird attachments - minus the feathers. His second favorite is an orange plastic tent peg that he found in my mother's garage.

 

[sabrinah]

Her poop stinks but the consistency is wonderful. My main issue with her is that she pees on the exact same spot every time. If I miss a cleaning or I'm not home all day, that one spot sticks to the side of the box like cement, yet never dries so when I scoop it, it breaks up into gross chunks. Then I have bits of dirty litter all over the box and it's just awful. If she would just pee in another spot... It was great when I first introduced her top entry litter box (my dog thinks cat poop is candy and top entry has proven to be the best solution to that problem) and she just sat on the edge of the entrance and did her business. It fell straight to the middle, never hit the bottom, and was a dream to clean.

 

[sophie1]

I see. My cats do the same...

Here's how to deal with it. First, expose the stuck pee ball by slightly lifting and shaking the box. Hold the scoop under the pee ball and hit the side of the box from the outside to dislodge it. It will fall in a single lump. Next, spray some white vinegar on the spot and wipe down with a paper towel. Let dry. If pieces got into the clean litter, scoop out and discard just that area of litter - not the whole box.

My ultimate solution to this was the Tidy Cat Breeze box with Feline Pine, the ridiculously tiny undertray removed, and a litter liner bag underneath. Monthly litter cost for 2 cats < $10.

 

[sabrinah]

That litter box looks pretty awesome but my dog would constantly eat out of it. I'll give the white vinegar a shot! Hopefully, if I use your tips I'll only have to buy a bag every month and a half or two months. I'll need that money for getting her salivary ducts drained (they clog and fill at an ever-increasing rate and I have to take her to the vet to empty them) unless I start trying to do it myself. Vets consider her too old for surgery, as do I, so it's just a problem I have to maintain.

I'm tempted to look for a plasma center around here. I would only be able to get there early on weekends since I have class, but I could definitely use a little more money.

 

[sophie1]

Plasma donation may pay better than a part time job, but I'm guessing that learning to drain your cat's salivary glands might pay better yet. Vet visits are expensive and time-consuming!

I gather your kitty might not take well to large chunks of food, and cutting it up small will get old fast. Running meat & liver through a food processor or grinder then mixing in supplements might be your best bet. Check out the secondhand options (thrift store/Craigslist/Facebook marketplace) for those. You might get lucky and score a meat grinder, but for sure you'll find tons of food processors.

 

[sabrinah]

Amazon has hand crank meat grinders for less than $30. Eventually one will go on sale. I'll get a workout while I make cat food! Thrift stores here are expensive! I'm talking barely less than retail price.

 

[Tobermory]

Hi, sabrinah . After reading through this thread, I got curious about how much it actually was costing me to feed my three. Bottom line, chicken thighs, liver and supplements have ended up costing 20 cents an ounce. I use Dr. Pierson’s recipe on catinfo.org (using bone meal for calcium rather than bone), feed twice a day and don’t give anything else except the occasional treat. My chubby kitty gets 3.5 ozs. a day, the other two each get about 4 ozs. a day. I weigh them weekly to be sure they’re maintaining a health weight at this level and so far, it’s good. I’ve been feeding homemade since the beginning of December. When I first started, I used either my food processor or my blender. Both worked although having to process a small amount at a time, dump that out and process more is laborious. But hey, we love our kitties! I have a grinder now but still don’t like to grind bones.

The initial outlay for all of the supplements listed in Dr. Pierson’s recipe (including the bone meal powder) was about $55. I’ve been making food every two weeks for 2 1/2 months and I’ve barely made a dent in them. And that’s for three cats. I buy my supplements from Vitacost (vitacost.com) because it’s significantly less expensive than paying retail. Shipping is free over $49. Great source for all kinds of stuff. I recently discovered that Costco carries the same fish oil capsules—same brand—for a lot less so that’s where I’ll buy those in the future.

I pay $2.99 a pound for boneless chicken thighs (local specialty meat store where I know the chicken is hormone, antibiotic and sodium free) and $2.49 a pound for chicken liver. So for a recipe using three pounds of thighs, 4 ounces of liver, and the supplements, I have a total cost of $11.16 for what ends up being about 3.5 pounds of food. (Actually, I left out the cost of the egg yolk.) That’s the equivalent of paying $1.10 for a 5.5 oz. can of food—but is WAY better for them! Mine love their homemade food, never vomit anymore and look great. Two are 13 years old and one is three. Hope this is helpful!

 

[sabrinah]

Tobermory Thank you so much for calculating it all out! Is that website even cheaper than Amazon?
I went to Safeway and wrote down prices on a ton of things:
Chicken thighs $2.50/lb
Chicken breast $3/lb
Chicken leg quarters $1.50/lb
Liver $2.49/lb
Turkey drumsticks $2.49/lb
Gizzards and hearts $2.49/lb (occasional treat?)
Whole Chicken $1.29/lb
Pork (forgot what cut. Just meat, no bone) $2.49/lb
The sale section is 30% off but the skin on the chicken was grey. Does that mean the meat is bad too?
When it comes to the cost, chicken breast is more expensive but it's also all meat and no bone. Since I won't be grinding any bone do you think that would be more cost-effective than getting the cheaper thighs or legs with bone and then tossing the bones out?
Forgive me while I calculate out prices again for myself. If she eats 4.5oz a day, that's 135 oz every 30 days, about 8.5 lbs. 8.5 x 2.5 = $21.25/ month. $21.25 + $3 (alnutrin) = $24.25 + whatever fish oil costs. Eggshells = free. I think this might be doable guys!
She likes beef canned food but that probably won't be an option for raw because it's expensive. I need to find a way to talk to people with livestock and see if I can buy directly from them. I've heard people talking about it before. I also have a class with someone who's dad is an avid hunter, and as much as I dislike hunting my kitty might like trying some venison or various birds if I can buy from him...

 

[Tobermory]

Tobermory Thank you so much for calculating it all out! Is that website even cheaper than Amazon?
I went to Safeway and wrote down prices on a ton of things:
Chicken thighs $2.50/lb
Chicken breast $3/lb
Chicken leg quarters $1.50/lb
Liver $2.49/lb
Turkey drumsticks $2.49/lb
Gizzards and hearts $2.49/lb (occasional treat?)
Whole Chicken $1.29/lb
Pork (forgot what cut. Just meat, no bone) $2.49/lb
The sale section is 30% off but the skin on the chicken was grey. Does that mean the meat is bad too?
When it comes to the cost, chicken breast is more expensive but it's also all meat and no bone. Since I won't be grinding any bone do you think that would be more cost-effective than getting the cheaper thighs or legs with bone and then tossing the bones out?
Forgive me while I calculate out prices again for myself. If she eats 4.5oz a day, that's 135 oz every 30 days, about 8.5 lbs. 8.5 x 2.5 = $21.25/ month. $21.25 + $3 (alnutrin) = $24.25 + whatever fish oil costs. Eggshells = free. I think this might be doable guys!
She likes beef canned food but that probably won't be an option for raw because it's expensive. I need to find a way to talk to people with livestock and see if I can buy directly from them. I've heard people talking about it before. I also have a class with someone who's dad is an avid hunter, and as much as I dislike hunting my kitty might like trying some venison or various birds if I can buy from him...

sabrinah , Amazon vs. Vitacost prices? I don’t know. My guess is that some things are more, some are less. I order other stuff from Vitacost and, overall, prices seemed better so it works for me. You can also check out iHerb (iherb.com) and Lucky Vitamin (luckyvitamin.com) for supplements, two other good discount online retailers.

Here’s are the prices for what I bought at Vitacost:

1. Nature Made Fish Oil, 1000 mg., 250 soft gel caps, $16.09 (and, I just discovered, way less at Costco)
2. NOW Foods Dry E-400, vegetarian, 100 veggie caps, $11.48
3. Source Naturals, B-50 Complex, 50 mg, 100 tablets, $9.49
4. Source Naturals, Taurine Powder, 3.53 oz (100 g), $6.15
5. NOW Foods Bone Meal Powder, 1 lb (454 g), $10.43

I buy the Morton Lite salt at the grocery store. (Again, as someone pointed out, make sure the meat you buy doesn’t have added saline.)

Gray skin on the chicken? Ugh. I wouldn’t. I’m very careful about the meat I buy—for myself and the cats.

Did you price boneless chicken thighs? You can feed chicken breasts but keep in mind that they’re lower in fat. Kitties need some fat in their diet and thighs are a good choice for that reason. I have bought bone-in thighs and trimmed out the bone using a good pair of kitchen shears. Easy to do although a bit of a pain.

You’re doing a lot of good research which is what I did before I started to make the girls’ food. It will be worth it!

 

[sabrinah]

Ok so buying all the supplements hurts at first but is worth it in the long run. I'll probably start with Alnutrin just until I get the hang of it and then work towards doing the supplements separately.
I did read all the labels of the ones I priced and didn't see any mention of saline. Ok, so no grey skinned chicken. Hopefully, if I check often I'll be able to get stuff right when it's put on sale but before it gets sketchy.
I only saw one kind of chicken thigh and didn't check if it was boneless or bone in.

Close to Safeway is a Grocery Outlet. I have to check out their meat prices too.

Is it ok to mix meats? In the sale section was also various kinds of red meats. She likes beef Whole Earth Farms so much that I don't want to take beef completely away from her. Since it's more expensive I wouldn't be able to make a batch of red meat but I could manage to mix some in with the chicken/turkey every once in a while. If pork goes on sale I could make that every once in a while too if she likes it. I wonder if anyone has a rabbit farm around here...I would probably cry if I saw all the bunnies that would eventually die but it's another protein source she might like.

 

[Tobermory]

Ok so buying all the supplements hurts at first but is worth it in the long run. I'll probably start with Alnutrin just until I get the hang of it and then work towards doing the supplements separately.
I did read all the labels of the ones I priced and didn't see any mention of saline. Ok, so no grey skinned chicken. Hopefully, if I check often I'll be able to get stuff right when it's put on sale but before it gets sketchy.
I only saw one kind of chicken thigh and didn't check if it was boneless or bone in.

Close to Safeway is a Grocery Outlet. I have to check out their meat prices too.

Is it ok to mix meats? In the sale section was also various kinds of red meats. She likes beef Whole Earth Farms so much that I don't want to take beef completely away from her. Since it's more expensive I wouldn't be able to make a batch of red meat but I could manage to mix some in with the chicken/turkey every once in a while. If pork goes on sale I could make that every once in a while too if she likes it. I wonder if anyone has a rabbit farm around here...I would probably cry if I saw all the bunnies that would eventually die but it's another protein source she might like.

I just went back to my calculations, sabrinah . Of the $11.16 per batch, $1.57 of that is supplements, including the salt. So three cents of the 20 cents an ounce is the cost of the supplements. Very cheap.

I do mix meats. One of my three is a picky eater. She likes chicken. The other two like everything. So I’ll make a batch with three pounds of chicken thighs and follow it with a batch that’s two pounds of chicken thighs and one pound of turkey. Or I’ll occasionally do about 2 1/2 pounds of chicken thighs and a half pound of duck, although I use that sparingly because duck has a high fat content in addition to being pricey. I wouldn’t have any hesitation about mixing chicken and beef if Iris would eat it. She won’t. I’ve used rabbit, but again, picky Iris won’t eat it. The other two inhale it. It just makes meal time a bit more complicated!

 

[sabrinah]

Thank you so much for your help!
Having multiple cats sounds difficult! I'm glad to hear I can mix chicken and beef. I think she'll be happy about that.
I have about 3 months of canned food left. At what point should I start incorporating the raw?

 

[Tobermory]

Thank you so much for your help!
Having multiple cats sounds difficult! I'm glad to hear I can mix chicken and beef. I think she'll be happy about that.
I have about 3 months of canned food left. At what point should I start incorporating the raw?

I did a quick scan of everything you’ve written, sabrinah , but I couldn’t find if you’ve experimented to see if she’ll eat raw meat. I did that first before I invested in everything. I bought boneless chicken thighs, cut off a small piece, and froze the rest for human meals. Then I took the piece, rinsed it well, and cut it into small chunks with kitchen shears. I made the pieces about the size of a large lima bean. I gave each cat two or three pieces. They gobbled them up and cried for more, even Iris the Picky who wants only pâté. Yay! Then when I was ready with the actual food I had made, I fed regular canned in the morning and the homemade in the evening. I had thought they might be reluctant to eat the homemade stuff, but they weren’t the least bit hesitant so after three days, I went completely homemade. I keep about eight cans on hand for emergencies, but I’m not sure at this point if they’d even eat it anymore! Some cats don’t transition to raw as quickly as mine did, so their humans have to use different strategies to switch them over.

I’ve developed my own system for storage, freezing, and defrosting over time, but if I had only one cat, I’d freeze the food in ice cube trays in one ounce chunks, then pop them out when they were frozen, and store them in the freezer in ziplocks. I take out enough for the next day the night before and defrost over night in the refrigerator. Lily and Mocha don’t mind cold food, but Iris won’t touch it if it’s cold so I warm the food in warm water (in a ziplock) for about 10 minutes before I feed it to them.