Finding cat food and litter

Frank123

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Hi, I'm just curious to see how everyone is procuring food and litter for their cats during these times. I was at the supermarket Saturday, but didn't bother venturing down the pet aisle since I usually order such stuff online. Therefore, I had no idea if the shelves were stocked or not. However, ordering online is just as challenging. Chewy.com, my go to site, either shows many items temporarily out of stock, or delivery times estimated to be five to eight days. Amazon is no better with many items also out of stock and estimated delivery times of several days to weeks, even for us Prime members. And forget about Amazon Prime Now, since they are always showing no delivery windows available for the next two days on their order page.
As for me personally, I do seem to have a weeks worth of (canned)food and litter, which hopefully will last until the order a put in with Chewy arrives. I also have a couple bags of dry food to be used in a pinch.
 

MoochNNoodles

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I did a grocery run yesterday and my Walmart was well stocked. I always keep a good supply of litter anyway. I also ordered food right before this hit the US; so Mooch is set on her supplies for a while.
 

MoonstoneWolf

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I've been buying extra dry and wet food each time I go and make a grocery trip for Mom and myself. I limit one huge bag and a can of wet for each cat (I feed feral cats in my back yard).
 

Willowy

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Walmart was very well stocked in pet supplies when I was there yesterday.

But, yeah, online ordering has been rough. All my usual orders have been cancelled.
 

denice

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I only have one cat now that is on a kidney prescription diet. I have an auto ship from the same company that supplies vets. I am supposed to have an order filled on Wednesday which means it will ship either Wednesday or Thursday. I checked it this morning and there was nothing on it saying that it will be delayed. If it is then I will be scrambling. If they are out then that will mean the vet will be out as well.
 

neely

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Fortunately we got litter last week but the supply is definitely diminishing. I stocked up on food 2-3 weeks ago because I had a hunch this would happen and our cat can be a picky eater at times. ;)
 

susanm9006

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Stores we stocked last week when I went. I will run down my supplies some in the next week or two but then I will continue to restock as things are available to get through what I expect is going to be a long period of instability.
 

LTS3

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I got 2 packages of cat litter from BJs last weekend (plenty of that at the store) and also bought 2 more from Chewy along with a couple bags of freeze dried raw and a case of canned food. I also made a trip to the pet store and pretty much bought out all the NV frozen raw. I sent Mom back to the pet store today to get more raw since the state has ordered non essential businesses to close tomorrow and I didn't want to take a chance of running out of cat food. Leroy needs to eat raw because of his IBD and it's just easiest to also feed Emma the same. She can eat canned if I need to reserve the raw for Leroy. Who knows if businesses will reopen in 2 weeks? It could be longer than that.

I went down the pet aisle at the supermarket over the weekend. There was still plenty of food and litter available.

EDIT: Just saw a local newspaper that answered questions about the closing of non-essential businesses. Pet stores will be open for the most part. It's up to the store owner to decide whether the store should remain open or to temporarily close.
 
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jcat

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Mowgli is on a special limited diet due to IBD and food allergies, and his food is only sold at vets' offices or online by the producer. I don't have the luxury of being able to switch to alternative brands. Normally I buy enough to last 3 or 4 months in order to get a bulk discount and reorder when we have a 2-week supply. Just over two weeks ago I ordered earlier and more than usual in anticipation of a lockdown (we live in Europe, so in the current Covid-19 epicenter) and got the food right away. Two days later I got an email from the producer saying they were very well stocked and continuing production, but deliveries would take longer than usual (3-5 days instead of 1-2) because they had employees staying home to take care of school-age children or who were self-quarantining, plus carriers were overburdened due to all the extra home deliveries. That, of course, led to my ordering more litter from Amazon. We use an Italian brand that only Amazon sells here in Germany and which is frequently out of stock even without lockdowns. Amazon deliveries are also taking longer to arrive.

Pet stores and supermarkets aren't low on pet food and litter here despite our being in the second week of a lockdown, but some brands can disappear from shelves for a few days. People are buying so much at once that the stores are having trouble restocking shelves quickly.
 

Winchester

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The grocery stores around here seem to have a good supply of litter and food. Online, it's a different story. I looked at Chewy, Amazon, and PetSmart for Friskies pate canned and no luck. What I could find from Amazon is expensive (damn the price gougers!). We're Ok for a while, so I'm not too worried yet. And again, the stores seem to be well stocked for now. I feed only Friskies Pate and the girls will only eat certain flavors, no matter how "starved" they are.

We always do a huge haul of Tidy Cats scoopable from PetSmart on Black Friday and that sees us through til the next Black Friday sale, Rick took inventory and we're fine litter-wise.
 

KarenKat

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I have a few extra shipments I made recently just in case. I order from a few online places, Incredpets.com is pretty good but they are currently limiting to two packages at a time until their stores are back up. Lifesabundance.com said they have no issues with their supply chain but asked us not to order extra. We bought a bunch of litter from the grocery store recently so we are pretty stocked on that. I just suggest buying early if you can in case shipments are delayed
 

rgwanner

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I do auto ship from Chewy (once a month) and got my order this week as usual although a few days late, My local PetSmart is stocked with food and litter. WalMart and Kroger seem to be stocked also.
 

micknsnicks2mom

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i called Chewy yesterday, and was on hold for 45 minutes. i had received my autoship order, and one case of cat food trays seemed to have been defective (manufacturer, as the case box was properly sealed. cat food had somehow leaked out and covered 5 two pack trays, and the stink was horrendous), so i was arranging for a replacement for that. while i was on the phone with them, i ordered a bit more cat food -- being proactive since we haven't hit 'peak' with the coronavirus yet, and this should help me get through until next months orders (almost certainly) delayed delivery.

i ordered buckets of cat litter, too. i had been planning to order in April (which would be my normal spring bulk cat litter order), but decided that i'd better do that now -- since it's available.
 

Kat0121

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I put an order with Chewy on Saturday. Still in process. I hope they don't cancel it. Last night I went to Target and found that they had plenty of Friskies and FF. I grabbed a 32 pack of Friskies poultry. They also had plenty of litter.
 

catapault

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Remember when I ordered Tidy Cat from Chewy's on March 18 and they were out of Instant Action. I had to get Continuous Action, and it would be 5 to 8 days rather than the "normal" 1 to 2 day delivery. Got an e-mail on March 22 that they were doing their best to deliver in 3 days, which would have been today.

An e-mail on March 24 to say Your Order Has Shipped.

Now is where it gets interesting. Every previous order from Chewy's has shipped from a warehouse in Pennsylvania. The three 35-pound buckets of kitty litter are traveling from Indiana to Kentucky, and are projected to arrive here in New Jersey on Friday.
 

Winchester

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I think Chewy has at least two distribution centers in PA: one in Mechanicsburg and one in the Poconos area. We usually got our orders from Mechanicsburg. I think the reason why so many online stores are running out of canned food is because that's what most people are doing, ordering from online instead of going to the store. I went to three different online places to check on food and they were all sold out of what our cats eat. We're good for a month, but at some point, we'll have to go out.
 

Kat0121

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I think Chewy has at least two distribution centers in PA: one in Mechanicsburg and one in the Poconos area. We usually got our orders from Mechanicsburg. I think the reason why so many online stores are running out of canned food is because that's what most people are doing, ordering from online instead of going to the store. I went to three different online places to check on food and they were all sold out of what our cats eat. We're good for a month, but at some point, we'll have to go out.
They have one here in Florida. No word of anything shipping yet. Some of what I ordered is currently out of stock.
 

Elphaba09

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I got extremely lucky at two surplus stores. At the one, they had 24 can flats of Blue Wilderness chicken pate for $9. At the other, they had 40-lbs boxes of Clump and Seal for $15. I bought all they had of the food to split between my cats and my friend's cats. I bought 7 boxes of cat litter. If I had more room in my car, I would have gotten more. The owner said that he will call me if and when they get any more. Hex, I ended up saving hundreds and have enough food and litter for several months. The only issue is that my cats are used to a variety with their food, so I am going to have to get some others just to throw into the mix once what I already had on hand is gone.
 
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