How much do you spend on food?

This is a dedicated place for all of your questions and answers about Raw Diets. There are also some really cool groups like "Raw Fed" on the topic you can join. This forum is for people who already know they like the raw diet or sincerely want to learn more. Please remember that you are receiving advice from peers and not professionals. If you have specific health-related questions about your cat's diet, please contact your vet!

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Quetzal

Wild thing u- make my heart- sing ♥

Purred: Wed Dec 28, '11 11:38pm PST


	One of the most common complaints I hear from people when telling them about Quetzal's diet is that they couldn't afford to feed raw, or that it sounds expensive. Generally, they seem pretty surprised when I tell them I spend only about $15-20 a month, or 50-75 cents per meal on Quetzal who is a very active 9lbs. Even as a starving student, this is pretty affordable for me. But it got me wondering how much the average raw feeder spends on their cat (or dog)'s food? I'm blessed with having access to a great Asian grocery store where I can get a lot of fancy meats for cheap, but I know this isn't the case for a lot of people. I'm just interested in getting some idea of an average that people spend on raw, and also getting some more examples of people besides me who can comfortably feed raw without breaking the bank. I know a lot of other students like myself that could possibly be convinced to switch to raw if I could convince them it isn't as expensive as they think.

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Toby

1209242

Purred: Thu Dec 29, '11 6:55am PST


	Well, my situation is a tad complicated - my oldest cat will plain not eat raw. He eats dry and wet, so I get him a 5 pound bag of a premium grain-free dry brand (a HUGE step up from what he was eating before I adopted him) and some cans of high-quality wet. Now, just HIS food costs more than the raw I feed to the other two cats (although it takes him almost a month and a half to get through a whole bag of the dry)- about $40-50 a month to feed him depending on the cost of the wet food that month. I use a cheaper-than-average regional raw pet food company to feed my other two, and they both cost me roughly $5 a week to feed.

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Merlin - An Angel- Forever

*Poof*

Purred: Thu Dec 29, '11 8:50am PST


	Human just spent $63 on 4 bags of Nature's Variety frozen raw. That's with the four $3 Nature's Variety coupons and the store's 5% discount for using their reward card thingy. Leroy eats 4 nuggets per day and Emma eats 2 nuggets per day. It comes out to about $1.15 per nugget. Homemade raw is even cheaper. Catinfo.org estimates about $0.63 to $0.87 per day for an approximate 5 ounce serving.

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Merlin - An Angel- Forever

*Poof*

Purred: Thu Dec 29, '11 5:56pm PST


	Correction - It comes out to $0.35 per beef nugget and $0.44 per organic chicken nugget. Leroy only eats the NV beef and Emma mainly eats the NV organic chicken and sometimes beef Daily cost to feed Leroy is $1.40 (4 beef nuggets) and $0.88 for Emma (2 chicken nuggets), $0.79 if Emma eats one chicken and one beef nugget. Emma gets a little NV canned food as a snack before bed. Human doesn't recall how much a 3oz can costs Maybe $1.25 or so? Sometimes both get a little of the Weruva pouched food, about $1.50 each.

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Shade

My name is not- Kittyfloss!

Purred: Fri Dec 30, '11 5:37am PST


	Hi! I didn't post on this before now because although I figured this out a couple of years ago, I haven't paid that much attention recently to what it was costing me. I still can't give you an overall price/cat/day type of number, but I can give you two specific examples from meat that I bought yesterday. A couple of things about my situation though. I have 4 cats to feed, they are between 10 and 18 lbs, I feed them 3x/day, so they eat a lot of food. I prefer to buy their meat at a locally owned, somewhat upscale, grocery store as opposed to a regional or national chain store, so it's more expensive because of that. Lastly, on weekday mornings they usuallly get fed canned food which is mostly NV Instinct, so for me the price comparison is between the cost of the Instinct and the raw. Anyway, I purchased beef heart and turkey breast tenderloins. The turkey cost me a whopping $11.53 for 2.14 lbs, which yielded 12 meals (would have gotten 13, but I fed an extra huge breakfast today as we will be away all day) and that worked out to $0.96/meal. This is on the expensive end of what I buy and I don't buy turkey very often. The beef heart cost me $2.68 for 1+lbs (didn't write down the exact weight) and that worked out to $0.45/meal, more in my usual price range. Checking the price of some of the cans of NV Instinct in my kitchen, they range from $1.09 for a 3oz can of chicken (1 meal) to $3.39 for a 13.2oz can of venison (4 large meals, $0.85/meal). So for me, the beef heart is a big price savings over the canned and the turkey pretty much breaks even. Purrs, Shade

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Ambassador at- the Kitty U.N.

Purred: Fri Dec 30, '11 12:50pm PST


	I'm going to try to switch my long-term foster Callie to ground raw from Hare-Today and I figure it will cost about $5 a week - so, more than Friskies cans, less then premium cans. But BK is my problem child - because of his allergies he can only have pasture-fed meat. I can get most of it from H-T but because he's a big eater and he's partial to red meat AND I have to get some things from our GreenMarket or specialty butcher, he probably costs me $10-20 a week to feed. Still, about the same or less than something like Evo or Wellness.

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Smithwick

Tigger is my- favorite!

Purred: Thu Jan 5, '12 8:16am PST


	Shade - I may have missed this somewhere else, but where do you find the Natures Variety in the larger cans? Petco only has the 5.5oz ones. I have not really looked into ordering food online as yet. Also does anyone have tips on feeding the NV raw? I got a coupon, and gonna try it on the boys. They currently eat canned.

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Merlin - An Angel- Forever

*Poof*

Purred: Thu Jan 5, '12 9:09am PST


	You can feed the NV for dogs. It is the exact same thing as the cat ones and comes in a large can size

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Amber

I didn't do it!

Purred: Thu Jan 5, '12 2:40pm PST


	$7.92 for enough chicken quarters for 1 batch of food. $1.97 for enough liver for 2.5 batches of food. $25.45 for enough supplememnts for 4 batches of food. Each batch last 26 days. 7.92 + 0.79+ 6.36= 15.07 per batch of food. 15.07 / 26 = $0.58 per day for chicken cat food. Turkey cat food is .74 per day, and beef is about .82 per day.

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Shade

My name is not- Kittyfloss!

Purred: Thu Jan 5, '12 5:58pm PST


	Smithwick, yes, it is the dog food 13 oz cans that I buy. I actually couldn't find them at my PetCo, but there are two non-chain pet food stores where I shop that carry them. If you want to try the NV medallions, you just thaw out the amount you need, put them in a baggie in a bowl of warm water to warm them up to "mouse" temperature, and them break them up a bit to feed them if your cats aren't used to chewing on larger sized food. My cats never liked them, but there are many cats that do. Purrs, Shade

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