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Food & Litter
There's nothing more important than choosing the right food - the building blocks for every healthy cat. We choose our food based on the needs of the cats, whilst also being careful on our pockets!
We always try to buy in foil trays or tins, rather than plastic pouches, to make recycling more efficient
These foods are excellent for most circumstances, but please do bear in mind that some cats will require specialist diets.
Daily Meals
Kibble
Kitten Food
Our favourite kibble (and our cats!) is Smilla - the adult beef (or fish) is generally the most popular with our kitties. It provides very good levels of nutrition and is great value. The range includes many different variants, including one specially for kittens, which we also use within our rescue. We purchase ours from Zooplus or Bitba, both of whom carry the full range.
Kitten Food
Kitten Food
Whilst not something we advocate for adult cats, we prefer to feed Whiskas Kitten Pouches to the kittens in our rescue. We find it really helps them to gain that all-important weight that's so vital for them at a time when they need calories for growth and energy, and having tried pretty much every brand out there, this is the one that reliably gives us consistent weight gain for our tiniest furry overlords.
Shop around for the best deals and prices!
Wet Food
We use wet food as a supplementary part of our cats' diet, rather than the main attraction. There are lots of fantastic choices out there - we would recommend trying out a few different ones to see which your cat prefers. A good rule of thumb when choosing is that with wet cat food, you get what you pay for!
High-End Wet Foods
Top price-bracket favourites include:
Untamed: fresh, whole meat, that carefully replicates the diet of an obligate carnivore. Expensive, but for good reasons.
https://untamed.com/pages/cat-food-online
Lily's Kitchen: An excellent range of grain-free, meat-meal free foods, made with real meat and offal. Committed to recycling and environmentally conscious, but owned by Nestle
https://www.lilyskitchen.co.uk/pages/for-cats
Scrumbles: another superb range of high-quality wet foods containing probiotics and environmentally proactive.
https://scrumbles.co.uk/collections/shop-cat
Shop around for all of these brands!
They are also available through retailers, who have different offers at different times.
Mid-Priced Wet Foods
Cost-effective Options
Popular mid-priced foods with our cats include Gourmet and Animonda.
Animonda is another excellent German cat-food manufacturer, who use 100% fresh ingredients, including meat, fish and offal.
Their food is free from unnecessary ingredients such as sugar, grain, soy and flavour enhancers.
https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/rafine
Gourmet is more focused on taste than nutrition, but we find it helpful for tempting the pickiest of eaters, when a little treat is wanted, or wet food is required when they're feeling a little bit under the weather.
Shop around for the best deals, and try a tin from each of their ranges to see which ones your kitty prefers.
Cost-effective Options
Cost-effective Options
If you're looking for something a little more cost-effective, pate-style foods, rather than jelly or gravy, can be a good place to start, as the consistency stops selective feeding.
We often use:
https://www.aldi.co.uk/product/vitacat-select-p-te-cat-food-tray-000000000346018007
Amazon's own brand pate trays
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Brand-Lifelong-Food-Mixed/dp/B08GD94LQC?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
and Amazon's large pate tins
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Wet-Cat-Food-Chicken/dp/B0DBLH9HRJ?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
Of course, if you're looking to boost your cat with a nutritious treat, one of the best things possible is to buy them cheap tins of sardines in tomato sauce!
Full of all sorts of goodness and available everywhere, our cats LOVE them.
Litter
There are many different types of litter trays out there; when choosing, the one that looks nicest in your home may not be the one that your cat prefers! We find that our cats tend to prefer open trays rather than fully enclosed, but we also understand that this isn't always practical in every home.
For Trays
£6 to £8 for 15kg
We try to be environmentally conscious wherever possible, so although we would always recommend FSC certified wooden litter pellets, we like straw pellets even more! They tend to be more absorbent than wood, are usually produced in the UK and offer really good value for money. We use Strawmax (primarily produced for horse bedding), which is cost-effective and tends to produce less dust.
https://www.moleonline.com/strawmax-bale-natural-dust-extracted-pellet-bedding-1184962
For Litter Robots
+/- £10 per bag
Some of our foster homes use Whiskas Litter Robot 4, which have an excellent safety record. Our preferred litter for these is Tigerino Premium Clumping Clay Cat Litter; it has very small grains, which means there is virtually no waste, clumps very well and comes in a range of scents (including unscented). Whilst there are cheaper products available, we have found that they are less cost-effective, as more is used with each rotation.
https://www.bitiba.co.uk/shop/cats_accessories/cat_litter/tige