Quality nutrition on a budget
With prices rising on just about everything, we hear lots of pet parents looking for more affordable pet food options, hopefully without sacrificing on quality. We at Humboldt Pet Supply want to provide options for any budget, providing products you and your pet can feel good about. As always, we are happy to answer any questions and help you find the right products for a feeding regime that fits your budget. Our goal isn’t to sell specific products, but rather to provide honest opinions and share our knowledge to help pet parents make the best decisions. We’ve detailed below some suggestions and things to think about when looking for budget friendly options for your pets.
Kibble
The key when searching for an affordable kibble is to not just look at the price of the bag, but also the feeding guidelines. Oftentimes, high quality kibbles will be more nutritionally and calorically dense than their cheaper counterparts. This means you will feed less daily, bringing what we call “the cost of feeding” down. For example, let’s take a look at some popular value brands compared to some of the brands we offer. The table below compares the cost of feeding based on the feeding guidelines for a 50lb dog.
*Note: all information is subject to change and may not reflect most current pricing*
Here’s a similar table for cat kibble, based on feeding large bags to a 10lb cat.
As you can see, even though the price per bag may be higher for brands like Orijen, Acana, Farmina, and Firstmate, the actual cost of feeding is just a little higher, or even much lower, than some value brands. You can find an article with more brands and further explanations of the cost here.
It’s possible to find a kibble that works for your pet, provides quality nutrition, without breaking the bank! These are just a few examples, and we have many more brands in store that will fit your needs - whether that’s a limited ingredient diet, exclusion or inclusion of specific ingredients, specific protein or fat levels, etc. Let us know your needs and we can find the perfect match for you!
Building a Better Bowl
Many pet parents are interested in ways they can build a better bowl of food for their pets, but sometimes are stumped on where to start, or discouraged by the prices on branded mix-ins. There are many easy, low cost additions you can make to your pet’s diet to help build a better bolster nutrition without busting the budget.
First off, water! Moisture is such an important and often overlooked component of our pets diets, especially for cats. Dogs and cats in particular are biologically programmed to get the vast majority of their moisture from their diet, not from drinking water. We have more information on the importance of moisture and adding to diets here. Simply adding warm water to dry food is a huge step in improving the bowl without additional costs.
Second, fresh food additions! There are many foods you may already buy for yourself that you can add to your pet’s food. Raw eggs, plain yogurt, cottage cheese, fish, raw or gently cooked meat or organs, coconut water, goat milk, fruits, cooked or pureed veggies, and more. Lots of possibilities just in your own kitchen to create wholesome bowls.
Third, wet and raw pet food! While these diets are more expensive to feed when fed exclusively, they can be fed as a component of the diet to reduce costs while still reaping benefits. Both of these options offer many benefits such as increased moisture, palatability, and nutrient bioavailability and absorption to name a few. Studies Shave shown that replacing just 20% of the diet with raw or fresh foods will have positive effects. Raw food will seem more expensive than wet food at first, but once again looking at the cost of feeding reveals the difference is not as significant as you may think. We have more information on the price breakdown of raw vs wet food here. HPS even offers our own raw food grinds, suitable for cats and dogs, that makes a great topper for any diet at a reasonable price.
Hopefully you now have a better understanding and some ideas on how to maximize your pet food budget. These tips and recommendations paired with our loyalty and frequent buyer punch cards make the savings even greater! Once again, please don’t hesitate to come in or call - we are happy to answer your questions, and hear your concerns or comments anytime.
