How to Feed Feral Cats on a Budget 1

I am feeding 20 cats at the moment. I give them breakfast and dinner. For breakfast each cats gets half a handful of dried cat food or pellets, which seems lousy but I have found if they eat much more they can become prone to vomiting. I buy 10kg bags of dried cat food from Big W. I have compared prices to farm supply shops and found that on the whole Big W prices are considerably cheaper. Keep checking the shelves at local department stores in your area, because they often have specials and the prices can drop by around $5.00 per bag. You should be paying the equivalent of about AU$20-$25 per bag. The bag should last around four weeks if you are feeding the same number of cats I am.

I occasionally give the cats watered down milk for breakfast too – mostly in winter when they are hungrier. Kitty milk can be very expensive, so I use normal milk that has been mixed in the following ratio: 500ml (milk) to 300ml (boiling water) to warm it up. Be aware that some cats can be lactose intolerant. This will usually manifest in gassiness, cramps or diarrhoea. Don't give cow's milk to kittens for this reason. There is an excellent article on Human Foods for Cats? A Guide to Safe vs Toxic "Table Scraps" for Cats, which has a more substantial section on milk. Di-Vetelact, a low lactose animal supplement, is more suitable for kittens, but it will cost approx AU$22.00 for a 375gm tin. Check the feeding instructions on the tin as the dosage/dilution varies according to age, weight and species of animal. The manufacturers recommend four feeds per day for kittens.

I also learned a trick from my cousins who live in Fiji where the stray animal problem is quite rife. My auntie and cousins live on an island called Ovalau, and they often feed feral cats and and homeless dogs. Cheap supplies are hard to come by in some of these towns and villages, so my auntie buys large bags of broken rice considered to be second grade and therefore not sold for human consumption purely because you don't get the full grain. My auntie then cooks the desired quantity in a large pot of rice and mixes it with left overs.

The most economical place to buy rice is in Asian stores in your area. I just bought a 25kg (55pd) bag of Jasmine rice from an Asian butcher for AU$43.00, which works out at $1.73 per kg. Compare that to the cheapest retail price I came across at my local Woolworths – $19.98 for 10kg, which comes to $2.00 per kg. These large bags of rice will last you about two to three months.

I played with that idea and came up with a variation on my auntie's recipe. Here's my interpretation. It should feed around 20 cats, allowing for about 1/2 to 3/4 cup per cat, depending on their size.  

Ingredients

3 cups of uncooked rice

6 cups of boiling water

4 tins of cat food

cooked vegetable scraps such as beans, peas or potatoes (optional)

Place uncooked rice in a large round bowl with low sides. Add boiling water and cook in microwave for 15 minutes. Allow to cool. Mix cat food into rice and combine until all rice is coated with gravy or meat from the tin. 

You can also add chopped up left over (and deboned) chicken, fish or red meat to this recipe.