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After watching Hugh and thinking more about the issues recently, I've decided I need to stop feeding my cats cheap cat food (which probably contains minced battery hens and worse). Can anyone recommend a brand which only contains free range chickens? My cats are not fussy, and I am not made of money but don't mind paying extra if I can guarantee they won't be eating intensively farmed chicken. I've been veggie for 18 years so hadn't really considered the meat aspect, only the egg aspect in the past. Suggestions welcome!

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Funny you should say that, because exactly the same thought crossed my mind while watching the programme (I think it was when that lady said she bought two chickens for £5 and gave one to the dog!)

 

Afraid I can't help with any suggestions because I'm in the same situation as you, but I will watch this thread with interest.

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I've been thinking a lot about this too. Both Cat and dog food... I tend to buy the fish flavoured cat food mostly cos i don't like the idea of the chicken ones (but then i don't like feeding them the duck or rabbit ones either...)

 

I know whiskas do an organic cat food in pouches which would mean the chicken is free range but it's twice the price of their normal pouch food pretty much :? so i haven't been brave enough to put my money where my mouth is and convert yet... Perhaps after watching the rest of the channel 4 programmes this week i will feel more compelled to?

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We changed from Burns to Pero for Jazz - I don't know if Pero do cat food, I think they do.

 

All our cats are outdoor cats - semi-feral - and we had to start feeding them because wehn we inherited them, three of them were pregnant. We do buy cheap food for them :? , but always fish based and not chicken, turkey or duck.

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Spooky - I emailed Wiskas yesterday asking if any of their products use free range meat.

Wiskas is the only one Chilli will contemplate eating, & he is off fish at the moment :roll:

Will let you know if & when I get a reply.

 

I've got some Whiskas organic for my hens.

 

It says on the box (of pouches)

 

Whiskas organic contains highly nutritious ingredients from organic farms

and

The independent organisation for control and certification "AustriaBio garantie" guarantees with its sign that the agricultural ingredients of Whiskas Organic are grown and processed according to the strictest guidelines of organic farming

 

 

All very impressive....but in fact tells you very little. :?

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It's odd, there is another post on here at the moment about chicken stock, where the idea seems to be that anything described as 'organic' has to be organic chicken, rather than chicken fed on organic feed...

 

This here seems to suggest the opposite...

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The term 'organic 'can be very misleading. Organic chickens raised to the Soil Association standards will have indeed been allowed to free range. However birds can be sold and labeled as organic without keeping to these standards.

Here is a quote from the Soil Association website:

In contrast, non-Soil Association chickens reared to the current EU rules often live in huge flocks – with as many as 9,000 birds in a single shed – and are then sold as organic.In larger flocks, the sheer volume of birds means that some chickens won't even see or be able to get to the pop holes leading to the range area and so will never go outside.

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Just had this response from Wiskas - it looks like a stock email to me.

I am going to get back to them & ask if the same is true about their Organic food, & if that can be classed as free Range or not.

 

 

Good Morning,

 

Thank you for contacting us regarding Whiskas products.

 

All the meat used in our pet food products are sourced from the human food chain, so we are unable to specify if they are free range or not.

 

If you need any further information or advice please contact our Consumer Careline on the telephone number below and one of our Consumer Care Advisors will be more than happy to help you.

 

Kind regards.

 

 

Lorraine Hines

Consumer Care Team

0800 738 800

 

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Interesting thread. My dog was a Pedigree Chum only girl for many years, then she got ill and stopped eating altogether, I went crazy trying out many different brands to find something she liked :( the only thing she will now eat is Butcher's and it has to be the tripe version :vom::vom: it smells vile :(

I just looked on the tin...ingredients 85% meat or animal derivatives.....

doesn't sound too good to me :( but in order to keep her alive (she is 16) I guess I'm stuck with it :evil:

 

Tessa

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well I suppose that Whiskas response confirms what I'd thought, that whatever is used for pet-food is probably a by-product of what is produced for humans - in other words, these are the bits they can't use even in chicken nuggets .:wink:

 

So by buying it, we are probably not promoting the production of non-organic livestock, just using up the waste. That doesn't make me feel much better, but my cat is so fussy that like Tessa, when you find a brand they will eat I tend to stick with it. He turns up his nose at free-range organic chicken sometimes, too!

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hi thanks for the useful replies. tho it still seems pretty unclear. I think I may try the burns stuff, the website does say they don't use caged birds (so hopefully freerange??? or barn???) and it's not so much more expensive than the dried stuff I give Tabitha.

 

Sorry to disillusion the people that feed 'fish' flavour catfood - this is probably also mainly dodgy 'meat' (including minced up ex-batt) with a small proportion of the fish as on the label. Likewise only part of a tin of ctafood labelled chicken flavour actually needs to be chicken. This may not be true if you're buying v expensive catfood but is certainly true of the bog standard tinned stuff I buy.

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