Keeping Your Cats and Kittens Food Fresh

Keeping your cat food fresh will make feeding your breeding cats and your kittens easier. Cats have a very keen sense of smell. If the food seems stale or off they won't eat it and it will get wasted. Cat food, especially super premium food is expensive. It's also an investment in your breeding cats good health so it makes sense to keep it as palatable and fresh as possible to maximise the value.

Dry Food for your Breeding Cats

As I noted above cat food can be expensive. One way to save money is to buy it in bulk. That means bigger packs. For example in Australia on Pet Circle you can save around $30 on a big ten kilo bag of Royal Canin Breed Specific British Shorthair kibble.

The savings can be quite a lot but the downside is that, once opened, a big pack may go stale before it gets eaten by your breeding cats or your kittens. Even a small bag will get stale if you don't store it well. The secret to keeping your cat food fresh is to use containers and ziplock bags.

Ziploc bags for storing your Cat Food

Some smaller bags of cat food come with a ziploc top but these are not often great at sealing. It can be a better idea to get some thick ziploc bags that you can seal up tight. Divide up the big or small bag of cat kibble into smaller ziploc packs and they will stay fresh while you use a smaller amount. The best way to do this is to have a well sealed container that you serve the cat food from and then top it up with the bagged food as it runs out.

Storing your cat food in sealed containers

A large bag of cat food can go a long way and a set of well sealed plastic containers can make all the difference when it comes to keeping it fresh. Just take the bag of food and divide it into containers. It helps to fill them up to the top to reduce the amount of oxygen that stays in the tub.

A really good tub is the Decor brand Tellfresh tubs as they have a handle, are square and stack well plus you can get yellow clip-in tags that you can write on. This is especially great if you are breeding cats and feed a few different diets.

Any well sealed, food grade plastic container will do though. Tins with push on lids and ceramic jars are not airtight so are not suitable for keeping the cat kibble fresh.

Got a really big bag of food and lots of cats? If you go through a bag reasonably quickly and it wont get a chance to get stale you can use a big storage bin as long as it is airtight. Just put the whole bag in the bin. That way you don't have to wash the bin out as often which can be tricky if it is big. Which leads us to….

Keep it clean

There is one very important thing to remember. Clean your containers. I have seen people just pour bag after bag of food into the same tub and seal it up. Well it’s actually probably better staying in the open bag if the tub doesn't get washed.

Cat food biscuits are oily. The fat and oils are a big part of what makes them palatable for your cats and kittens. This fat gets on the sides of the containers. Over time, with exposure to air, it oxidizes. Then it goes rancid. If you have ever smelled old cooking oil, yuck, like that. The fresh food going into the unclean container will get tainted by the rancid oil residue.

You need to wash the container in hot soapy water and get it 100% dry ready to use again. It pays to have a few containers that you can rotate. Soaking in hot soapy water is really good as this lifts the oil film off the sides of the container. The cleaner it is the fresher the food will stay.

What about wet cat food for my cats and kittens?

Keeping your cat food fresh applies to wet food too. Wet food comes in smaller servings so it is easier to keep fresh. Wash your cats bowl between meals. Have a few to rotate. Give it a good clean especially if it is plastic. Plastic bowls can have little scratches and get build up or bacteria in them. If you rinse them first you can wash your cats bowls in the dishwasher to make sure they are ultra clean. Dry food bowls need cleaning to but you can fill them for a few days rather than daily washing.

If you are feeding a half serve of food say half a sachet, put the remainder in a small sealed container in the fridge. You can leave it in the pouch or scoop it out but keep it sealed up so it stays fresh in the fridge. Cans are best emptied in to a sealed container.