i bought this cat food do donate to the animal shelter and never got a chance to do it but now all of the it is past the date and i am getting a baby kitten in a couple of weeks and my mom is making me buy the food can i still se the food/treats because it doesnt say eat by it just says BESTT by
it is wet food
it is wet food
5 Answers
Really won’t matter to the kitten, it can’t read the label, eh?
If the animal is hungry enough, it’ll eat the food. Don’t throw the food out, enough food is wasted these days…
Manufacturers put “best by” dates on products for the reason you asked this question, they try to suck people in. Their primary business is to sell the product, the more they sell the more they profit!!
The best by date does not mean the food is officially expired, it just means that the food does not provide the nutrition as stated in the Guaranteed Analysis. The ‘best’ nutrition for your pet has expired, but again in most cases the food is still ‘good’. canned and/or pouched products vary from 1 year to 5 years. Treats usually have the same shelf life as the manufacturer’s dry food – but just to keep things confusing, that can vary too. The ‘Best By’ date provided on the food does not tell you how old the product is, it does not tell you when the food was manufactured. It only tells you the date that particular manufacturer has determined the food no longer provides the pet with the proper nutrition. While some ingredients in the food might still provide adequate nutrition – other ingredients have faded over time. All pet foods that are naturally preserved begin to lose their nutritional value almost immediately after they are made. Usually canned food has a shelf life of two years. So if the best by date is say..June 2008. This would tell you that this can was made in June 2006 and thus it would be 14 months old in October 2007. Most of the time, when pet owners look at the ‘best by’ date and they see June 2008 – they think ‘this is good – this food still has 8 months until it expires’. I was guilty of this until I learned the differences too. But the bigger picture needs to be explained. You definitely want to purchase and use the food before the best by date expires, but the quality of the nutrition in canned food is protected by the canning process. Call your pet food’s manufacturer and ask them the shelf life of canned foods. I know it’s a chore, just one more thing you have to do and look out for,but it is very important. You want what you pay for – quality nutrition for your pet,and a fresh product will provide that (of course you have to pay attention to ingredients too,but that is a whole different subject!).
depends what the food is… be more specific. the expiry dates are there for a reason. dry foods have best before dates, as they tend to go stale… but expiry dates are usually meant for fresh foods that can go “off” and make the consumer sick.
when you open the can you’ll know by the smell if it’s gone bad, there is nothing in this world as bad as the smell of pet food that’s gone off. Not even cat poo.
I’d say about a few months. if it’s dry food, it won’t go bad that quickly.