So, my cat family started with a neighborhood stray who zoomed through my front door on New Year's Day last year when I opened it for a pizza delivery
I had encountered her outside previously when taking out the trash and she was friendly. She came inside that day and didn't want to leave, so we just let her stay. Turns out she was pregnant, and she had two kittens in March of last year. I had done a lot of reading about cat food, since I had never lived w/a cat before, and saw that they did best on 100% wet food.
I had been feeding the mom cat Friskie's pate and KMR whenever she wanted it. I started buying better food - Nature's Variety, Wellness, Merrick - and she seemed to like them all. I started the kittens on the Wellness kitten pate. I did leave out Wellness Core kibble overnight for everyone, but they honestly didn't seem to eat that much of it - at that time, they definitely enjoyed their wet food more.
So that system went on for some time - I had a rotation of Wellness, Nature's Variety, Merrick (they seemed to stop liking the Merrick after the label change several months ago), the green and orange Soulistic cans - I even got them to eat some of the frozen Nature's Variety raw from time to time. However over time, it seems they stopped liking each of these wet foods. First, they stopped eating the Merrick, but like I said I think that when their cans changed labels several months back, maybe their formula changed also. They used to love the Grammys Pot Pie and Thanksgiving Dinner, but they started refusing it. They also used to love the Wellness canned food, then they started refusing it. They refused the Soulistic, the Natures Variety, the Natural Balance flavors they used to eat.....So I started getting Fancy Feast to get them enthused about wet food again. I only got the Classic Pates. They ate a large variety of those flavors for a long time, but eventually started refusing those also. I also threw in other "better" supermarket cat foods - Newmans Own, I and Love and You - and they ate those for a time, but eventually stopped. I'm getting really frustrated because I only ever wanted them to eat good quality pates, and that's what I started them all on from kittenhood (the mom cat is still a little more flexible in what she will eat - i guess thanks to her street cat history haha)
So in order to keep them still eating some kind of wet food - since they are now refusing any pates (high quality ones, low quality ones like Friskies, I've tried Sheba and Lovesome pates too) I tried giving them the cuts/shreds type wet food and they will kind of eat that - they lick up all the liquid but leave most of the meat cuts - they may or may not eventually eat the meat cuts if I leave it out for several hours. They will definitely eat most of the meat cuts if I press kibble into them. I really don't want to feed this kind of food because I know wheat gluten is not good for cats. So, I feel like I'm kind of starting from scratch here as they are eating pretty much all kibble (at least I got them on a really good kibble - Orijen cat & kitten kibble). I don't know how I can get them back eating a good quality wet food if I don't even have a single type of wet food (even a bad one) that they really really enjoy eating!! I have water bowls and a Drinkwell Platinum pet fountain, so hopefully they are getting enough water. I worry about the 2 kitten boys mostly (well they are like 16 months old now) because I know males should not be eating exclusively dry, even a good one like Orijen. I've tried parm cheese, FortiFlora, Bonito Flakes, Wysong, PureBites, freeze-dried treats as toppers and they either straight up reject it (parmesan) or just lick all the other toppers up and leave the wet food untouched!!
I can get one of the boys to eat some Primal Raw freeze-dried, but the other two won't touch it. They also won't touch the frozen raw at all now.
The only thing I can get them to eat consistently is Orijen kibble, and the gravy liquid from Fancy Feast (they won't even eat the Fancy Feast classics now - even the Chicken Classic that every cat is supposed to love!!) Using these two food items - kibble and gravy liquid lol - and knowing that they will just lick off a topper without eating what's underneath - what do you think my next step should be?
I've exhausted all the canned food varieties from PetCo - I stopped in a PetPeople and got some Tiki Cat, Wild Calling rabbit, Weruva Nine Liver and Paw Lickin Chicken, Earthborn holistic - all were rejected, but I could get them to eat a little of the Earthborn if I loaded it with kibble on top. The only cans they are interested in are the crappy ones from the supermarket (Fancy Feast, Purina, etc - they don't even really like the Sheba Cuts) and then all they do is just lap up the gravy. I don't understand it since I started them off from their infancy eating high quality good - and they used to like all of it!
At least they like good treats - they won't touch stuff like Temptations or Pounce - they like the Natures Variety freeze dried chicken or duck treats, the Wysong cat treats, PureBites freeze-dried chicken - and since all of them really like those freeze-dried treats I thought they'd dig the Primal Raw - but only one of them likes it. They don't like fish, so they won't eat sardines or tuna, but they will drink the tuna water sometimes. I tried giving them straight up chicken broth (unseasoned) but nobody really liked that either. What to do???
edit: I no longer leave ANY kibble out overnight. They are on a timed feeding schedule - and I thought I could use hunger as my ally - but even if they're really hungry, if it's a pate of any sort, they won't touch it - they'll only eat whatever I smash on top of it.......
I had encountered her outside previously when taking out the trash and she was friendly. She came inside that day and didn't want to leave, so we just let her stay. Turns out she was pregnant, and she had two kittens in March of last year. I had done a lot of reading about cat food, since I had never lived w/a cat before, and saw that they did best on 100% wet food.
I had been feeding the mom cat Friskie's pate and KMR whenever she wanted it. I started buying better food - Nature's Variety, Wellness, Merrick - and she seemed to like them all. I started the kittens on the Wellness kitten pate. I did leave out Wellness Core kibble overnight for everyone, but they honestly didn't seem to eat that much of it - at that time, they definitely enjoyed their wet food more.
So that system went on for some time - I had a rotation of Wellness, Nature's Variety, Merrick (they seemed to stop liking the Merrick after the label change several months ago), the green and orange Soulistic cans - I even got them to eat some of the frozen Nature's Variety raw from time to time. However over time, it seems they stopped liking each of these wet foods. First, they stopped eating the Merrick, but like I said I think that when their cans changed labels several months back, maybe their formula changed also. They used to love the Grammys Pot Pie and Thanksgiving Dinner, but they started refusing it. They also used to love the Wellness canned food, then they started refusing it. They refused the Soulistic, the Natures Variety, the Natural Balance flavors they used to eat.....So I started getting Fancy Feast to get them enthused about wet food again. I only got the Classic Pates. They ate a large variety of those flavors for a long time, but eventually started refusing those also. I also threw in other "better" supermarket cat foods - Newmans Own, I and Love and You - and they ate those for a time, but eventually stopped. I'm getting really frustrated because I only ever wanted them to eat good quality pates, and that's what I started them all on from kittenhood (the mom cat is still a little more flexible in what she will eat - i guess thanks to her street cat history haha)
So in order to keep them still eating some kind of wet food - since they are now refusing any pates (high quality ones, low quality ones like Friskies, I've tried Sheba and Lovesome pates too) I tried giving them the cuts/shreds type wet food and they will kind of eat that - they lick up all the liquid but leave most of the meat cuts - they may or may not eventually eat the meat cuts if I leave it out for several hours. They will definitely eat most of the meat cuts if I press kibble into them. I really don't want to feed this kind of food because I know wheat gluten is not good for cats. So, I feel like I'm kind of starting from scratch here as they are eating pretty much all kibble (at least I got them on a really good kibble - Orijen cat & kitten kibble). I don't know how I can get them back eating a good quality wet food if I don't even have a single type of wet food (even a bad one) that they really really enjoy eating!! I have water bowls and a Drinkwell Platinum pet fountain, so hopefully they are getting enough water. I worry about the 2 kitten boys mostly (well they are like 16 months old now) because I know males should not be eating exclusively dry, even a good one like Orijen. I've tried parm cheese, FortiFlora, Bonito Flakes, Wysong, PureBites, freeze-dried treats as toppers and they either straight up reject it (parmesan) or just lick all the other toppers up and leave the wet food untouched!!
I can get one of the boys to eat some Primal Raw freeze-dried, but the other two won't touch it. They also won't touch the frozen raw at all now.
The only thing I can get them to eat consistently is Orijen kibble, and the gravy liquid from Fancy Feast (they won't even eat the Fancy Feast classics now - even the Chicken Classic that every cat is supposed to love!!) Using these two food items - kibble and gravy liquid lol - and knowing that they will just lick off a topper without eating what's underneath - what do you think my next step should be?
I've exhausted all the canned food varieties from PetCo - I stopped in a PetPeople and got some Tiki Cat, Wild Calling rabbit, Weruva Nine Liver and Paw Lickin Chicken, Earthborn holistic - all were rejected, but I could get them to eat a little of the Earthborn if I loaded it with kibble on top. The only cans they are interested in are the crappy ones from the supermarket (Fancy Feast, Purina, etc - they don't even really like the Sheba Cuts) and then all they do is just lap up the gravy. I don't understand it since I started them off from their infancy eating high quality good - and they used to like all of it!
At least they like good treats - they won't touch stuff like Temptations or Pounce - they like the Natures Variety freeze dried chicken or duck treats, the Wysong cat treats, PureBites freeze-dried chicken - and since all of them really like those freeze-dried treats I thought they'd dig the Primal Raw - but only one of them likes it. They don't like fish, so they won't eat sardines or tuna, but they will drink the tuna water sometimes. I tried giving them straight up chicken broth (unseasoned) but nobody really liked that either. What to do???
edit: I no longer leave ANY kibble out overnight. They are on a timed feeding schedule - and I thought I could use hunger as my ally - but even if they're really hungry, if it's a pate of any sort, they won't touch it - they'll only eat whatever I smash on top of it.......
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