Fussy cat and her food

Hi All!

I'm new to the board hoping to get some advice regarding my cat. We have a queenie, we've had her 2 years now, shes about 4 years old.. shes been very fussy with her food since the day we got her.. we've tried all sorts of different cat foods, different brands, different flavours.. and shes not taken to any of it.. we persevered and she then started starving herself.. we tried human food just to get her eating and she took to it fine, chicken, ham and that kinda thing..

but that was too expensive to feed her daily.. so we tried tuna which was much cheaper.. and she took to that.. shes been having that for nearly 10 months now.. and we realise it can't be good for her.. and it proves to be more expensive than feeding her normal food.. do u have any advice for getting her to eat normal cat food? she won't touch biscuits either..

Thanks. :-)
Peter.

Hi Sulphy

Welcome. Sorry to hear about your kitty's eating troubles. One of my persians was a very fussy eater initially. He would only eat tuna. What I did was gradually start mixing some premium cat meat in with the tuna and very, very gradually reduced the amount of tuna in the mix.

Maybe Balie is a little thick (no maybe about it ), but this worked.

He still likes tuna, chicken, ham etc as treats, but I've now got him on Royal Canin biscuits and he won't touch the meat I put down for the other cat.

It was long-winded but worth it.

BTW - you're right, a human-only diet is not good for cats in the long run.

Let us know how it goes, I'm sure others will come forward with alternative suggestions too.

Pick a dry food, soak it in water and make it mushy and mix a small amount of it in with the tuna, increasing the amount of wet mushy food and decreasing the amount of tuna and see if that works. Canned food might even work better.Good luck.

We went through the same thing recently. They have been eating Eukanuba Chicken and rice dry food for a year now and have been healthy and enjoyed it. In addition we would give them half a can of Iams wet food at dinner time. They were happy with both up until a couple of weeks ago. Then they stopped eating their canned food and weren't finishing their dry food either. So we tried practically every type of canned/wet food and they just turned their noses up to them. If at most we were lucky if they licked up the gravy and juices. So I started mixing their dry food. I give them a half and half mixture of the Eukanuba and Royal Canin Special formula for finicky cats. THEY LOVE IT! (It's just a coincidence that Royal Canin is now a sponser of our beloved site.) So I went back to feeding them a half a can of the Iams and they still aren't eating all of it. Hope that helps and if any one has any suggestions on how I can make their canned food more enjoyable I'd appreciate it. Happy eating!!

I'm pretty sure that too much tuna is bad for a kitty because its got high levels of mercury.

I read quite some time ago, that perhaps you have to show a bit of "tough love" and just put out regular cat food and wait. If your kitty gets hungry enough, I bet she'll eat it. Don't panic if she doesn't chow it right down, give her a chance to feel HUNGRY. Once they get spoiled and know that you'll cave in and give them people food, then they start manipulating you!! lol

Good luck, I hope you are able to get her to eat again.