Picky Cats - Born or Made?

goldenkitty45

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
19,900
Purraise
44
Location
SW Minnesota
I've seen threads relating to owner's cats being picky about eating. Just curious to what y'all think if a cat is born picky or do owners create a picky cat?

I've had cats all my life. We've always fed a variety of dry/canned foods and I can't think of any cats I've owned that were "picky" where they would not eat if a certain food was not given.

Kittens were raised to eat different brands and flavors of canned foods - start with chicken and then add in beef, lamb and turkey. They always were eager to eat what was put in front of them. They didn't walk away after sniffing.

Now I have had cats that didn't like "shredded or sliced" canned foods, but that's a little different. They all have eaten the normal canned foods.

So do people put down a food, the cat walks away and then the owner is upset, so they open another food till the cat picks what they like and eats it. But in most cases, that same food the next day is ignored and the owner has to go thru it all again.

Is the owner at fault for opening another can or should they just leave the food and offer it till the cat eats it?

Do we create a "picky eater" cat or are they really born that way?
 

ddcats

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
848
Purraise
2
Location
Where whiskers abound.
I think it depends on who you ask, I have created picky eaters myself. I always gave them what they like, ie. the fish flavors.

Fastforward to today, they will not eat beef or chicken in the wet canned food, they will eat it in the dry. I always tried to give them something different and they walk away. So the dog ends up with their food that they snubbed.

Now, I could be insistant and just let the food sit there and eventually they will eat it. But, how can I do that to my poor, hungry babies. Especially when Mittens puts on that CRAZED look on and Cassy puts on her INSANE look. I just have to open up another can and give them what they want.
 

pami

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jun 16, 2006
Messages
17,482
Purraise
17
Location
Birmingham
Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

So do people put down a food, the cat walks away and then the owner is upset, so they open another food till the cat picks what they like and eats it. But in most cases, that same food the next day is ignored and the owner has to go thru it all again.

Is the owner at fault for opening another can or should they just leave the food and offer it till the cat eats it?

Do we create a "picky eater" cat or are they really born that way?
I will open another can, but not because I am upset, but because I dont want them to get sick from wet food just sitting there and spoiling.

When I try a new wet food, I put it out the first thing in the morning, if after 20 minutes my cats dont eat, I open a can I know they will eat.

With dry food I will leave it out all day.

My cats are extremely picky, I have bought SO MANY cans and bags trying to get them all on the best quality I can find. I would have never said that I had anything to do with their pickiness, until we got a dog and my dog is extremely picky.

When I saw my dog turning his nose up to food, I realized it was because of me. So now I just live with it as I continue on my journey to get them all eating the best I can.
 

sharky

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
27,231
Purraise
38
Kandie was born picky... she only ate one brand and one flavor till her "senior" yrs when she started broadening her horizons...

Zoey is shape oriented with dry food but in wet she ll try 90% of them
 

4meezers3kids

TCS Member
Adult Cat
Joined
Aug 15, 2007
Messages
196
Purraise
1
Location
Kansas City suburbs
I think it's multifactorial!


First, how selective they are ... then, how STUBBORN they can be about it!

And how willing the owner is to indulge them. I think if it were obviously life-and-death, I could sit it out, with mine till they ate what they MUST ...
 

rang_27

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 28, 2002
Messages
4,304
Purraise
5
Location
Milwaukee, WI
I'd have to say it depends on the cat. Maggie has always been a bit picky about wet food, but if she won't eat the wet food I give her she will either go hungry or eat some dry food. She's always been that way, there are foods she just doesn't like. When it come's to Jordan I've created a monster. He's sick & before the pred I'd give him 3 or 4 differnt foods. Now he will only eat FF for breakfast & 1/2 wet & 1/2 dry for dinner. I've decided that since he's sick it's not worth the battle and he still gets what he wants. I take full responsibility for his picky ways.
 

az<3me

TCS Member
Adult Cat
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
210
Purraise
1
Location
Baku, Azerbaijan
i think there are certain flavors that ur cat probably likes more than others, but we make cats picky giving them ONLY that flavors that they like. but my devon is not picky at all, he goes crazy about human food (ice cream, smell of chocolate drives him crazy, all that crakers and cookies..), but of course he never gets any.
 

gingersmom

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
I spent SO much money buying so many different wet foods to try out on Ginger.


She ate whatever I gave her as a kitten, no problems. Then one day, around 8-9 months old, she decided that she no longer wanted that particular food, so I started trying out different ones on her.

She turned up her nose time after time after time, and it was really important to me that she have wet food as a part of her diet, so when we found a brand/flavor that she liked, I went with it.

Ferris, on the other hand, just loves food. There is only one type of wet that he has rejected, beef. Anything else, he'll eat it. So I rotate foods daily and he is a happy boy.

Penny, being a Bengal, has a very sensitive tummy, and switching gives her soft stool, so I just feed her what she is accustomed to. She is not picky and would eat pretty much anything, but I can't allow that unless I want the stink & the mess.

So I do strongly believe that it depends on the cat. If my trying to accomodate Ginger's tastes MADE her picky, then why will Ferris eat almost anything?


I happen to be a VERY picky eater. My mother didn't make me that way, I was born that way. I rejected cow's milk early on - I can't stand the taste. I have tried lots and lots of foods, but there are so many foods I cannot handle the taste or texture of. Again, that's intrinsic to ME, it isn't my mom's fault.

Therefore, I don't (and won't) accept the blame for Ginger's finickiness at all. She has her own unique person(feline?)ality, and I just accept that about her.
 

ddcats

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
848
Purraise
2
Location
Where whiskers abound.
Out of curiosity, if Ginger or other picky eaters were in the wild, do you think they would be picky?
Would they sit there and think "Hmm, what am I going to eat today, will it be mice or bird."

~I'm glad we all spoil our cats! Is there any other way.
 

4meezers3kids

TCS Member
Adult Cat
Joined
Aug 15, 2007
Messages
196
Purraise
1
Location
Kansas City suburbs
Originally Posted by GingersMom

So I do strongly believe that it depends on the cat. If my trying to accomodate Ginger's tastes MADE her picky, then why will Ferris eat almost anything?
I agree -- and I have had ctas who were VERY indiscriminate eaters, too! So ti sure is not all ME.

BTW, to analogize in humans -- my 3 kids are adopted, and are not genetically related. My oldest has always been picky and after recently being dx'd as mildly on the autism spectrum ... it makes sense. Autistic kids CAN be (but are not always) notoriously picky!

My middle boy likes the weirdest, strongest tastes he can get! He begs for pickles, Indian food, spicy stuff, garlic, onion ... you name it.

My youngest will at least TRY things, unless her big sister is at the table. Then she stubbornly refuses, if big sister has said she does not like it!
 

epona

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
4,663
Purraise
949
Location
London, England
Radar's a little fussy, but only really in that he doesn't like pate style foods. I think that's a reasonable sort of fussy to be, for an animal that would not naturally eat things with the texture of having just come out of a food blender!

I quickly realised that it was the textures rather than the tastes that caused him to have a preference, and I honestly don't think it's unreasonable for a cat to prefer eating lumps or shreds of meat over mush! So I always look out for something he can bite into and shake in his mouth while he's eating, and he's happy.

They do go off foods if the same flavour or variety is fed day after day I find, again I don't view that as fussiness, I believe the feline olfactory system becomes inured to food if it smells the same every day (in effect they stop being able to smell it, hence no appetite for it). I read that it can be quite natural for that to happen, part of an instinctive drive to vary the diet for nutritional reasons and also to prevent complete extermination of only one food source, which can be a survival problem for predators with a very narrow range of prey.
 

gingersmom

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
8,028
Purraise
22
Originally Posted by ddcats

Out of curiosity, if Ginger or other picky eaters were in the wild, do you think they would be picky?
Would they sit there and think "Hmm, what am I going to eat today, will it be mice or bird."
Actually, if Ginger were a feral, she'd never have gotten wet cat food at all, so I think it's a bit of a moot point.

But knowing her as well as I do, I do think she'd stop eating rather than eat something she doesn't like. As it is, she is rail thin - I'm happy that she EATS, period.
 

aussie_dog

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Feb 23, 2004
Messages
1,121
Purraise
28
Location
Alberta, Canada
I think it's how they were raised as wee kittens. My Buffy, she came to us as a 4 week old orphan (grew up with mom and siblings on the streets, everyone but Buffy died at the vet's office, though). Buffy was raised with us on kibble, and for AGES afterwards, you couldn't get her to even sample a soft treat. It had to be as hard as a kibble of food. And she didn't care for canned food either. But gradually, after a year or so, she started trying out new stuff, and now she enjoys a wide variety of human foods (plus canned food and treats; still doesn't like soft treats, though that's because she had a scary experience with a soft treat that got stuck to the roof of her mouth once as a young'un). She's still a little picky, though. She'll only try something because the smell coming from it is AWFUL, or because she sees her adoptive mommy, Willow, eating the same thing (therefore, it must be okay to eat, right?)

Willow was raised from a 6 week old to try all kinds of foods, and now she's an absolute demon when you're trying to eat your own meal, as she'll hover and try to snatch food right off your fork.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #15

goldenkitty45

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
19,900
Purraise
44
Location
SW Minnesota
So far it seems that most cats are made to be picky except for a few cases of being born that way. Interesting responses


I'm just glad I never had a picky dog or cat to deal with
 

white cat lover

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Nov 17, 2005
Messages
22,206
Purraise
35
Ophelia, Dory, & Damita all ate what they had, found their own food. All three are picky eaters.
Ophelia is the most finicky cat I have & she lived as a semi-feral/feral, fought for her own food, survived completely on her own, for the first 3 years of her life.

Twitch is picky, but that came about because she had bad teeth it hurt to eat certain textures of wet food. Lily....she isn't too picky, but I have had her on a variety of foods since she came to me as a tiny baby who should've been with mom yet, like 4-6 weeks.
 

littleraven7726

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Apr 1, 2002
Messages
3,339
Purraise
12
Location
Next to the World's Largest 6-pack
I think it's an individual thing. I have one who's semi-picky (not very, but has his limits) and 2 that are very picky. Raven & Nabu survived outside for 4 months before I got them. I know all 3 were raised on junk food, so even getting them to like a dry premium food of any kind wasn't easy. So the canned food thing is a big struggle. I just buy what they like at this point.

I recently read that picky eating is actually a throw back to a survival mechanism.
I wish I could remember where I read it...

Anyway, I think each cat is an individual --like people and snowflakes. Everyone is different, so everyone likes different things. And cats are only able to eat what their owner/caregiver provides. I know I wouldn't want to eat the same thing day in and day out, so I provide variety. That way everyone gets something they like, since I have a multicat household with each having different tastes.
 

rang_27

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
May 28, 2002
Messages
4,304
Purraise
5
Location
Milwaukee, WI
Originally Posted by ddcats

Out of curiosity, if Ginger or other picky eaters were in the wild, do you think they would be picky?
Would they sit there and think "Hmm, what am I going to eat today, will it be mice or bird."

~I'm glad we all spoil our cats! Is there any other way.
I'm sure they would eat whatever the got for 2 reasons. One they wouldn't have the consistant food source that we provide them. Second, they would have to expend more energy to catch their food than they do in a home.
 

gidgetcat

TCS Member
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
62
Purraise
0
Location
Missouri
Two of our cats were born from the same litter. From the time they were weened from their mother one would eat almost anything, and the other only a few select things. So in our case, she was simply born picky.
 

alleygirl

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 2, 2006
Messages
11,814
Purraise
24
Location
hiding in the bathtub
I'm not really sure about Riley. He will TRY anything and most foods that he doesn't like (beef, venison) he will still eat a few bites before he walks away. If that's the case, I usually leave it down then throw it away after its been there too long.

However, there are a couple foods that he will sniff and walk away and when he does that I know he REALLY doesn't like them (since he still eats the ones he just sorta doesn't like), and will open a different can.
 
Top