Weening adult cats off syringe feeding

Hi,

Just looking for some advice regarding our Ginger boy Switch. He headbutted a moving car 3 months ago, breaking his lower jaw, upper jaw and nose -all very mashed up. after 6 weeks of intensive care he was allowed to come home. Sadly both his retina's were severely detached and he would be blind for the rest of his life - no problem we thought, cats can adapt (he has learnt the layout of the whole house by heart). We have had to syringe feed him for the past 2 months, as he couldnt close his mouth properly as the jaw hadnt quite set and had set off centre, making it impossible to close. now that we have had his teeth filed down he should be able to feed himself. This is prooving hard tho. we believe he has lost his sense of smell (still not breathing thru his nose). He just dosent seem interested in eating off a bowl or side of a plate. How can we make switch eat on his own accord? he is more than capable physically but how do we break the cycle of syringe feeding? Also, how can we draw his attention to his food? (we have clicked, flicked, knocked and whistled to no avail). any idea's will be greatly recieved, as we are about to have our firstborn human!

Switch says TY! and so do we

Aaaw! Poor Switch! What an awful experience for you all to have to go thru. You say his jaw set off center and his teeth were filed down, but are you sure opening and closing his mouth doesn't cause him discomfort? Have you tried feeding him something really smelly, like warmed up tuna?

Have you tried dabbing a little bit of food onto his nose to see if he'll lick it off? Sometimes that helped when Willow would stop eating--she'd taste the food and then show interest in taking another bite. Also, you may want to join the Yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-Assisted-Feeding/ -- they have tons of experience with syringe feeding and weaning cats back to eating on their own. They've dealt with all kinds of reasons cats have stopped eating and have some great files on how to get them started again.

yea, he can definately chew because of the chunks he takes out of the syringe! we have tried putting things on his nose but i dont think he can feel it, its still bruised after alll (from bumping into things) we even give him olbas oil steam baths to help clear his nose - he dosent even smell that! ty for the yahoo suggestion, will go there now.