You Can Lead a Cat to Cat Food...

. . . but you can't make him eat?

Hello, everyone! I am new here on thecatsite forums, and I plan to write a proper introduction post, but there is a pressing question I just can't wait to have answered.

I have two adult indoor cats. I have for some time wanted to change cat foods to something healthier, but I seem to be very stuck. None of the "healthy" cat foods seem to be very appealing to them!

They've been on Purina Naturals. I tried canned Halo pet food in all three flavors. Some were met with better responses than others, but it got to the point where they left most that was not juice. I guess that's a common thing in cats, but it still bothered me. I've sinced tried Nutro canned cat food, and most of that gets left, as well.

In the dry food department, I recently bought a bag of Blue Buffalo. I gave a few pieces to my cat as a treat when he came begging, and he scarfed it up. Since then, however, neither will touch it. I know Science Diet is a lot of undeserved hype, but even that is not very appealing.

Does anyone have a finicky cat they've been able to find a healthy food for? I just don't know what to do!

Thanks in advance!

Yes, my Lucky is extremely finicky...
For dry food, you need to do a slow transition - into the new food. Mix a little of the new food into the old food, and increase that amount over the course of a good ten days. Every day you put a little more of the new, and a little less of the old, until that she eats the new food only. Cats are very sensitive to food changes, and they can have pretty bad digestive problems if you don't transition (talking about diarrhea for a few weeks!)
As far as the wet food goes, a transition is not really all that necessary, but since your cat is refusing the new food, you can trick him by mixing the two together for a while...
I hope this helps!

Thanks so much, carolina!

The other problem I encounter is my that my cats eat around the new food. No matter what little bit I put in to gradually change over, it either ends up on the floor or left in the bowl.

One problem is that the cheaper foods are more likely to be sprayed at the factory with a substance that tastes and smells very good to a cat, to entice them to eat it. After all, kibble is a long ways from the natural prey of a cat, so you have to teach it to eat the stuff.

I've been having problems getting Poppy to eat the healthier wet food. So far the thing that's worked is mixing Friskies (the stuff he'll eat) with the Meow Mix Wholesome (he turned his nose up at it the first time by itself)...mixing it really good then making sure alot of the Friskies is on top and then he gobbles it down.

You gotta be really sneaky about it.

I tried about 10 different brands of wet food and ended up only finding 2 that ours would eat - Merricks Thanksgiving Day Dinner and Granny's Pot Pie. They won't even eat any other Merrick flavours.

They don't like any pate style food nor do they like shredded meat type foods. Just keep trying. Buy one can of each type and eventually you should be able to find one or 2.

It's trial and error really, i am not familiar with that purina as it's not in my country but what is it a chicken and rice blend? my reasoning behind asking is perhaps you can find a higher quality food made with some of the basic ingredients.. to help ease the transition.

I do know some foods mine simply will not eat, keep trying eventually you will find the right choice.

The only dry food Kody would eat after an initial few days was Taste of the Wild. It is available mainly at "feed & seed" or hardware type stores, but some of the local pet shops carry it. He absolutely loves it even after 6 months. If you e-mail them through their website they will send you a couple of sample bags so you can try it out before you buy a bigger bag.

Anne

Thank you so much for all of your responses! I really appreciate them.

Thankfully, the new cat is transitioning much better to the Blue Buffalo from the Science Diet his old home had him on than my other guy is from the Purina. I think with time it will be fine, and I thank you for all the encouragement.

However, while out shopping I found cans of "Petite Cuisine" on sale. I checked the expiration date and all of that is fine, and the ingredients look really good (comparatively speaking). I tried one can for the heck of (per your recommendations). I just opened it and both cats are going to town on it! I want to go back and buy up the rest of it (about a 1/2 case or so), but I wanted some more opinions. There seem to be mixed feelings on the boards about it. The only flavor available the "Chinese Chicken." I was worried about the contents of the can being a dark, gloppy, soy sauce mess, but it's actually very nice chunks of chicken in a very light water. Should I go get it?

Thank you all so much! You have no idea how much I appreciate it!

My cats loved the Petite Cuisine too. The kind I tried had good ingredients in it and actually looked like real food, but my problem was the cans were small, it's expensive, and the multipacks only came in 4's. I would feed it to my cats if I could afford it

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...icken_cat.html

my cats like petite cuisine but not the chicken flavor. I have 3 cats and 1 is real fussy with wet, 1 likes about 85 percent of foods we've tried and Manny will eat just about anything. But once in a while all 3 will not like something. They seem to shun some of the ones that look ok to me like the meow mix wholesomes. I try to buy more turkey and chicken but they seem to prefer fish. I have been having pretty good luck with Friskies select. All 3 seem to like Merricks Surf and turf. To save money I buy coupons on ebay....the friskies select had a buy one get one free coupon 2 weeks ago so I found them on ebay....got 20 coupons for about 3.00. well worth it. the cans are about 79-89 each here.