Switch to canned food

Hi all -

For the past week I have begun changing my 3 cats over from free-feeding dry food (NB Green Pea and Duck) to a 3x a day schedule with canned food (EVO and Wellness grain-free canned).

2 out of the 3 cats have ended up with UTIs in the last year so I am really wanting to get more water into their diet and make this work.

2 out of my 3 cats are enjoying the canned food and am not too worried about them getting enough calories in during the day, but my 3rd cat (Bella) is not very enthusiastic about it. I have been following Dr. Pierson's advice from her website (catinfo.org) about enticing her and that does work sometimes.

My question is how do I know if she has eaten enough during the day? I worry about hepatic lipodosis so I have been monitoring her weight. This morning Bella ate most of her canned food (probably about a spoonful) but I never know if the next feeding time if she will eat it or not.

Any advice?

Thanks!
Kali

Cats can be picky re flavor and texture - you might try a few other brands and see if they work any better for you. Also, sometimes they seem very very happy with one food for a long time, and suddenly go off it, If they suddenly refuse to eat an old favorite, it can be that the batch is 'off' - or, sometimes you'll find that in two day they're very happy with the old favorite. Enough to make you pull your hair out sometimes!

BTW, do you have a water fountain for your cats - that helps out in a lot of cases - or, a friend of mine simply sets up water stations around the house for her bunch - they're drinking out of nicer glasses than I have at home!

I agree with the above post. Some cats really just don't prefer pate. Chunky types are harder to find in better brands--but any wet food is better than none when it comes to uti health.

My boys did great on pate style for a long time like 4 months and then one day they just refused it. So we had to go to all chunky style for awhile--I could sneak in pate maybe once a week.

Leslie

Thanks for the tip! Bella is definitely very picky!

Yes - we actually have 2 water fountains. We purchased the 2nd one after the vet told us that Bella's urine was very concentrated and she needed to drink more. Unfortunately she ended up getting a 2nd UTI anyways so that is why we are trying to change her over to canned food.

Thanks!

Good for you for all your efforts - and I've had that 'pate' versus 'chunk' deal myself. I also agree that almost any wet will be a plus, if kitty is happy to eat it, and I'm sure your vet would be happy to discuss with you the pro's and con's of different brands if you bring them in for review.

But, yeah, I think many of us have been there - the 'bestest' food in the whole world, costing an arm and a leg, and kitty just turns up that little nose!

A trick I've been using that has not yet failed to work (note the yet ): sprinkle a bit of Whole Life's Freeze-Dried chicken treats over the wet food. It's very expensive, I know, but worth it's weight in gold for encouraging a kitty to eat.

I was given a bag of Stella and Chewy's Beef freeze-dried treats and this seems to be a bigger hit even than WL's chicken.

Alternatively, folks have had good luck with scooping a bit of the wet food onto their finger and then offering it that way, or rubbing it on the kitty's lips or the top of her paw if she won't take it voluntarily. Once she gets her first taste and swallow, she often realizes it's food and loses her reluctance to eat it.

Good luck!! The change you're making is definitely for the better!

In addition to all the excellent advice already given I have two suggestions:

keep track of how much Bella is getting to eat by writing down what you feed her and how much she eats of it, at each meal, or premeasure her daily quota and feed from that.

One other thing. If you can get her to eat SOME canned, with water added, you can probably get away with letting her have one serving of kibble each day. This works best with pate styles though. If she wants the chunky styles (wellness has a couple of grain free chunks in gravy style pouches) this may not work as well.

Warming the food, by adding a little warm water to it, or letting the dish sit in another dish of hot water for a few moments, may make it more appealing, too.

By the way, cats on a completely canned food diet will not drink as much (if any) extra water, so don't panic if you don't see them at the fountains as much.

you have gotten great suggestions...

here is ROUGH guideline for canned food 1/2 oz to 1 oz per lb per day

so a 10 lb kitty would eat 5-10 oz of wet a day if only wet is served

I don't want to come across as being critical but a week is very fast to switch cats from dry to wet. It really should be done over a period of at least a month or longer. Their digestive system needs time to adjust.

However, if they are doing just fine on it and don't seem to be having problems, diarrhea, throwing up or not eating enough it could be OK.

With your 3rd cat, Bella, cute name! I would not take away the dried food. Please do not try to force her to eat the wet. Keep offering her the wet as well as the dried. If she won't touch the wet, leave a dish of it beside her bowl of dry so she can get used to the smell of it.

How to explain, cats that are used to / addicted to dry food, often don't recognize wet food as being "food" to them. So it takes a lot of time and patience to make the switch. And sometimes it never happens. It might be that Bella will continue to eat the dry but occasionally eat some of the wet.

What is important is that *she eats*.

Last year I switched my cats over from dry to wet. I did it over a period of about 10 days. I thought I was on the right track. One of my cats adapted well to it, but the other nearly died. He developed a hepatitis of the pancreas. His system just didn't adjust to wet only very well. I thought I was going to lose him. After over two months of treatments etc. we saved him, but in order to do so, one of the things I *had* to do was to put him back on dry.

Today he is very very healthy and well, has a gorgeous shining plush coat. He does eat mainly dry food, but he does eat wet maybe once every other day or so, as the mood strikes him. Yes I would love it if he would eat exclusively wet, but he's eating some and that's enough.

That's the only reason I'm suggesting you not take your cat off of dry completely, because of what happened to my cat when I did. Oh and it cost me over $2,000. in vet bills. Please keep in mind that I'm just sharing my experience. It doesn't mean the same thing will happen to you, but just be careful. It's best to be safe than sorry.

Again, I'm not trying to be critical in any way whatsoever, but simply sharing what happened to my cat when I switched foods.

Originally Posted by Shanynne

How to explain, cats that are used to / addicted to dry food, often don't recognize wet food as being "food" to them. So it takes a lot of time and patience to make the switch. And sometimes it never happens. It might be that Bella will continue to eat the dry but occasionally eat some of the wet.

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This is 100% correct. The rescue group that I got my Merlin from had all their cats on dry food. I tried for THREE years to get him to consider wet/raw. I finally tricked him into the switch by using Nature's Variety freeze dried raw to get him off the dry food, then he switched himself to the Rad Cat raw diet that I have my other cats on. But it took FOREVER!!!

Originally Posted by esrandall2000

This is 100% correct. The rescue group that I got my Merlin from had all their cats on dry food. I tried for THREE years to get him to consider wet/raw. I finally tricked him into the switch by using Nature's Variety freeze dried raw to get him off the dry food, then he switched himself to the Rad Cat raw diet that I have my other cats on. But it took FOREVER!!!

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Good for you for persisting for so long! That's huge. Merlin's lucky to have you as his mom.

Originally Posted by esrandall2000

This is 100% correct. The rescue group that I got my Merlin from had all their cats on dry food. I tried for THREE years to get him to consider wet/raw. I finally tricked him into the switch by using Nature's Variety freeze dried raw to get him off the dry food, then he switched himself to the Rad Cat raw diet that I have my other cats on. But it took FOREVER!!!

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I love freeze dried ... two like it re-hydrated while the other s just like it and think it is snack food

Originally Posted by sharky

I love freeze dried ... two like it re-hydrated while the other s just like it and think it is snack food

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You are right. It totally blew me away. YEARS of trying to gently persuade that cat to get off his addiction (and it is an addiction) and he takes one whiff of the freeze dried and never looks back. I'm constantly getting lessons in humility from my kitties!

OK this is the first I have ever heard of this freeze-dried food! Where can I buy it and how expensive is it?!?!?!?

My cats seem to go through a cycle. They'll be eating every bite of the wet food and then they'll start leaving a little bit, then more and more, and finally hardly eating anything at all, at which point I feed them dry food for a while and then they'll start eating well again.

I've finally started mixing in a little bit of Fancy Feast with every meal. They call that stuff Kitty Crack for a reason because most cats will eat it even if they won't touch other wet food. The explanation I've heard is that they use the same flavoring that is normally used on dry food (which is the only reason cats find the dry tasty). It's not very high quality food, but if it keeps them eating, it's worth it. I mix in about 4 ounces of their regular food with 1 ounce of the Fancy Feast each meal and it seems to work pretty well.

Originally Posted by Shanynne

OK this is the first I have ever heard of this freeze-dried food! Where can I buy it and how expensive is it?!?!?!?

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Slight hijack

freeze dried raw foods are found mostly at specialty pet stores not the big ones/// around here it runs about the same as fresh raw to about 2$ an oz