Anyone else have an Only-Gravy-Licker?

As I have been posting in other threads - for my 19 plus year old cat I am now smooshing her Fancy Feast Classic tender beef and FF Classic turkey and giblets in a Magic Bullet with a tiny amount of water. It comes out looking like baby food and she happily laps it up. Might be worth a try for your fur baby.

I have 5 that eat pate and 2 who won't touch it. I have one who will only eat Nature's recipe cups chicken, it can't be chicken and something or indoor formula or grain free. It absolutely has to be the chicken one and that is all she will eat. I feed the other's Natural Balance Chicken and Liver Pate. I have to use the fork on the Nature's recipe first and it can not touch the Pate at all. If she detects a slight smell of the other she will not eat her Nature's recipe. She is such a fuss but I love her so I do it. 

I have some that lick the gravy and some that just eats everything. I never have leftovers because someone will eat it one way or the other.

My cats are gravy lickers too.  I mean, we have tried every brand of cat food we have seen.  They are not a fan of pate (no gravy).  There are a lot of cat foods I think looks and smell good, but they don't really go for those either... when they get fed, the gravy is gone. I leave the dish set out and through the day a few chunks, sometimes all the chunks will disappear.

We went to Brothfuls for Alex before she passed... those just have a few chunks, but they are expensive for no more than you get.  I tried making her home made gravy and broth and she didn't like those as much, just like the juice from the canned foods.  Another one she liked was the Soulistic, but our new cats don't really care for that one.

My Artie is a gravy licker also. I have resorted to mashing up the food with a fork, making a 'stew'. I use a fork to mash it, and I add additional water to make it soupier..

what we do for our babies!

My Pickles is turning out the same way.  She's only 4 months old and is so skinny.  She has had a worms issue but has had two rounds of deworming now.  I have noticed her coat has gotten softer and thicker but she's still skinny.  Not emaciated or anything but sort of like a greyhound.  She will eat foods she doesn't like -- but only enough to keep herself from starving.  I'm starting to notice she only really likes gravy.  I don't like the chunky wet foods because I feel like I'm getting ripped off and that they have more carbs than many of the pates (I know it depends on the brand).  But I've noticed she always licks her pates while Pepper, her brother, just gobbles them down.  It explains why her favourite pates were WHISKAS and Wild Calling which, I find, are fairly soupy for pates (lots of gravy/juice in the packaging).  So now I'm on the lookout for foods with gravy -- moreso the flakes and shreds verses the chunks.  She's turned her nose up at multiple chunky varities in the past.  (Mostly store brands but also Taste of the Wild).  She seems to adore WERUVA.  I'm also going to try Blue Buffalo.  I gave her a minced variety of Wellness and while the response was better than most pates she wasn't crazy about it.  The 3oz can of Wellness is more expensive than the 3oz can of WERUVA so I probably won't go that route often.

I have also noticed that with her gravy licking I think she just likes to take her time in general with feeding.  And with a vucuum cleaner of a brother who often will steal her food, she doesn't get much of a chance.  I now let her feed either on the counter or on the table so she can get her share to herself and I have to keep watch because she gets distracted.  I will have to pick her up and bring her back to her food and I also have to stir up the food every so often so the gravy mixes in more which draws her attention.  As long as the meat is soaked in gravy she will eat it.

HOnestly, I don't think she would last very long in the wild.  Her survival instincts don't seem that great. 

I put Fancy Feast chunky cat food in a food processor and make it soupy. "Sometimes" that works. It is a total crap shoot. What works one time ,may never work again!

No kidding!  Still trying to figure my kitties out.   I've contemplated adding a bit of water to the canned food to make it more soupy.  This evening I gave PIckles a pouch of Cats in the Kitchen and she slurped it up.  She ate about 2/3 of it which is a lot for her.  Since I've started catering to her a bit more I have noticed a slight increase in her filling out.  She may always be a smaller cat than her brother (who is kind of tubby as he is a food machine).  I just hate feeling how boney she can be. 

Our youngest kitty,Mighty Mouse, also loves (sometimes) Gerber Chicken with Gravy (Stage 2) Baby food. I warm about 1/2 jar in the  microwave and she seems to enjoy it..I too add a little water to make it a little thinner. Not too much though... The vet said it was fine.That the chicken was better for her than beef..

PicklesPepper said:

 
She may always be a smaller cat than her brother (who is kind of tubby as he is a food machine).  I just hate feeling how boney she can be.

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Our siamese was always long and lean and I worried about it to no end.  She ate good gosh darn it, how come she wouldn't gain weight!  The vet said if she was a human, we would admire her svelte figure... and that she was in good health, to quit worrying about it.

We have a pair like this, too: one's slow and deliberate in her eating and eats smaller meals but the other is a piglet! I've found that the slow eater doesn't like to be fed in the same place all the time. "Catering" is the word for it: it's all very complex because she likes to eat certain kinds of foods in certain places. And I can get her to eat pretty much anything with a small crumble of Pure Bites or Stella & Chewy's.

MollyBlue said:

Our siamese was always long and lean and I worried about it to no end.  She ate good gosh darn it, how come she wouldn't gain weight!  The vet said if she was a human, we would admire her svelte figure... and that she was in good health, to quit worrying about it.

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Ireland's also long and lean -- and a Siamese mix, the lynx mix in my avatar -- and our vet isn't worried about her weight either. I am glad Ireland's put a little weight on, though, because she seems like a happier cat now!

I am so glad I found this thread. Does anyone know of some pates that are really smooth mousse like so when I mix it with water it looks like baby food. It's the only way he will eat it. I am grateful for this though since it took me forever to get him off dry and in the beginning would only lick gravy. I hear Merrick is like a mousse but I also heard some quality control problems and they were bought by a big corp. He was fine with the iams pate mixed with water but now it seems like either they changed the recipe or something because before it mixed so smoothly like it was baby food to now it's just like a friskies or something, only mixing so well with water. I was so happy because even though iams has it's downsides he would only lick the gravy off a junk food brand and since I was desperately trying to get his weight up I was just happen he was eating actual food. Now he hates it. This just happened with nutro last year. Loved it then hated it. I should probably post this as a question, this is my first day on this site. Hello everyone!

Wellness seems to be like mousse. It is really mushy.  Blue Buffalo is a bit like that too.

This could describe our house! The outdoor cats eat well. Indoor kitties..eat what they are in the mood to eat~ Hence,the food they adored yesterday..today..won't go near it.Yikes!

Harrys Mom 02 said:

 
This could describe our house! The outdoor cats eat well. Indoor kitties..eat what they are in the mood to eat~ Hence,the food they adored yesterday..today..won't go near it.Yikes!

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Yup.  It's why I'm always on the lookout for new brands and varieties.

Mine will lick the gravy off Fancy Feast brand and that's it. I'm trying Sheba this wee..We'll see.

Our male 'Socks' will lick the liquid only too. I took some pate' and mixed it with a pouch of liquid, with a hand held mixer, and chunks and a little water and he ate almost the entire bowl. He hasn't done that in forever. The one on the left is Lilbit and the one on the right is Socks. They are from a shelter and are 16 years old.View media item 314588

By the way. Lilbit and Socks are brother and sister.

Big Al said:

 
By the way. Lilbit and Socks are brother and sister.

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Yeah, they look so much alike, except for color.

Welcome to TCS. It is nice to have another Arkansas cat guy.

Personally I have found calicos are so unique in every way, I really do think mine thinks she's human also: yes she's a gravy thief also she runs over when her brother goes to the bathroom and licked the gravy out of his bowl until he comes back in the kitchen then she takes off acting all innocent.