Kitten Eating Issues- Help!

I've recently taken in an eight week old kitten that was rescued by some acquaintances. They were unable to keep him because of issues with an older cat that they have had for a while, so I agreed to see how he would fit into my home. Gnash is a complete little darling, he's very quickly become my little baby, but I'm having a rather big problem with him.

One of the issues that the family that rescued him had shared with me before I agreed to take him was that they had been absolutely unable to get him to eat anything except kitten milk and tuna. Naturally as soon as I brought him home I tried to tackle this problem. But I am at my wit's end now. I've tried every single brand of food, every consistency, and every tactic under my belt to get this headstrong little brat to try a bite of kitten chow and he's just not going for it.

In fact, he now goes so far as to sniff it, turn his back to it and try to cover it up as if it were feces. He's a perfectly healthy kitten otherwise, no problems at all other than this one. I'm just not sure how to proceed now that I've exhausted all of my ideas. Completely open to new suggestions.

How are you going about trying to switch his diet? You need to do it slowly, you can't just plop a can or bowl in front of him and expect him to eat it. I would suggest mixing the new food in with either the milk or tuna and slowly lowering the amount of milk/tuna until it is only the new food. You can't give up because this diet is not sufficient for him to be a healthy cat.

Yeah, I'm definitely not giving up on it. I've fostered several cats in the past, and am a long term cat owner, so I'm familiar with switching diet and food brands. I've had to do it a time or two. Mixing is what I've been trying, its always worked for me in the past. I've tried mixing his soft food in with formula (varying amounts) and tuna, but he seems to be one step ahead of me. I put the bowl in front of him as usual and he tries it, turns his nose up to it, and walks away. I've tried NOT giving him what he wants and waiting him out, but he simply will not eat it. He'd rather go hungry. I've tried soaking hard food in formula, hoping that the taste and smell wouldn't overpower the milk and he might eat that, but he wouldn't even touch the milk once it had food in it.

I actually thought it might be a texture type of problem for a while and stopped going for the usual stuff and found some refrigerated food that was pretty much as similar in texture to tuna as possible without it actually being tuna, and for a moment he showed interest in that. He actually tried a piece. But in the end...just the same as the others, he ignored the bowl and walked away.

I'm honestly pulling out my hair on this one. He's a stubborn, picky little thing, I've NEVER had a kitten fight this hard on anything. The usual tactics just don't seem to be doing much good right now.

I remember how difficult it was to get a wet food for Bijou. I bought one of each brand of food before I hit on one he liked.

Have you tried heating the food up a bit to make it a bit more smelly? Sometimes that works.

Also try hand-feeding him to see if he'll eat it off your fingers to get him started?

Oh... maybe the steps here will help you?? http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Tips%20f...%201-14-11.pdf

Well...Gnash, being the stubborn little brat that he is, still won't eat canned food despite every trick in the book being thrown at him.

But there IS good news! While I was feeding Peekers, I turned around for a split second and when I looked back...Peek had backed off of his food bowl. This is a miracle in itself, but when I looked to see why, I discovered Gna-Gna in the food bowl chowing away on the hard food.

I'm not sure what the difference is for him, but somehow this is a MUCH more acceptable substitute for tuna than soft food to him. So...perhaps the problem is solved now. He seems to be eating fine with harder foods.

Rescued him from what situation, specifically?

If he came in off the street, he may have been separated from his momma and spent some time with no food whatsoever. I've read on a couple of sites that kittens aren't really fully weaned until they hit 12 weeks of age. If yours has been through any kind of psychological shock, it may have set him back in the weaning process. I'd give him another month on the kitten formula - with other foods available should he wish to start sampling - before I'd really start to wonder what was going on.

Maybe see if you can catch a grasshopper, katydid, or moth, and release it inside for him to play with?

One of the companies who makes kitten formula also makes a weaning formula, that you can mix either to a liquid or gruel consistency.

Also, regarding the covering up of food, I've seen lots of cats - kittens and adults - do that. They're covering up the food to save it for later. Big cats in the wild do this too, IIRC. So the fact that he was covering it up suggests to me that he thought that dish in particular at least smelled like food, but that he wasn't ready to eat it yet.