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How long until I give up on my cat ever eating his new food? +

post #1 of 9
8/29/11 at 4:39pm
Thread Starter 
He's basically on a hunger strike because I'm trying to transition him from Fancy Feast wet to Blue Wilderness wet. Anytime I've ever tried to get him to eat anything but Fancy Feast he just won't eat. He does eat Blue Wilderness dry, but he needs to eat his wet food, too...
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post #2 of 9
8/29/11 at 4:44pm
well good luck with that one. my boy was the exact same way fancy feast to wilderness kitten wet. He will not eat any wet food except a little bit of whiskas beef. he got a tase of the bb dry kitten and hasn't looked back... i have tried everything if you have a new suggestion let me know and good luck
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post #3 of 9
8/29/11 at 5:16pm
Does it help to mix them together a bit? Just adding a very, very small amount of the new food to the old, gradually increasing...

Yeah, don't make him go without eating too long. They lose their appetite if you do.
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post #4 of 9
8/29/11 at 5:43pm
Don't give up, Wispyrustle (what a cute name!). There are several tricks that can be used to help a kitty transition from one food to the next. CatInfo.org has a great article (Transitioning) that goes into a lot of detail; I'm sure you'll find information in there that will be helpful, but in the meantime, here's a list of things you can try:

Drip a bit of tuna juice over the new wet food, or sprinkle catnip, Parmesan Cheese, Forti Flora flakes, fish food flakes (weird, but it works), or some crumbled up freeze-dried meat treats (Whole Life's chicken works wonderfully on my kitties) over the food.

Good luck! It's a pain when our kitties fight us in the switch to a healthier food, eh?

AC
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post #5 of 9
8/29/11 at 6:08pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the links! I'll go check them out. Its been two days since I took away the Fancy Feast. I just did what you suggested and I dribbled some chicken broth on top of his Blue Wilderness wet food. He definitely seemed more interested and even nibbled a bit of it I will keep trying...
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post #6 of 9
8/29/11 at 7:01pm
Cats can go up to twelve hours without food, so my suggestion would be to bring out the Blue like you would the FF, get her excited and what-not, then after you put it down, immediately walk away, don't look at the sad eyes. After 30 minutes if she has not eaten it, take it up and put it in the fridge, wait an hour, and put it back down. Continue to do this until the twelve hour, then put down a spoonful of FF, no more. After she eats it, put the Blue right back down and start all over again.
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post #7 of 9
8/30/11 at 12:01pm
Personal experience; give up on just that one particular recipe. There is no reason to invest that much effort into forcing them to eat a food that they hate. There are plenty of other good brands/flavors/textures out there, and IMO kitties deserve to enjoy tasty food just like I do as that's something they should get to look forward to and get excited about every day and not just begrudgingly eat to avoid starvation.
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post #8 of 9
8/30/11 at 1:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wispyrustle View Post
Thanks for the links! I'll go check them out. Its been two days since I took away the Fancy Feast. I just did what you suggested and I dribbled some chicken broth on top of his Blue Wilderness wet food. He definitely seemed more interested and even nibbled a bit of it I will keep trying...
You're welcome.

It might help if you start feeding your boy a rotation of canned foods, rather than just a single variety. This will keep him from becoming fixated on any one product (a problem if they change or stop producing it) and will protect him from potential quality control issues by diluting them. Before I switched to raw, I was feeding my cats 21 different varieties.

AC
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post #9 of 9
8/30/11 at 2:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ducman69 View Post
Personal experience; give up on just that one particular recipe. There is no reason to invest that much effort into forcing them to eat a food that they hate. There are plenty of other good brands/flavors/textures out there, and IMO kitties deserve to enjoy tasty food just like I do as that's something they should get to look forward to and get excited about every day and not just begrudgingly eat to avoid starvation.
See, I used to think this too until my cat started being picky about Everything. When I first bought Before Grain he loved only the chicken and turkey flavor. Then only chicken. So I bought other flavors and then he didn't like the chicken. And he didn't like a whole case of By Nature. And then it seemed like he liked everything one day and not the next. Until I got tough. I put down the food, and if it doesn't suit his taste, well that's so super sad. He'll pout for about 3 minutes and then, well look at this? He ate it all.
IMO allowing a cat to not like a flavor and working around his needs breeds pickiness.
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