Why is canned food so foul?

Ok, so I feed all my cats currently Blue Buffalo Wilderness which is grain free high quality dry food. However the new baby came to me still on KMR, so its been a slow weaning process involving me for 2 weeks now mixing human baby food in with some GNC plus Kitten Weaning Formula. Its been working well, she loves it, but as she is getting bigger I am starting to worry that is not enough nutrition. She is 8 weeks now and nibbles on dry but only to keep hunger at bay till she can gorge herself on her twice daily feedings of baby food. The GNC formula has vitamins and minerals, but is it enough? 

I tried her several times on canned kitten food, and she HATES it. I refuse to buy stuff with grains and prefer Blue Buffalo since I trust them, so she has tried both the Blue Buffalo Kitten Grain Free foods and refuses to eat them. Even if I try and sneak some in, just a spoonful in with her milk and baby food she knows and will not eat it! I mean, I cannot blame her when baby food smells like meat and canned cat food smells like something died. Why does it have to be so gross? Baby food I am ok with, but the canned food even makes me a little 

I know Raw is the best, and the smartest and all that...but I really don't think I can afford it plus I really do not have to time to be feeding them around the clock. Kibble works great for my two adults and has for a while, I don't give them canned...again because its disgusting. 

Can I just keep giving her the baby food/formula mixture until she grows up a bit and is hopefully less picky? BTW, the specs on the formula. I give her one tsp which is one tbsp reconstituted 

Guaranteed Analysis

• Crude Protein (min) - 34%
• Crude Fat (min) - 11%
• Crude Fiber (max) - 4%
• Moisture (max) - 8%
• Iodine (min) - 2 mg/k

Ingredients: 
Rice Flour, Dried Meat Solubles, Dried Skimmed Milk, Dried Milk Protein Concentrate, Animal Fat (preserved with BHT and BHA), Coconut Oil, High Oleic Canola Oil, Dicalcium Phosphate, Dried Whey Product, Whey, Casein, Potassium Chloride, Maltodextrins, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Silicon Dioxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Gluconate, DL-Methionine, Taurine, Vitamin E Supplement, Manganese Sulfate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Ethylenediamine Dihydroiodide.

Maybe try some different brands of wet food. I had huge success with Wellness, especially the chicken formula. It actually smells like chicken so she might like it better. I have never actually used the kitten formula only the adult. But they are really similar in protein, fat, and calories that it doesn't really make a difference. You might even have more options out there to try, I have very limited selection here.
 

I don't know which ingredients you object to. I always use Fancy Feast kitten--it doesn't have grains but there are by-products and other things you might not like.

But do try some other brand you're comfortable with. I've been occasionally giving my cats EVO 95% meat chicken and turkey, and it smells so good I want to smear some on crackers and have a snack :lo3:

Which canned foods did you try? We have a picky eater at home and she would just rather gorge down on her dry than eat wet, god only knows what would happen if I gave her baby formula... she'd probably never eat another thing again. 

What I would do is slowly feed her less of the baby, so that she realizes she cannot only eat that, otherwise she'll go hungry. It's probably not 'bad' for her if you feed it till she's an adult, however, if you allow her to eat it for that long you may never get her off it, so the sooner she learns the better. I know myself how hard it can be, but sometimes you have to be a strict parent, and treat them the way you would treat a child, in the sense of if they don't eat whats healthy first they won't get dessert or a treat, otherwise you can get stuck in a routine of them learning if I don't touch that food, I know my owner will give me the tastier food if I wait long enough (my mom would do that to my cats and then they end up controlling her). Now of course there are circumstances were this does not apply, i.e. sick or won't eat at all. 

Wet foods can stink, especially the beefy and fishy ones. Have you only tried chicken or turkey? Maybe your kitten would prefer darker meats such as lamb, venison or beef? Or as a last resort you could try fish. 

Here's some wet foods our picky eater likes:

• Innova cat and kitten ( i would try this one first)
• Nature's variety Prairie Lamb & Liver (it's in slices)
• Merricks Cowboy Cookout (mostly beef)
• Blue Wilderness Wild Delights (in chunks again, but very tasty)
• Wellness Chicken and Herring (this one stinks to us but they love it!)

Also with our picky girl we rotate flavours between meals. I usually leave two small cans open and feed one to her say for breakfast and the other for lunch, so she doesn't get tired of the food to fast. One thing that's also important is persistence. Is she won't eat it the first time, keep giving it to her every hour. And if she won't touch it after awhile try another wet food. After using trial and error, we've figured out what she'll eat and what she completely refuses and based on that list we rotate between them and now she's eating very well, and barely ever eats any dry.

Also not to put too much on your plate, but Blue Wilderness Dry is not the highest quality out there. Its carbohydrate heavy has an unidentified fish as the 5th ingredient,  and two sources of nutrients cats cannot digest (flaxseed and beta carotene).

Here's a link on best of the dry out there: http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2011/08/best-dry-cat-foods-so-far/

Keep us posted on her progress! 

Wow those ingredients are from a baby food? I wouldn't feed that to my baby let alone my kitten. It has menadione bisulphite which is controversial substitute for vitamin k. I don't know if the claims about it being bad is true but I would just stay away. Anyway as another poster said try another brand or texture (pate, minced, shredded etc) what you can do too is put some kibble in the wet food. What I did waS mis the kibble and canned and feed it from my hand. Gross yes but it got my kitten to eat canned food. But you may end up buying a few types until you find one or two that work. Wellness has some that have different textures. Their regular kids are usually pate but they also make cubed, sliced and minced kinds. I also always suggest Almo Nature to encourage cats to eat. You can't just feed it on its own bit they re tasty and they just contain meat. Weruva makes some tasty flavours. Stick with non-fish flavours as cats aren't meant to eat fish.(both almo Naturals and Weruva make fish based foods but I would avoid it for now. Maybe once in a while when you hve gotten your kitten eating canned food consistently.

Canned foods are stinky! I cannot stand the smell bit it is better than the smell of kibble. The stinkier the better to allure your kitten to canned.

Willowy said:

But do try some other brand you're comfortable with. I've been occasionally giving my cats EVO 95% meat chicken and turkey, and it smells so good I want to smear some on crackers and have a snack :lol3:

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I've been giving my cats Evo lately and they both love it. It's mostly meat, and it smells good to me (and obviously them too). Don't know if I'd go so far as to try it myself, but it does remind me of tasty pate....

Violetxx said:

...
What I would do is slowly feed her less of the baby, so that she realizes she cannot only eat that, otherwise she'll go hungry. It's probably not 'bad' for her if you feed it till she's an adult, however, if you allow her to eat it for that long you may never get her off it, so the sooner she learns the better. I know myself how hard it can be, but sometimes you have to be a strict parent, and treat them the way you would treat a child, in the sense of if they don't eat whats healthy first they won't get dessert or a treat, otherwise you can get stuck in a routine of them learning if I don't touch that food, I know my owner will give me the tastier food if I wait long enough (my mom would do that to my cats and then they end up controlling her). Now of course there are circumstances were this does not apply, i.e. sick or won't eat at all....

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as she's so young you'd be starting off right by discouraging fussy eating as much as possible.

Willowy said:

I've been occasionally giving my cats EVO 95% meat chicken and turkey, and it smells so good I want to smear some on crackers and have a snack :lo3:

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I know what you mean!!

Jezahb, remember that all commercial pet (dog and cat) foods are designed for them not us.  You did answer your question about raw that would be a good move for all of your cats and I recommend you read the paperback written by a holistic veterinarian, Dr. Karen Becker, it is titled Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats.  Raw meat alone is not a natural balanced diet for your kitties and this book does and excellent job on how to make your own cat food.   I would try to get your adult cats off of the kibble because of the long term potential of kidney disease and if you leave the kibble out day and night cats tend to over eat and become obese and then your next problem will be dealing with diabetes.

If you think she would like babyfood over canned cat food Beechnut makes a good chicken baby food and perhaps you could get her eating that and then add small amounts of whatever canned you like, however I wouldn't stick to just one brand, this is the time to be introducing as many flavors and proteins as you can.  As far as feeding raw, it's quite a bit cheaper than canned for me and I feed less often than I did with kibble, my cat could only eat small amounts of dry without puking but she can eat quite a bit of raw at once with no problem.  I feed 3-4 times daily but two would work fine.  
 

pushylady said:

I've been giving my cats Evo lately and they both love it. It's mostly meat, and it smells good to me (and obviously them too). Don't know if I'd go so far as to try it myself, but it does remind me of tasty pate....

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I thought EVO was mostly meat too. But the AAFCO definition of "chicken" (or whatever) has enough latitude that EVO (at least chicken & turkey) is mostly fat: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245993/high-quality-canned-high-fat

Well, paté (for humans) is mostly fat, too. Probably why EVO smells like a cracker spread .

Good point! :nod: