Switching Foods is HARD!

We were feeding our 3 cats Whiskas Purrfectly Fish pouches and then free feeding dry food. I decided to try to make a change to something a bit healthier and have been feeding them Fancy Feast Classics. I already knew they didn't like pate but I mushed it up real good and added water as was suggested here. Still kept free feeding the dry food, but they barely eat it anyhow so I didn't feel too bad about that. They clearly weren't happy with the change in food, but they were eating so I just kept on with it. 

Today I was gone a big longer than I anticipated and when I got home, they should have been starving. The dry food bowl was completely empty, but who knows when it was even filled last - maybe 2 days ago and it's a small bowl. I put down a small can of Fancy Feast for each of the 3 cats. None of them ate even half of their can. Fast forward 30 minutes and River, our pickiest eater, is pacing around like she's hungry, even though there's food sitting around all over the place. I ignored her, hoping she'd start eating the Fancy Feast. She didn't, and then she started pawing under the stove until she found one little piece of dry food and ate it. Clearly she's hungry. So I get fill the dry food bowl up with Wellness Core dry food, which is NOT what I usually feed them, but it's something I'm trying to get them started on slowly. When Miles, our 2nd pickiest eater, heard the dry food, he came running. They both sniffed it, decided it was gross, and walked away. I know they're hungry, but they don't want this food! 

What's the best move here? Do I just keep putting this food out for them until they decide to eat it? If it was a child I'd probably not worry too much and thnk "he'll eat when he's hungry - he's not going to starve himself." But these darn cats are stubborn and I worry about fatty liver and all that.

I just worry about them. I want them to eat something somewhat healthful. I tried the Fancy Feast because I read it was pretty widely accepted among cats and I figured once I got them switched to one type of pate, I'd be able to fairly easily switch them to another kind of pate such as Wellness Core Wet. It just seems like that healthiest foods (other than raw), seem to be pate, and my cats just aren't into that.

So do I force them to eat this? Try another kind of healthy pate that they probably won't like? Switch back to the old, not as healthy food? Or is there some kind of healthy-ish food that's not pate that I don't know about?

RIccaDawn said:

Or is there some kind of healthy-ish food that's not pate that I don't know about?

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Most definitely! See if you can find some Weruva. Wellness also has some decent pouch foods (Healthy Indulgences) as well as a new line of minced, sliced, or cubed grain-free canned options. Natural Balance makes some non-pate pouch food, and Blue Buffalo has a few chunky varieties in cans.

In the meantime, your kitties have to eat. But what I would do is stop leaving dry out and only feed it at meal time. Leave the canned out for the day instead (yes, it's totally fine to do that). Gradually feed less dry for the meals, and watch to make sure they pick up the slack by eating more wet.

Some videos that might help:

http://healthypets.mercola.com/site...nsition-your-cat-to-raw-food-diet-part-1.aspx

http://healthypets.mercola.com/site...nsition-your-cat-to-raw-food-diet-part-2.aspx

Is Wellness still a good food even if you don't get the Core Grain Free kind? I saw they had chunky, non-pate food available, but not in the grain-free variety. I'm kind of stuck on wellness because I can get it at Pet Smart and that's about the only place available around here. Just searched the website and couldn't find any Weruva within 50 miles  

IMHO it is never a good idea to force a cat to eat what he/she does not like without a medical reason. If they don't like pate, don't feed pate. If they don't like FFC, don't feed FFC. There are much healthier wet cat foods that are not pate.

RIccaDawn said:

Is Wellness still a good food even if you don't get the Core Grain Free kind? I saw they had chunky, non-pate food available, but not in the grain-free variety. I'm kind of stuck on wellness because I can get it at PetSmart and that's about the only place available around here. Just searched the website and couldn't find any Weruva within 50 miles  

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You don't need a local store to sell Weruva if you can buy a few cans online. See if Only Natural Pet and Pet Food Direct sell it. Wag.com has it. If they like it, you can buy a case of 24 on Amazon.

Remember Petsmart is a big store. It might have something else that is healthier than FFC (someone who shops there would know). I shop at Petco because that is closer to me than Petsmart, but I know Petsmart sells Blue Buffalo.

Soulistic might be good. . .or do they only have that at PetCo? Or maybe Simply Nourish?

I was just going to recommend Soulistic.  It's Petco's own brand, I think, and my extremely picky cats like almost all of their flavors!  BTW, mine HATE wellness, canned and dry. 

that disdainful look they give like, "have you gotten so stupid that you don't even know what to feed me anymore?" and then the poop-covering move is the worst.  i just switched my three to all canned and then grain-free about three weeks into that, and i'd say the first month is the hardest. 

i have a very compliant cat who is very happy to finally be able to eat as much as she needs to, and if she won't eat something, i'm pretty much guaranteed that the others won't.  the next eats all the food everyone else leaves.  he's a bigger cat (longer, bigger bones) anyway but i don't want him to gain any weight.  he could stand to lose a little, but i can always work on that when all the kinks are worked out of what and when to feed.  then the two year-old is mr. picky.  even when i know he's hungry, like in the morning because i don't feed them late, the other two will be busy eating and sometimes he goes along and other times he refuses.  he's gotten better though, because i played, "oh gee, i'm sorry you're so hungry and don't like that because that's all there is."  at first he wanted to hold out for dry food, then that disappeared (it's still here but in my mind, it isn't) and he seems to have forgotten about it.  then he gets on a fish kick which isn't really convenient because i do have some, but i don't want to feed it to them all the time.  and he's not getting special service like, "oh sir, you don't like that?  well let me replace it with something you will," because at first that's what i was doing kind of, i'd be like, "omg houdini hasn't eaten in FOUR HOURS i better find something he likes." 

it might be easier for me though because i have two who are complying, for the most part, and he knows i'll feed them and go off and leave him and no food magically appears until the next meal time.  but if you have a food that all three of yours won't eat, it might be the food, i don't know.  cats are weird.  one day they like something, the next time they don't, then they decide to like it again . i can't let mine have any fancy feast at all because then no matter what is next, they don't like for a couple of days.  and omitting FF seems to have worked.  they know they won't be getting the same flavors (or even texture) for more than a day.  but it really does get easier. . .

Thanks for the support guys

I just didn't realize there was so much out there that fall into the semi-healthy category that's not pate. But a lot of my research has been online, and in the beginning I'd think I'd found a great food only to go to the store and realize they didn't carry it here. I'm pretty much limited to Pet Smart at this point and also anything I can buy online. Obviously I need to try stuff one can at a time for now, so I've been buying at the store. Once I find something we all can live with, I'm sure I'll order cases online.

I feel kind of silly too...I didn't realize that ALL (or almost all) Wellness food is grain free. I thought that only the Core was grain free, but it's not. If that's not the case, then what makes the Core special and more expensive than the other Wellness food? 

I did actually end up buying some Wellness pouches last night. Not all the varieties are marked grain free, but about half of them are, so I stuck to those. I also bought some Wellness cans. I bought the same flavor (chicken) in 3 different styles - minced, cubed, and sliced - to see which one my guys my like best (if they liked it at all). I came home from work today to find all 3 varieties gone - hubby said they gobbled them up indiscriminately. They really liked the pouches too though, and I'm a big fan of the convenience of the pouch, so that's something I can see myself sticking to, just as long as the cats don't decide they hate this food too after a week. 

Now I just need to find something to do with the *cases* of other food I'd already bought when my cats were pretending they liked it. I suppose I could donate it to the shelter. I think though they might have on their website a specific brand that they prefer. Do they usually take brands other than that? Sorry, just thinking out loud there...

what makes the Core special and more expensive than the other Wellness food?

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I often wondered this myself.  I'm sure someone here will know the answer.  Mine love Wellness regular grain free canned and the pate flavors are available in 12.5 oz cans online.  I love the value of the bigger cans!  We do rotate in other brands for some variety, but the Wellness never really gets rotated out because they love it so much and I love the value.  Oh and many of the brands we've tried have not been available locally so we did end up buying a whole case online.  None of them were completely rejected but I did take pity after a while and donate some they were very slow to eat to the humane society.  They were glad to get the canned food.

Wellness Core's ingredients are listed below:

Chicken, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Chicken Liver, Chicken Meal, Turkey Liver, Dried Ground Potatoes, Natural Chicken Flavor, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Cranberries, Ground Flaxseed, Salmon Oil, Taurine, Dried Kelp, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Chicory Root Extract, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Cobalt Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Folic Acid, Niacin, Sodium Selenite, d-Calcium Panthothenate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Biotin.

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And regular Wellness' ingredients are:

Chicken, Chicken Liver, Turkey, Chicken Broth, Carrots, Natural Chicken Flavor, Sweet Potatoes, Squash, Zucchini, Cranberries, Blueberries, Guar Gum, Dicalcium Phosphate, Carrageenan, Ground Flaxseed, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Taurine, Iron Proteinate (a source of Chelated Iron), Beta-Carotene, Zinc Proteinate (a source of Chelated Zinc), Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Cobalt Proteinate (a source of Chelated Cobalt), Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Proteinate (a source of Chelated Copper), Folic Acid, Manganese Proteinate (a source of Chelated Manganese), Niacin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Sodium Selenite, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Biotin.

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I think it's because Wellness Core is grain free, and regular Wellness isn't. By the way, the regular Wellness I posted the ingredients for is the chicken recipe.

Ah, but regular Wellness is grain free.  It says so on the cans.  I'm guessing the Core has less fruits and veggies and an even higher meat content.

As a percentage of calories, the regular grain-free Wellness canned flavours (chicken, turkey, beef/chicken, turkey/salmon, kitten, chicken/herring) are all quite low in carbs (less than 6%). The chicken and turkey Wellness Core is a bit higher in carbs at 8% of calories, the fishy one is even more at 13%, probably because of the potato. There are a few new flavours of Core out (an Indoor formula, venison/beef/lamb, turkey/duck and kitten) that don't have potato in them so perhaps they're lower in carbs.

So I've been feeding mostly the Wellness Pouches for the last 2-3 days since I started this thread since my cats seem to love that stuff. When they're not eating the pouches, they're eating some sliced, minced, or cubed Wellness from the cans. 2 of my cats are very good about eating only when they're hungry and not because they're bored. Last night, a few hours after their evening meal, River started pawing around the dry food bowl as if she was hungry. I ignored her, and 15 minutes later, Miles started doing the same thing. Very odd, I thought. So I did a google search for "wellness pouches calories." And the only thing I could really find was a forum posting (not this forum) that stated that the Wellness pouches on average had between 75-80 calories per pouch. So for my 10 pound cat, at 20 calories per pound, he needs 200-ish, and he's getting 160 with 2 pouches of Wellness.

Buuut...I have no idea if this caloric content from the forum was accurate at all. But since my kitties were acting hungry after 2 pouches, I think it might be right. Then I'm thinking wow, up to three 3oz pouches per day. Seems like so much. 9 ounces a day per cat? I understand it'd be less than that as I'm rounding it off, but still it seems like a lot. Am I off base here? Does that caloric content sound right to you guys? Or do you know where I can get the real info?

probably got it from association for pet obesity prevention: http://www.petobesityprevention.com/

http://www.petobesityprevention.com...Food-Calorie-Counts-December-2011-Wet-Cat.pdf

My 10 - 12 pound cats all ate between 180 - 225 calories per day. That's a range of 15 to 22 calories per pound, and probably averaged 17 - 18 calories per pound per day. So I think it really depends on the cat, their metabolism, level of activity, etc.

But the Weruva foods do have fewer calories per weight than most foods, part of why it's expensive to feed them. :nod: