Uh, cat went off raw food?

So Pia has been a bit perplexing lately. I started her on frozen pre-made raw quite a while ago. She took to it right away. I started by mixing it with the Fancy Feast she came to me eating from the shelter, and she ate AROUND the wet food and only ate the raw. Obviously she must have liked it, so I went to 100% raw pretty quickly. I fed her a mix of proteins from Nature's Variety, Primal, and sometimes Rad Cat. I had 3 different kinds of foods at any given time that were rotated.

I will also say that Pia was never terribly picky. She had her preferences, but even if it was something she didn't like, she'd eat at least most of it anyway.

And all of a sudden... she went off it pretty much completely. One day, she just decided she is not eating raw food anymore. She would nibble a little bit at the chicken, but wouldn't get anywhere near the rabbit.

I still had some Fancy Feast laying around, so I gave her that just to see if she'll eat anything at all. Yup, ate that just fine.

So either she's suddenly gotten picky or there's something wrong with this batch. I didn't notice anything like vomiting, lethargy, or other symptoms of problems, so I'm assuming it's not a health issue.

So I went down to the local high end pet store and got a bunch of different things. I got higher quality canned food, Stella and Chewy's freeze-dried raw, and Honest Kitchen dehydrated, in addition to a small container of Rad Cat frozen raw (which she hadn't had in a while).

So far, this is what I'm getting.

She will not eat anything but canned. She hardly touched the dehydrated food, and she only ate maybe half of the freeze-dried raw.

However, she will eat anything and everything that is canned. Quality doesn't matter. Canned anything is fine.

Uh, what happened? Do I suddenly just have a picky cat? Why?

Also, if I could get your two cents on the best canned foods out there, that'd be great, because it looks like that's what Pia's gonna be eating for a while! I never looked into it too much before, because she went straight from Fancy Feast to full-on raw with no problems.

Kitties are so perplexing sometimes.  She is still eating which is very good.  http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf  is a chart of most of the foods in the U.S. with their fat, protein, and carb percentages.  You want to go by the dry matter percentages and get high protein, low carb foods.  All wet foods have something in them that is a negative usually in terms of thickeners.  

You will get a lot of opinions on the best foods.  Nature's Variety Instinct is good.  Hounds and Gatos is good but it has limited distribution so most of us end up buying it on line.  At the other end of the price scale the Fancy Feast Classics pates and some of the Friskies pates are pretty good.  There are other decent ones in between those two price wise.

Denice said:

 
Kitties are so perplexing sometimes.  She is still eating which is very good.  http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf  is a chart of most of the foods in the U.S. with their fat, protein, and carb percentages.  You want to go by the dry matter percentages and get high protein, low carb foods.  All wet foods have something in them that is a negative usually in terms of thickeners.  

You will get a lot of opinions on the best foods.  Nature's Variety Instinct is good.  Hounds and Gatos is good but it has limited distribution so most of us end up buying it on line.  At the other end of the price scale the Fancy Feast Classics pates and some of the Friskies pates are pretty good.  There are other decent ones in between those two price wise.

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Thanks! Wow, the Honest Kitchen doesn't look as good as I thought it would be. I just got a free sample packet they let me try out, but I guess I see why she didn't like it!

Yeah, I did get a couple cans of the Instinct canned. I also got a can of Tiki, which she seemed to like pretty well. But I've seen a couple of mixed reviews on here about them?

Her favorite so far seems to be California Natural. I don't see that one listed?

California Natural is on there.  It's not great but it not's horrible either.  Honest Kitchen is grain-free but it also has a lot of fruits and vegetables in it which is probably where the high carb percentage comes from.  Even though California Natural has rice in it, it has a lower carb percentage.  Because grain free has become a catch phrase for healthy food a lot of companies are using other fillers that are cheaper than meat, they can then rightfully say that they are grain free and keep production costs down.

Tinky quit raw cold turkey too .  It really bummed me out.  This happened a couple of months ago, and he still shows no interest in raw AT ALL .  I was hard pressed to find things he would eat, but finally I found a few things he liked.   Can't say they are the best, but I absolutely refuse to give him anything that's too high in carbs.  Right now he's eating Natural Balance Catatouille (chicken), Natural Balance Platefuls Chicken and Salmon, Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken, and Nutro Natural Choice almost all flavors except the ocean fish ones.   I like Natural Planet, but HE doesn't . 

So now I have one cat eating raw, one eating Fancy Feast in GRAVY of all things (kidney cat and the CLASSICS are WAY too high in phosphorus....besides, now the GRAVY FF is the only thing she'll eat ) and one cat eating fairly good canned food.  Mealtimes at our house is quite an adventure.

Apparently I was wrong! She scarfed down Rad Cat like she hadn't eaten in years.

So I guess the "bad batch" hypothesis is back on the table. But they were two different brands of foods. I did get them the same day though. Freezer malfunction?

Or maybe just sick of those brands? She hasn't had Rad Cat in a while, so maybe it's fresh to her. It also seems to be a little more, perhaps, unprocessed than Primal or Nature's Variety. Maybe that's it?

Well, I found something raw that she'll eat. Win!

Kitties sometimes just seem fickle at least to us anyway.  I am sure there is a reason for what they do but we can't always figure it out.  I am glad she is back eating raw.

One of my cats isn't too picky but will only eat certain brands/favours. One of my cats would only eat fish-based wet food. Various brands, but only the fishy flavours. For years. If we put anything else down she'd refuse to eat it and pester and beg for food. This could go on for days sometimes, her on hunger strike and us stressing. She's a master of psychological warfare, so we always wound up giving in before she did. She's finally eating some red-meat based food now but fish still makes up a much larger part of her diet than it should. The third cat ate everything I put down at first because she was a starving stray, but as son as she realised she was here for good and that the food wasn't going anywhere, she got picky. Now she'll only eat one brand, every flavour in that brand (although there are some obvious favourites and disliked flavours). I've tried multiple times to feed her tasty treats, like raw chopped liver, chicken, and my flatmate even puts down unwanted offcuts from her steak and bacon every now and again. This is human grade meat that I buy and prepare especially for feline consumption, and Mama doesn't touch any of it. I don't think she would ever accept a raw diet. (Her baby eats it all though! The baby is one of those feline trash cans, ha). 

My conclusion? Cats are weird and picky and fickle creatures, and it's oftentimes futile to try to understand the mysterious workings of their minds. Maybe you got a bad batch, maybe there was a freezer problem, or maybe you cat is just, well, being a cat.