My cat isn't eating much of her food

Hi,

I originally fed my cat dry food, but she was powering through it very quickly and wanting almost double the amount recommended. She was a stray cat and was a bit underweight. I began to split her food up into baggies, and only gave her the recommended amount. I would split it up into night and day bags. However, before I would leave for work, she would quickly power through the morning bag and stare/scratch at her bowl and meow for more. So I would give her a bit of the night bag and she would still go through that.

I finally called her vet and they suggested I try a wet food. I originally had tried Halo wet food, and she loved it, however it was much more expensive and had less calories than Wellness (which is what I switched to)  so I was feeding more and spending more money each day. Therefore, I switched to Wellness Chicken wet. She seemed to like it okay (not as much as the Halo though). It's been about a year and she has been pretty good on it, some days she might leave a bit more than what she is recommended to eat. However, the past few weeks, she hasn't been eating much of it and is leaving quite a bit left over. I'm considering adding some dry food on top of her wet food and seeing if that encourages her to eat more.

I also used Fortiflora on her food a few months ago when she was getting over a parasite and she loved the Fortiflora. So that could also help, however, it would only be used on one out of the two meals a day.

And advice would be greatly appreciated!

Wet food is definitely better for her as she gets more natural liquid, like a cat does in the wild when eating prey.  If she needs more calories, you can try mixing in a little EVO 95% chicken & turkey canned food (if you can find it!  It usually sells out instantly at fine pet food places, and neither PetsMart nor Petco carry it locally.  It is totally grain free and has a very high fat content.  This is a great food to use for cats who don't eat much because they will still get enough calories.

In my experience, cats who have experienced real hunger before coming into a place where food is a regular thing will overeat, because they learned to eat all they could when food was available because they never knew when they might see food again.  My little church dumpee rescue went from tubular to overweight in record time because I had not realized that after she ate her food overly fast, she then went and pushed the others out of their dishes if they were not finished and she ate theirs too.  Now I have to monitor feeding in that room because even though she is sleek and even fat, she still has that tendency to dive into food and eat all she can fit, even to the point of vomiting after eating occasionally.  She was definitely starving when she first came in and was eating three whole 5.5 oz. cans of wet food daily and wanted more.  She has not gone hungry in the five months I have had her, but she still wants to eat like a starved cat half the time. 

Variety. Add some other foods to her rotation. Most of us feed a variety of foods in a rotation to keep our cats from getting bored and to give them protein variety. Brands my cats like that are also liked by many other members here too

Werua

Tikicat

Merrick limited ingredients 

Nutro natural choice

Soulistic by Petco

You can also use treats crushed up on top of her food to entice her to eat.

I agree with missmimz, both about variety and the foods she suggests! Lots of cats -- including ours -- get bored with their food very easily.

Thanks for the advice.

I'll try switching it up a bit. Do you think it's okay to stay with Wellness? I like buying the 12.5 oz cans as they are such a great deal. Maybe switching from Chicken to Turkey will help? I'm not sure how much turkey will make a difference. I would try a combination of salmon, trout, etc. but from what I hear, fish can be pretty bad for cats.

It's fine to start with Wellness (and I understand about it being a great deal!), though it's often helpful to offer multiple brands, too. Heaven forbid that we feed similar foods to our cats two days in a row! They'd walk away if we did that regularly. I think they may be more picky about this than most cats, though, as missmimz mentioned, a rotation works well for lots of people and their cats. It might be one food one meal (or day, depending), another at the next, and so on. There are some foods I can feed as leftovers without adding a treat on top; others, though, need added encouragement.

Of course every cat is different and some do prefer to eat the same food every single day. At least until they get tired of it! I wouldn't want to feed only one kind of food, though, in case of recalls, shortages, or other supply issues.

As for fish, we don't feed much of it at all: our vet recommends highly against tuna but thinks a little salmon every now and then is okay. Our cats do like fish so I feed them an occasional food with fish, as a treat.

I also rotate several,some they won't eat more than once a week, others they eat every other day, the girl is more fussy than the boy. Even my feral won't eat Sheba only Friskies, go figure! They have their likes, just like people. I rotate Merrick, Soulistic, Tiki, Red Barn, Pride rabbit, Instinct, Iams liver & chicken, they like Friskies but I save that for ferals

Esanders323 said:

 
Thanks for the advice.

I'll try switching it up a bit. Do you think it's okay to stay with Wellness? I like buying the 12.5 oz cans as they are such a great deal. Maybe switching from Chicken to Turkey will help? I'm not sure how much turkey will make a difference. I would try a combination of salmon, trout, etc. but from what I hear, fish can be pretty bad for cats.

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Sure I'd stick with Wellness adding another flavor is great, but I'd also look into adding some other brands to the rotation. You can still feed her the chicken, but add turkey, and then considering adding other brands. One other reason to consider using multiple brands is incase there's an issue with one brand of food, you have others that your cat is willing to eat. 

When I figured up the cost of ordering Merrick 5.5oz cans online from Chewy.com, it only ended up being a few extra cents per ounce from the 12.5 oz cans of Wellness. 

missmimz said:

 
Variety. Add some other foods to her rotation. Most of us feed a variety of foods in a rotation to keep our cats from getting bored and to give them protein variety. Brands my cats like that are also liked by many other members here too

Werua

Tikicat

Merrick limited ingredients 

Nutro natural choice

Soulistic by Petco

You can also use treats crushed up on top of her food to entice her to eat.

Click to expand...

I'm going to be trying more of these soon, the only one on that list I've used to this point is Merrick. I've been using NVI, but I can see the interest starting to wane.

Hi, I used to have a picky cat, too. My dear Emelie and then I got a new cat, Sunny, and she was not such a great eater. So I searched around and found a catbreeder recommending, to feed the cat twice daily but not letting the leftovers in the room. After an appropriate time to eat, not overly long, put the food away. Reason: the cat smells it all the time and the stomach replies on autopilot but 24/7 isn't meant for the cat. Also he declared that it looses every excitement for the cat. I tried that and now I'm hero for my sweet ladies.