Hard time getting cat to eat - options? (newly indoor feral)

My new cat is making me jump through hoops with food. She is the first cat I've had that's just mine, so I've been doing lots of research on healthy diets so I can try to offer her the very best. She's also the first cat I've ever had that's been this difficult.

The trouble is getting her to eat! I met Astrid as a feral outside my work and she gobbled down any food I offered her on the occasions I got a chance to. But since she's come home with me, she's been progressively more picky? Who would think an ex-feral would be so particular?

I started off free feeding dry and offering a can of wet once a day and she ate fine. Shortly after I brought her home, I snuck Comfortis in her food, and she started being selective about her wet food, but still eating dry pretty consistently. Anorexia is a side effect, so I thought it was the meds at first, but those are well out of her system by now so if it was a factor before, it isn't any longer.

Since then its become apparent that she is picky, given that she will consistently refuse certain brands. I started a log to record how much she ate of each kind of food so I can figure out which ones she likes.

But recently she's backed off of food altogether. Originally she ate her recommended serving size and drank plenty of water, which I was excited about. Now she eats maybe 2 - 5 bites of food a day and has stopped eating things she ate before. She switched to just one dry food (I was letting her taste test new healthier varieties but she still had a full bowl of what the family cats eat, which she used to eat) and is refusing all but one kind of can (Nutro Max Cat, her favorite, which I hate feeding her and only do to make sure she's eating something).

I have tried lots of different things to coax her to eat. Gerber turkey baby food (she seems to like turkey flavored things), bonito flakes, Tiki Cat tuna flavor (essentially a can of tuna), various treats, adding water to the food...any suggestion I could find I've tried. Nothing works but Nutro Max, and that is only so tempting.

I did try calling my vet as well and explained the situation and asked if they felt it was in her best interests to come in (she hasn't made much progress towards being "tame" yet, so she's still pretty much feral). I didn't get to talk to a vet, but the person I talked to seemed to think it was probably all stress and that she needed to be less stressed before she came in or we'd just traumatize her and make things worse. Which does make sense, she is definitely stressed, but I don't feel great about her not being seen. She has had FIV/FeLV and heartworm tests, and her rabies shots previously, and I had a fecal done with this recent food issue, and all of her tests came back negative.

The lady I talked to did say that I shouldn't be letting her free feed because she'd never come out and get used to me that way. She said I needed to "starve her out" (don't like that) and only feed when I'm present. I don't think its the best time to do it with eating issues, but not being used to people also probably contributes to her stress. So I'm trying it, but kind of using a loophole that she gets to eat while I sleep in the room to ease her into it.

She did at least eat more last night than she has any given day in the past week, which is good. I might stop by the vet today to try to talk to someone in person, I don't know.

I've been thinking about trying raw, since she would have been out hunting and eating raw as a feral (though she might have been eating cheap dry with a nearby community as well). I tried Nature's Variety Raw Bites and she didn't touch them, but that was during the day when she eats less anyways. Need to try again at night. I found a store with RadCat samples, I need to go pick some up. I was also looking at Hare Today, but the minimum order has me scared away at the moment (10lbs, about 2 months at her serving size, is a big commitment, especially for a picky cat). She was very likely living off of beach mice and rats, so I love the idea of feeding her ground mouse.

All of that, as well as a coworker's suggestion has me thinking - can I/should I try a prekilled feeder mouse? (The frozen mice sold for snakes.) It might help with the bonding too, since indoor/outdoor cats bring the people they love mice? She might make the connection that I love her so I bring her mice too? That might be a stretch, but I am a little desperate and its a nice thought...

Anyways, tl;dr, I'm having trouble getting my cat to eat more than a couple bites a day, none of the tricks I've read about appeal to her, and my vet's office thinks she's too stressed to be seen. Any suggestions?

I'm hoping someone who knows about feeding prekilled feeder mice will chime in since I have no experience in feeding raw.  However, having read your post, it certainly seems like a reasonable thing to try.   The point I wanted to comment on is Astrid's stress.  I'm a little troubled by someone at the vet's saying a cat that is barely eating is too stressed to come in.  I wonder if the actual vet would have said the same thing.   Cats who don't eat enough can develop hepatic lipidosis, a very difficult condition to treat.  I also am troubled by the same person suggesting you "starve her out" considering she is barely eating as is.  I'm glad to hear you are not taking that advice!

I think you should call and ask to speak to the actual vet.  While you have the vet on the phone, ask about a short term prescription of an anti-anxiety medication - just enough to reduce Astrid's anxiety about the trip to the vet and for a day or so afterwards for her to put the experience behind her.  This would involve medicating her before hand which might be difficult considering she is feral.  If you can get her to take it in her water or food, that would be ideal but since she's not eating, you might have to actually pill her.  Is that even possible?

For longer term, you might try one of the stress relieving products on the market, like Feliway or Composure.  

Feliway comes as a spray or diffuser:  here is their website:  http://www.feliway.com/us/#redirected   It's based on pheromones that cats emit when they are content and happy.  You might consider getting both the diffuser and the spray.  That way you can spray the insider of Astrid's carrier before she goes to the vet to reduce her anxiety.  Amazon is said to have the cheapest prices.  

Composure is available as a treat or liquid and is another option, especially if Astrid actually likes the treats.   http://www.vetriscience.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=9008103030

I'm sorry I can't help with the nutritional component of the problem but hopefully someone with experience will give some advice.

Sure you can try frozen mice. Just don't expect her to eat them at first, but she'll have a great time making sure they are dead.

I am feeding one feral cat right now, unofficially because he comes in through the cat flap and I don't have the heart to chase him out (he doesn't understand that everyone is allowed in and he's not).

He took right to the guys' raw meat. He is also very interested in mice and rats, but only now (after about 2 months) has started actually eating them.

So from what I understand from your story, it sounds like Astrid is confused. There's a new environment. There's new food. The food is constantly there, as is the food smell.

My suggestions are thus:

1. stop worrying. 

Astrid is a cat. Particularly, a (former) feral one. Those are the toughest. If she is hungry, she will eat. But she most likely doesn't like having someone look over her shoulder all the time.

2. give her time.

patience is probably the best thing when approaching a feral cat. She probably feels unsafe eating and will wait until she is alone, for now.

3.Offer a small amount of whatever you were sure she ate (preferably wet, every cat I know loves the FancyFeast cans). 

4. get yourself educated into the raw feeding of cats. This is not complicated, you just have to understand that cats are around much longer than the pet food industry. Google is your friend.

5. Feeding mice can be expensive and frustrating at first and might take getting used to (I had my last petsitter nearly throw a tantrum at the suggestion of handling dead feeder animals). However, quality is your friend here, and the snake food offered in my local snake heaven didn't cut it (apparently the snakes don't mind). I buy adult mice and rats from Rodentpro, but I did start out using baby animals and moved my way up from there. So if you want to go this route you'll want to make sure Astrid is settled in first.

6. Feliway diffuser can't hurt!

The lady I talked to usually acts as a receptionist, I don't really know if she does anything with the animals. She is married to one of the main vets (not my preferred one, but he does seem to be a generally good vet). I wasn't happy with what I was told, but I don't really know what to do. If Astrid gets any worse about eating I'm just going to make an appointment and take her in, stressful though that would be. I have read about hepatic lipidosis and am very concerned about it.

I got Astrid's previous medicine in her by hiding it in one of the treats she is still accepting so I probably could get her to eat another. The problem with meds is that someone else caught her and took her to a different vet (I had no say in the matter, my boss knew I wanted her but she decided to go through the local animal protection league) and my vet hasn't actually seen her so they won't prescribe her anything. I had to go through the vet that originally saw her for the flea meds and fecal test, but they're farther away and have been incredibly unhelpful so I'd really rather not deal with them anymore.

I do have a feliway diffuser (though I was running out about the time the eating issues got worse and just got that replaced) and just got the spray that I've been using whenever I go in. I haven't had a chance to order some Composure, but I've been giving her a roughly equivalent treat that's available in all of my local stores (all the same ingredients, just different concentrations of the active ones).


I've had Astrid for almost 2 months now and she just keeps getting worse about food. I am totally fine with socialization on her terms, but I need to make sure I'm keeping her healthy. She can't stop eating on me.

Also a problem is that she has stopped eating all but two actual foods (NVI Raw Boost Chicken dry and the three flavors of Nutro Max Cat canned without carageenan) and two kinds of treats. She had been eating several other wet foods and two other dry foods before. If she decides to stop eating these, I don't know what to try food wise (that's the point I'd force the vet issue though). She used to eat a full can of the Nutro Max and enough dry to make up an appropriate daily food amount. Now she won't even finish a can.

I really do love the idea of a raw diet and want her on all raw eventually, but until my living situation changes and I have a better idea of my food budget for her I can't really feed raw exclusively. I really wasn't even entertaining homemade raw until she stopped eating and I started getting desperate. I would definitely do a lot more reading before I gave her anything - but I liked the idea of whole ground foods or meat/bone/organ foods from Hare Today with the appropriate Alnutrin supplements. But again, not really feasible at the moment.

I understand what you mean about feeding quality food, but I can't commit to a bulk order of frozen mice if I'm not even sure she'll eat them. I don't own any snakes personally and the only ones I have any contact with are at work, but I doubt they'd be okay with accepting my random rodents to feed them. So pet store mice are my option until I know she'll accept them. I have a really good little LPS that sells fish and reptiles exclusively that I'd get them from, and I am very happy with the quality of their fish and fish supplies, so I doubt their feeders would be any less than excellent. My family is not totally on board with the idea of giving her whole mice though. They are concerned that she might carry it off to eat it in a safe hiding spot, and make a mess or leave leftovers behind hidden in her safe room.

I wasn't able to stop at the vet's office today, but I did pick up some free samples of RadCat. I'll be trying her on the turkey variety tonight - hopefully she likes it.

Can you please help me with a little more information about the living condition of Astrid?
Does she live only in the house right now or can she leave at all, daily, all of the time? Are you sure, you're the only person feeding her? Do you have a sure knowledge of the total amount of food, including really every extra? How active is your cat when you are there and how active is she in the meantime? Has she visibly lost weight? Does her body look weak? Has she changed her behaviour towards you or someone living with you? Did you change something like the food plate, place, time, surroundings?
Does she have free access to any kind of food during he day? Maybe weighing religiously the amount of food consumed, by subtracting from the total the rest could offer you more information. I helped my exneighbours cat through a tough spot, and as you described, she went from vacum cleaner to diva. And then I realized that she had found herself a couple of others to help her out too, so like a kid she snacked around and no hunger for lunch or dinner was left.
Anyway, I would advice you to have a clear family strategy and to have a food diary. Also with my cat Emelie I'm always amazed how little food she actually needs to keep her weight. She weighs 4.3kg and to keep that it amounts to 60gr canned food daily plus 10gr dry food. I always ask myself about the nutrition but that's a different thing now. Best of luck!

Astrid is strictly indoor, living in a safe room while she gets used to me and living indoors. I am definitely the only one feeding her. I currently live at home with my parents, and our two family cats and dog (all completely separate from Astrid, though she can hear and probably smell them). My parents are not feeding her. I make mental note of all of the food I leave for her, though I have been considering weighing it to be more precise, if nothing else to have exact numbers for the vet.

Astrid is not yet used to people and hides whenever I go into her room, except when I sleep in there and only then when I am dead asleep. I haven't gotten a good look at her since she came home, other than a few instances where all I could really see was her face. No idea of current body condition.

I leave out dry food and water for her all day and once a day leave out wet food.

I've been logging what kinds of food she eats and a rough estimate of how much, but if I can locate a small scale I can start keeping up with exact weights.

I base how much she should be eating by portion sizes for her weight. Astrid is only 6 lbs according to the vet that saw her, so she doesn't need much, but a bite or two is definitely insufficient.

I tried her on RadCat and also the NVI Raw Bites again last night and she didn't touch either. She ate *one* bite of dry food (that's it for 24 hrs). I would have been ready to take her to the vet today, but now they aren't open so we'll see how she does over the weekend. If she stops eating entirely I'll have to figure out where I can find an emergency vet in my area. Hopefully she has done better while I've been at work and will eat the can I'm giving her tonight...

My ferals all ear Friskies pates, try that. I had a little spring water.

Sorry for the he'll you are experiencing. Thanks for the info, I would not want to swap places with you. It seems there is not much more advice I can offer. But there's more questions: how long does Astrid live with you?
And sorry again for my curiosity but I like to know if and how often she uses the litter box. If you can't figure out how she eats, maybe her results can tell you something. Does she defecate regularly, like daily or every other day? Does she pee? Do her products seem ok to you? If that is the case, it's not as bad as it seems.
On TV I saw kids with a reading problem visiting shy cats in a shelter and just sitting in the cats room and reading out in a normal voice made the cats so curious, they all came out to have a good look after a while. And reading is always a bonus itself.
And please let me know when and how change comes. Good luck!

Astrid doesn't seem to like pates and I really don't like Friskies. All of my food research has been trying to find the best foods on the market so that I can give her the very best. I really want her only eating top quality foods, but I am comfortable allowing her to eat moderate quality for now until she's fully acclimated to house cat life and I can think about switching. I've only offered her foods I feel okay about feeding her long term. With as picky as she is, I don't want to offer her something full of ingredients I'm not comfortable feeding and have her decide that's all she's willing to eat. Maybe if I'm desperate, but by that point I'll have taken her to the vet. I appreciate the suggestion though.


Astrid has been with me for about 2 months now. I clean her litter box twice a day and there is always pee in it and poop at least once a day. She is fairly consistent with it. All looks normal, though I had a fecal sample tested anyways and it came up negative.

I've tried the reading some, I need to do that more. I'm just not fond of reading out loud if its for my benefit because I read so much faster to myself, so I give up on it a little too soon. I need to get over that and just do it though, what's best for her is more important. ^^;;


She did a lot better yesterday - she licked the plate of wet food clean (I gave her half of a 3oz can of Nutro Max) and ate a bite or two each of two kinds of dry. I haven't been in yet this morning to see how she did last night, but Sundays are the day I give her the opportunity to eat some fishy flavors and our other cats were trying to break down the door because they smelled the food and wanted it so bad. So hopefully it was as exciting for her? And they didn't stress her out too much with all that crying and scratching at the door while I was in there?

Just a thought if she was not eating, it seems very tasty to cats.

I'm glad to hear Astrid ate a bit more yesterday and hope that trend continues.  It's great you're taking such pains in making sure she has the healthiest diet possible.  I know some of our members make all their cat food and find it's a less expensive way of giving their cats a quality diet.  Meanwhile, I think Astrid is a very lucky kitty to have found such a caring human and such a good home!  

It's one thing after another with this cat and food...

She started eating again and was eating a bite or two of dry during the day, and then if she liked the wet she'd eat all or most of that and a little dry at night. She's had a preference for eating at night for quite some time now.

Since eating was an issue, I stopped sleeping in there and seriously backed off on my visiting time hoping to bring down her stress levels so she would eat.

Now all of the sudden, two (or was it three?) days in a row she has switched up her eating habits. She eats a decent amount of dry during the day and won't touch ANYTHING except a couple of treats at night. She definitely still goes and checks out the food and water at night because she eats her treats from the same place. What happened to cats being creatures of habit?

She currently has access to a little more than a portion sized amount each of three different dry foods at all times - Nature's Variety Instinct Raw Boost Chicken, Merrick Purrfect Bistro Chicken, and Orijen Cat and Kitten. She was eating only NVI dry food, but has switched to Orijen with an occasional bite of NVI.

Since she was starting to eat again, I picked up some more kinds of wet foods to try so she doesn't get stuck on one thing then give up on that too. Not the quality I'd like, but comparable to the Nutro Max she's hooked on. She hasn't liked anything I've tried (except when I mixed one into some Nutro Max). So its a little understandable for her to be less consistent with wet if she's turning her nose up at new varieties and that's the only wet available at the time.

But last night she wouldn't eat the Nutro either!

I am running out of foods that this cat will eat. She is at least eating probably close to a portioned amount of the Orijen during the day, so the amount of food is okay at the moment. But I am worried she'll decide she doesn't like any of the dry foods anymore and I'll be stuck with nothing she eats. (Straight to the vet for sure if that happens, but I don't really want to let her get to a point where she stops eating entirely.) I also really do not look forward to potentially offering wet twice a day again because I wasted a lot of food that way.

And I'm so confused by her random changing of habits!

I have been thinking too...

I really feel like it will be a huge breakthrough to be able to pet her. I've never met a cat that didn't absolutely love petting from me, I've got all the best sweet spots down.

Astrid is too difficult with food to use food as positive reinforcement. Its not working out. Food is already too much of an issue to try to use it to create positive associations.

With her food issues I might also need to take her to the vet very soon and being able to handle or reassure her in any way would be a huge help.

So I've been considering trying to pet her. I'd really rather do a proper introduction with good cat ettiquette, but we are making no progress. I don't like forcing the issue, but with the current situation I really need to make some progress. I want her to see a vet.

I don't know. I'm definitely afraid of making things worse and stressing her out even more and making her more afraid of me...But I'm really at a loss of what to do here. I need her eating to get better or I need to get her to a vet. Something needs to change. And trying to pet her would force the issue one way or another...

I don't know, I need advice.

Some of our members have made a "petting pole" to pet cats not used to human touch. I did a search but can't find the threads where these are pictured, but basically they consist of a stick with a soft cloth wrapped around one end.  I suppose you could spray some feliway on the cloth or even catnip to make it more acceptable to Astrid.  The idea is that you are far enough away to not seem a threat while she is being accustomed to being stroked.  You get closer and closer until you can finally use your hand.  The problem is that this process takes a little while and it sounds like Astrid might need to see the vet about her eating issues before she is comfortable with being touched.

This must be so frustrating for you.   

Hello again and I am very happy to hear Astrid is eating however. Maybe thinking from the other side might help. Being all alone in a restricted area with little options seems to be totally different from what the cat knows. It's loveable from you to provide so much and with so much dedication but not everyone takes to a complete change, even for the better.
Anyhow offering more time with company, you toying with a feather stick, reading aloud, sitting in the room and having a relaxed small talk with another person seem good options to me, leaving a personal cloth combined with a little dry food maybe in a toilet paper roll as toy....
Cat's usually have that famous curiosity and she could feel safer if she realises that you do not concentrate totally on her, but are close and engaged in an interesting option. I estimate that it would be a whole lot better not to pet her before she offers body contact to you. You could sit along offering a hand to let her come out to you. But once again: a formerly feral cat might take a whole lot longer and please don't give up on babiesteps. Best of luck for your experiences.