Merrick LID - Duck Changed?

My 3rd cat, Jumbo, has kidney disease and refuses to eat any of the canned k/d foods. I bought several cans of Merrick's limited ingredient foods in turkey, duck and chicken and a few salmon from Petco just to see how he or my 2 seniors would like it. He loved all of them so I bought a bunch more cans and he's been eating that for the last month or so. I mostly give him the turkey, duck, chicken. I let the other 2 have the salmon because my girl loves salmon. Those 2 eat other foods as well. 

Merrick LID is the only food I've found that Jumbo will eat all of, no scraps left in the bowl! He hasn't seemed to throw it up like other regular foods I've given him. I was struggling to get him to eat a quarter to half can/day with k/d and other foods. The last 2 weeks, he was up to 3 quarters/day with Merrick LID. His belly was feeling firmer to me a well. So when there was a sale on chewy.com a couple weeks ago, I ordered a case of turkey and duck.

I still had a few cans from the store to finish up so I didn't open the case until last Thursday night. I started with the duck case because he'd been going crazy for it from the cans from the store. I opened a badly dented can and fed him a quarter of the can. He refused to eat it. Stuck his nose in it briefly and walked away, like he does with all the canned k/d food. Then Friday I opened a non-dented can thinking maybe he knows that 1st can was dented or something. But he wouldn't eat the 2nd can either. I kept trying to get him to eat those 2 cans all weekend with no luck. Instead, he sneaked into the Merrick Surf and Turf and Wellness Turkey that I'd given the other 2 on Saturday and Sunday. This morning I gave him a quarter can of the turkey from the case. He ate on that a little. We'll see if he finished it when I get home and if he'll eat more for dinner. So I'm not sure yet if the turkey case is a problem as well.

I'm not sure why the dislike of the duck now. He'd eaten cans from the store of turkey, chicken and duck earlier that week and finished up a can of chicken that Thursday morning.  I know Merrick was bought by Purina recently, but I don't think that's the issue. The cans from the duck case have expiration dates for June 2017. The most recent ones from the store have expiration dates for August 2017. I don't think it's a formula change either since the case was produced before the recent ones from the store. I'm wondering if there's a difference between what's sold in cases and what's sold in single cans. Or maybe I got a bad batch of the duck formula (and possibly turkey).

I plan to contact Merrick after I know if it's both cases or just the duck that's different. I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed a change in the duck formula (or any of them) recently. 

You may just have a picky cat. Mine are super weird also. I feed Merrick LID and Primal Freeze Dried - the freeze dried is always slightly different, depending on the batch. They will devour one bag, and turn their nose up at the other of the same flavor. Thankfully they haven't had a problem with the Merrick LID yet.

Can you mix 2 cans of different flavors together to see if they'll eat it that way? I'll mix 1/2 of the "Bad" flavor of the month, with 1/2 of the "Good" flavor. That way they usually will get tricked into eating most of it. I also will throw Pure Bites treats, and other crunchy stuff on top to entice them to eat. As long as I can get them to start eating something, once they try it they usually eat most of it. 

Jumbo is slightly picky because of the kidney disease. But he was eating every bit of the Merrick LID that I gave him, until the duck from the case a few days ago. He had no issue with the duck from the single cans. All the cans from the store were most likely from different batches too since I bought like 5 to 10 cans at a time every couple weeks or so for the last couple of months. It's just bugging me why the only difference seems to be single cans (good) versus case cans (bad). And a lot of the cans in the duck case were significantly dented while the cans from the store weren't.

I did try mixing tastier foods in his k/d food to try and get him to eat it with no success. I've put Natural Balance rabbit flavor treats (which he likes solo) on top of those foods and he'll just pick out the treat or not touch it at all. I have so many cases of different k/d formulas that he won't touch. That's why I was happy that he was liking the Merrick LID so much. 

Try the Whole Earth farms brand. It's made by Merrick so if the Merrick batch of duck is no good, possibly the whole earth farms is still ok.

Btw I had the same issue now that I think of it! Thought it was due to my cat being sick!! And he ate the Whole Earth farms just fine.

misterwhiskers said:

Try the Whole Earth farms brand. It's made by Merrick so if the Merrick batch of duck is no good, possibly the whole earth farms is still ok.

Btw I had the same issue now that I think of it! Thought it was due to my cat being sick!! And he ate the Whole Earth farms just fine.

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Thank you, I didn't know Whole Earth Farms was a Merrick product. I've seen it at my Petco, but it's at the back of the cat food aisles by the Friskies, Iams and Max Cat so I assumed it was a "lower quality" brand. I don't really have an issue with those brands. I used to feed my cats Purina or Iams kibble until a few years ago when I decided to find higher quality options. I only started trying higher quality wet food in the last year or so. 

I just looked Whole Earth Farms up online. The labels is pretty similar to the LID cans. The font and color for each protein is the same. Just LID cans don't have a farm house picture  and it looks like it's even a little cheaper than the LID or Purrfect Bistros. I'll have to check it out for the older 2 cats. But for Jumbo I think I prefer him on a LID if he won't eat the k/d food because he hadn't been throwing it up like he does with most other non-k/d food. 

I feed the Merrick LID chicken and turkey, and i noticed that the chicken varies from batch to batch quite a bit. For example I had one batch that was incredibly mushy, and another that was pretty dry. I think their batches just aren't consistent, so perhaps there's something about the texture of that batch of duck he doesn't like. 

missmimz said:

 
I feed the Merrick LID chicken and turkey, and i noticed that the chicken varies from batch to batch quite a bit. For example I had one batch that was incredibly mushy, and another that was pretty dry. I think their batches just aren't consistent, so perhaps there's something about the texture of that batch of duck he doesn't like. 

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This is my observation, too: the consistency isn't very consistent!

The 2 cans of duck I opened from the case didn't seem as moist as the ones from the store. I add a little water to all their wet food anyways, but maybe that is why he's not liking it now. He did eat all his serving of the case turkey from this morning. He also ate some of his k;/d kibble. He's nibbling on another quarter now and may be ready for a 3rd quarter in little while so the turkey case may be alright. If it's just a weird consistency issue, I guess I got lucky with all good cans from the store so far. 

How funny, I came on here planning to post almost the same question about the LID Chicken formula. Both my cats loved previous batches, but the current one that has a Best By date of Feb 23 2018 is being consistently rejected. My issue is not just the consistency, but also the smell and color. The new batch is very pungent (almost a sharp, fishy smell) and much lighter in color. I went back to a couple cans from a different batch (Best By Dec 10 2017), and the cats ate it immediately.

I wrote to Merrick and they said they'd send the info to their quality control team and asked if either cat had diarrhea or vomiting. Thankfully that answer is no, so I'm waiting to see if they write back with anything else.

I buy cases of lid duck and chicken, and regular duck and whole earth duck and chicken from chewy. I have not noticed a problem. My cats like the old pate with carageenan best! I feed a different food daily so boredom does not creep in. I also mix Merrick pates with tiki or Soulistic chicken shreds in same meal. I feed Merrick duck, chicken, Soulistic chicken dinner (no fish) Pride rabbit chunks, Halo Impulse Quail pate, Soulistic good karma chicken shreds, tiki cat puka luau chicken shreds, Treats are instinct ultimate protein chicken kibble.

@AstroMuji  I didn't notice  a color or smell difference, but a moisture difference in the case of duck I got. No one got sick from it. They just won't eat it. Maybe a lick or two, but that's it. I gave a can to my mom over the weekend to see if her cat will eat it. I haven't heard back from her yet as to how it went over. Jumbo has almost finished the case of turkey already, only 6 cans left. I haven't contact Merrick yet. 

@bonepicker  My older two won't touch Soulistic or anything that looks like real meat. Pate only! But as much as I try to elevate their wet food, they seem to prefer the cheaper pates like Friskies and Iams Purrfect Delights over Wellness or Pride. They eat Halo Impulse sometimes. I did get some chicken, turkey, salmon and tuna Whole Earth Farms cans a few weeks ago to see how it compares to regular and LID Merrick lines. They didn't have the duck at the store that day. They don't seem to like the chicken or turkey. Pretty much anything salmon is a hit with my girl though.