Is she getting enough nutrients?

Many of you are familiar with my kitten Anya. She's right at 3 months old right now, and here's a recent pic so you can have an idea of her size and how she looks:



I'm worried about her diet. I started her off on Iams dry kitten food and she inhales it.

I've tried desperately to get her to eat wet food since I know there are often more nutrients not to mention the extra moisture that it puts in her diet. Miss Anya wants nothing to do with wet food. She might pick at it and take a couple of bites, or with the gravy pouches lick out all the gravy and leave the food. She eventually abandons it for her dry food.

I've tried TONS of different kinds. Everything from Iams canned kitten, cheapie brands, Nutro pouches, etc... She could care less. I've tried them cold and I've tried them heated. The last one that I put in front of her she licked it and then looked at me like I ws trying to kill her as she proceeded to scratch the ground around her bowl to "cover up" the yuckiness that I had set in front of her.

The last time that I went to my local pet shop (mom and pop, not a chain) I asked the guy that owned the store what he thought. He told me I was lucky that she didn't like it and that all the nutrients she needed were in the dry food. This made me raise an eyebrow after some of the reading I've done on here.

What do you guys think? Should I worry? Is just the Iams dry enough? She drinks TONS of water (I have bowls all over the apartment to tempt her.) She gets a few treats like milk drops and feline greenies once a day. Any other wet food suggestions?

Have you tried mixing in a little bit of wet food with her dry food?

I personally think that as long as she drinks a ton of water then you have no issues at all, at least for the moment. Females are less prone to UTIs than males.

My concern would be once she's a senior kitty and may need to eat wet food only due to tooth loss, etc, then it would be very hard to get her to make the switch.

But she's young, and her tastes may change eventually (Ginger's has, at least twice in 14 months!), so at the moment, I'd say she's just fine!

Keep trying and please if you can put her on a better quality dry ... The best dry =the worst wet as for digestabilty and fluid

Originally Posted by sharky

Keep trying and please if you can put her on a better quality dry ... The best dry =the worst wet as for digestabilty and fluid

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Any recommendations for a better quality dry food? Preferably something that I could buy at my local Petco. Price isn't a huge issue. I just want my girl to be healthy.

When I was younger and lived in GA, my vet there always told me to feed Iams. After reading here (and getting Anya hooked on it) I see that it's good, but not one of the best.

Originally Posted by LoveMyBabies

Have you tried mixing in a little bit of wet food with her dry food?

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No, but I will try that tonight. Thanks!

When my Kitty was a youngin, she refused to eat wet food as well. Now she is 4 and loves it. I guess her tastes changed. We also approach wet food feeding time as a special treat time.

WIth one of my cats I wanted her to get more fluids in her diet. I give her wet food but add a good amount of water to it and warm it up. She laps up all the warm smelly water and leaves the chunks of wet food so then my other cats eat that. She likes the flavour of it but not actually eating it. So I don't really care that she is picky like that, the point is for her to get water and she is.

But if you can get her off Iams and onto something better. Iams really isn't very good.

Same here-most of my cats (especially the youngest-now 7, and don't call her late for treat time! ) didn't care for wet food! ! If you have a Pets Supplies Plus, I can give you a few of the catfoods they sell that my cats have been on recently (4 adults, one foster kitten). Chicken Soup for the Kitten Lover's Soul and Felidae ( I have to special order the Chicken and Rice version- fish allergy ) I am really impressed with the difference the Felidae has made in my cats' coats!

I ended up feeding my foster kitten the Felidae C & R, and a Walmart brand called "Maxximum- kitten" because I liked the ingredients better than the Iams kitten and of course, the Purina Kitten Chow (the first ingredient was chicken, at least ), and kept running a 1 hr round trip to get small bag of CS, because she was going to be adopted any day, right? Wrong- got the WM stuff, since she was eating the Felidae, too. WM also has a wet food called "Natural Life" and usually used the Chicken and Veggie platter version, though they also had it in lamb and a fish. I really liked the ingredients in the wet food (esp. for WM!), but didn't care for their dry. I hope this helps!

Petco
Nutro
Solid Gold
Natural balence
Oraganix
Meow mix ( pouches)
Iams( some of the new ones are decent )

Have you tried giving her some wetted-down dry food? It'll taste the same but feel different. It might help teach her that wet stuff is food too.

Or warm up her canned food a little. Heat makes it smell more which makes it more attractive. Just make sure it's not warmer than your body temperature.

There are some tips on getting cats to eat wet food in this article

http://www.catinfo.org/#Transitionin...o_Canned_Food_

Thanks everybody for all of your tips! Still no luck, but patience is key. I'm going to keep trying to introduce it to her, probably a little at a time.

I took her to the vet today for one of her vaccines and he said she was very healthy and even threatened to take her home with him since she kept trying to play with his stuff on the table....EVEN a second after her shot.

Since she was so very good we took her with us to Petco after for treats.

I perused the dry food aisles and read about ten different bags. After comparing ingredient lists and price tags I came home with a bag of Eukanuba Kitten. The ingredient list starts off with "chicken, chicken liver, Chicken by-product meal, brewers rice, and fish meal." Sounded good and high in protein to me. I'm going to start a gradual switch over today and hope she likes it.

My second choices would have been Nutro dry and Science Diet. I decided no on the Nutro since it was the wet Nutro that she HATED. I didn't want to chance it having a similar flavor. The Science Diet was kind of pricey, not to mention there was a Science Diet rep there in the aisle and she kept trying to push it on me and I got a little annoyed.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Wish me luck!

No luck with trying to add just a touch of water to the dry food? I do that and they lap up the water then nibble the food.... Sparkles is very fussy with what wet food she eats and I put both Sparkles and Bling on to Eagle Pack wet. I tried for about 3 days then gave up putting it out for them, and gave away the other tins I had bought. On the fourth day, I put out the tiny bit that was leftover from the 1st tin, just to see and guess what?? They ate it. It's almost as if they KNEW I'd given the rest of it away!!!! So I guess maybe have you tried putting it out for a few times over 3 - 4 days? At the time of day when she is hungriest? Good luck...