Hi there.
My parents picked up a ~10 week old doll-face Persian kitten in early January from a breeder. She was already eating dry food, but we transitioned her to wetfood (pate) in the coming weeks after. The brand we started on was Fancy Feast kitten and we rotated 4 flavors with no problems. The flavors were: Chicken, Turkey, Whitefish, Salmon. On average she'd eat a whole can a day, although she eventually stopped liking Whitefish/Salmon. She was also really small when we got her-- I assume she was the runt of the litter, but she was steadily gaining weight with our care. Her last weighing was on Feb 26th when we took her to the vet final vaccine visit; she was 3.1 pounds and she gained 1 pound compared to the visit on Jan 29th. I assume the weight gain looked good to my vet because she didn't mention anything else about it.
Fast forward to about a week ago (she's now just 4 months old) and she has lost complete interest in Fancy Feast and she's become very difficult to feed. So far she's done two separate 12 hour "strikes" where she will sniff whatever I put down, nibble a little and just walk off... sometimes she won't even nibble. Since then (last Saturday), I've immediately been trying different foods. The first new food I tried was Blue Healthy Gourmet Chicken Pate (kitten), this along with whatever Fancy Feast kitten flavor she'd eat worked for a little while then she also lost interest in it-- can't even get half a can done. Couple of days ago, I learned of "all ages" canned food and Fancy Feast had some of these, so this opened up more flavor options. Sadly, it's still difficult to get her to eat much and according to the back of the can, I need to be feeding her twice the amount of an adult daily serving for her age, which I come no where close. I do leave a bowl of dryfood out for her to snack on (it's a Nutro brand), but she barely eats out of it.
She does still play a lot (for now?) and still has some really wild episodes here and there like last night where she was extremely crazy from 3AM to 4AM. However, I'm very worried about her weight. She was already behind by a pound according to internet information (apparently at 4 months of age she should be about 4 pounds) and her recent choice of skipping multiple meals must be having an impact on that.
Some pictures I just took of her:
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Something I probably should mention is from the time we got her, my parents would slip in adult food here and there. My father feeds outside cats with cheap Friskies wetfood and whenever he does this, he always feels obligated to drop a spoonful into her bowl-- usually twice a day. My mother would feed these to her sometimes. [Click] [Click]
So I'm not sure if what my parents did contributed to creating this finicky behavior or not.
So with all that out of the way... does anybody have any advice for me? Any USA food recommendations that won't break the bank? Is it normal that I will have to possibly rotate brands so often and alternate between unfinished cans throughout the day/week?
Thank you!
My parents picked up a ~10 week old doll-face Persian kitten in early January from a breeder. She was already eating dry food, but we transitioned her to wetfood (pate) in the coming weeks after. The brand we started on was Fancy Feast kitten and we rotated 4 flavors with no problems. The flavors were: Chicken, Turkey, Whitefish, Salmon. On average she'd eat a whole can a day, although she eventually stopped liking Whitefish/Salmon. She was also really small when we got her-- I assume she was the runt of the litter, but she was steadily gaining weight with our care. Her last weighing was on Feb 26th when we took her to the vet final vaccine visit; she was 3.1 pounds and she gained 1 pound compared to the visit on Jan 29th. I assume the weight gain looked good to my vet because she didn't mention anything else about it.
Fast forward to about a week ago (she's now just 4 months old) and she has lost complete interest in Fancy Feast and she's become very difficult to feed. So far she's done two separate 12 hour "strikes" where she will sniff whatever I put down, nibble a little and just walk off... sometimes she won't even nibble. Since then (last Saturday), I've immediately been trying different foods. The first new food I tried was Blue Healthy Gourmet Chicken Pate (kitten), this along with whatever Fancy Feast kitten flavor she'd eat worked for a little while then she also lost interest in it-- can't even get half a can done. Couple of days ago, I learned of "all ages" canned food and Fancy Feast had some of these, so this opened up more flavor options. Sadly, it's still difficult to get her to eat much and according to the back of the can, I need to be feeding her twice the amount of an adult daily serving for her age, which I come no where close. I do leave a bowl of dryfood out for her to snack on (it's a Nutro brand), but she barely eats out of it.
She does still play a lot (for now?) and still has some really wild episodes here and there like last night where she was extremely crazy from 3AM to 4AM. However, I'm very worried about her weight. She was already behind by a pound according to internet information (apparently at 4 months of age she should be about 4 pounds) and her recent choice of skipping multiple meals must be having an impact on that.
Some pictures I just took of her:
[Click]
[Click]
[Click]
[Click]
Something I probably should mention is from the time we got her, my parents would slip in adult food here and there. My father feeds outside cats with cheap Friskies wetfood and whenever he does this, he always feels obligated to drop a spoonful into her bowl-- usually twice a day. My mother would feed these to her sometimes. [Click] [Click]
So I'm not sure if what my parents did contributed to creating this finicky behavior or not.
So with all that out of the way... does anybody have any advice for me? Any USA food recommendations that won't break the bank? Is it normal that I will have to possibly rotate brands so often and alternate between unfinished cans throughout the day/week?
Thank you!