How do I teach my cats to eat properly?

[ShadyGeorge]

I have three cats, my eldest (Pudding) I got as a kitten from the SPCA, and he spends most of his time outdoors, only coming in to eat and to be sociable. The other two are kittens that were living wild on my property, that I've managed to calm down, and accept my wife and me as part of their family. They are both very loving and have settled in with us very well, spending most of their evenings sitting on our laps being stroked. However, I'm having trouble getting them to eat properly. The eldest one, Dottie, is gradually coming round to the fact that we put food out and she can eat it, but the youngest, Janie, can't seem to grasp this at all. when we first found her, she had been abandoned by her mother at about 8 weeks old I'm guessing, and she was living on a diet of insects, as that's all she could catch. I tried to wean her on to proper food, but she now seems to think that the only time she can eat is when I feed her dry cat food by hand, one biscuit at a time. I don't mind doing that, but I would like her to eat proper meals. How can I get her to do this?
We've had them both de-sexed, wormed, and vaccinated, and they are now both very healthy, and a pleasure to be with.

 

[FeebysOwner]

You can try using the dry cat food as a topper to the wet food and see what she does. If it works, you can add less dry and more wet over time so that it is a gradual move from mostly dry to mostly wet. If that doesn't work, you might have to try a more gradual approach as in placing two pieces of the dry in your hand, instead of one, and move on from there - 3 pieces, etc. If she will eat more than just a couple of pieces from your hand, you can then place your hand over a dish while she eats them - just to get her used to the dish being there. From there, you place the dry pieces inside the dish and see if you can get her to eat them, without your hand.

Two other options would be to use a paper plate to place her food on - just a few pieces at first. For reasons unknown to me, cats seem to be more inclined to eat food from a paper plate. You can also consider buying some baby food meats (Gerber Stage 2 or Beechnut) and place some on either a paper plate or low sided dish, adding some dry pieces to start with. There are always exceptions, but it seems most cats LOVE baby food meats. If this option were to be successful, you might be able to try some wet food next.

Hopefully other members will come along soon with other ideas you can try!