Kittens Want "soupy" Food

[Shadokat]

I have two seven month old kittens. Both eat dry food just fine without complaint. But one of them started vomiting on the orange bag of whole hearted kitten dry food. The vet said its vegetable/non-meat content was too high. So we assume he has a sensitive stomach and don't want to make him sick again.

I want to give them wet food once a day to supplement the dry. They loved wellness canned food which I was able to get on a really good sale, but generally it's cost prohibitive. The only wellness food they didn't like was a can of shreds. I have access to someone working for Petco who can get me pretty step discounts on some higher end foods but not wellness.

I've tried wilderness canned food but they just sucked the gravy off the cubes and spit out the rest. I also tried fancy feast kitten pate. They ate around the edges, presumably where the "gravy" is, but left me with a sticky ball of leftovers that they refused to eat. Smashing up the can with a fork didn't change their habit.

Now it's time to try something else. They seem to want lots of gravy but not shreds or cubes of meat. The wellness had pieces of what looked like real fish or shrimp in it, probably why I can't get discounts on it. I don't know if they would eat tiny minced pieces of meat in their food. They don't want pate.

I'm not having to get this because my cats are elderly or have teeth problems. Other than the one's sensitive stomach they should be able to eat anything. So does anyone have any recommendations? Thank you in advance.

 

[Shadokat]

As an aside to the above, yes we did start feeding a different brand of dry based on the vet's recommendation. They are eating it and neither is getting sick.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Which Wellness is it that they like? Some Wellness cans actually come in 13 oz cans, which are quite inexpensive when you look at the whole picture. (plus, if we know exactly what they DO like, it would help in trying to figure out options)

 

[Gizmobius]

You can always try getting any pate and mixing some warm water in to create soupy food. Or some warm goat's milk. Or if they don't want that, you can get shreds or chunks and blend it into smaller pieces. I had to do that with a previous cat.

 

[Saf]

I recgonize this behaviour from my previous cats. Your kittens are viewing the wet food you're giving as an alternative form of hydration to water, hence they're only interested in the gravy. It's not a good situation for their long term health. Both my cats died at a young age from kidney disease. I personally believe an all wet diet is best because your cats will effectively be eating and drinking at the same time. If you want to feed them dry it's probably best to stick dry only and closely monitor their water intake. A general rule of thumb is that for every 30 grams of food they should drink at least 70ml of water. If they don't and you have "bad drinkers" then the best solution to avoid future problems is to change to all wet. But you definitely don't want the current situation of predominantly dry and them using the wet as an unreliable and insufficient source of moisture by just licking up the gravy.

 

[Shadokat]

I recgonize this behaviour from my previous cats. Your kittens are viewing the wet food you're giving as an alternative form of hydration to water, hence they're only interested in the gravy. It's not a good situation for their long term health. Both my cats died at a young age from kidney disease. I personally believe an all wet diet is best because your cats will effectively be eating and drinking at the same time. If you want to feed them dry it's probably best to stick dry only and closely monitor their water intake. A general rule of thumb is that for every 30 grams of food they should drink at least 70ml of water. If they don't and you have "bad drinkers" then the best solution to avoid future problems is to change to all wet. But you definitely don't want the current situation of predominantly dry and them using the wet as an unreliable and insufficient source of moisture by just licking up the gravy.

Thanks for this suggestion but I don't think this is the case. We have a water fountain for them and are filling it up sometimes twice a day. They drink a ton of water. We see them do it. A previous cat of mine did this and got almost all his moisture from his wet food, but not these two.