Need Help Food problems

[kimber]

Hello, My name is Kimber

I am writing to anyone & everyone to see if I can come up with new ideas or maybe someone has an answer to my BIG problem. I was going to do a raw diet but right now with 7 cats I am not able to afford it. I was at least stopping the dry food & trying to change to a good canned cat food, but as you will see my problems are bigger then I had hoped for.

I am at my wits end. I have changed all of my cats food from dry to canned about 6 months ago. The transition was very smooth, so easy in fact I was a little scared. Well now my nightmare begins; I started all of my cats on Hounds and Gatos canned cat food, while one of my most picky eaters did not like the flavors the others cats loved I was able to get her to eat the chicken. Now no one is eating the food, I have tried every canned cat food out there. I have skipped meals to make sure they were hungry, I've tried fish flavors, tried heating it up, serving cold, adding water, tonight I will try Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the food. I don't know what to do I can't go back to dry food, my picky eater suffers from crystal & she is not able to eat hard food anymore. My cats are losing weight since the change & for some this is a good thing but for my picky princess who I swear thinks she is a glamor girl this is not ideal.  This hiccup is coasting me $100's a month just trying to get them to eat, I need help in a big way & fast. FYI, all cats have had a checkup & are in good health, so they are just being butt heads to the MAX.

Canned food I have tried ( all flavors)
Hounds & Gatos
blue
evo
natural choice
natural balance
soulistic
life stages
purfect bistro
pro plan
friskies
fancy feast
wellness
Nature's Variety
halo
max cat
pride
 
Please help me I am pulling my hair out & not sure how much longer I can go to bed knowing my babies are hungry.

Thank you in advance for any & all advice. Since I work the night shift I will not be able to see responses until tomorrow.

-Kimber

 

[rlavach]

Hi! I also have a picky eater & he really loves the Weruva BFF line. They all have fish, which I'm not crazy about, but he'll eat an entire package vs just 1/2 of any other brand. He also likes the Tiki Cat Succulent Chicken in Chicken Consumme. He also likes bonito flakes & if I put them on top of a mediocre food (to him), he'll occasionally eat it. Maybe those'll work? 

 

[bonepicker]

Are you free feeding dry as well as canned? If you are free feeding dry as well they might not go for canned!

 

[lokhismom]

I'm sorry you're going thru this with your furbabies.     It must be so frustrating.

I'd guess they are waiting for you to give in and give them dry again.  Or are you still feeding dry here and there?   

Many here swear by Purine Feline Fortiflora.  You sprinkle it on food and cats will eat it up.

Amazon has it

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...=Purine Feline Fortiflora&tag=&tag=thecatsite

I wish I had more to offer.  Hopefully, somewhere here with more knowledge can help you

 

[lisahe]

 
Hi! I also have a picky eater & he really loves the Weruva BFF line. They all have fish, which I'm not crazy about, but he'll eat an entire package vs just 1/2 of any other brand. He also likes the Tiki Cat Succulent Chicken in Chicken Consumme. He also likes bonito flakes & if I put them on top of a mediocre food (to him), he'll occasionally eat it. Maybe those'll work? 

Our cats are moderately picky and they also love the Tiki Cat foods with chicken: they're expensive (the salmon/chicken one is cheaper) but the cans are very full so you get what you pay for. The cats also like Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen various foods with chicken. They're cheaper than Tiki and also pretty good. The cats' canned favorites are probably Natural Choice, which they get before bedtime. They love them.

I've also found that commercial raw foods don't cost much more than canned foods, partly because the cats lap up everything so there's never any waste. I feed them Primal, Rad Cat, and sometimes Stella & Chewy's. Prices can differ a lot -- especially on Rad Cat -- so it's worth shopping around.

Good luck, @Kimber!

 

[chromium blues]

Did you try pulverising freeze-dried chicken and sprinkling it over the food?

 

[lisahe]

 
Did you try pulverising freeze-dried chicken and sprinkling it over the food?

I do this sometimes, too, using freeze-dried raw food: it's a great way to get the cats to finish off canned foods if they get moody!

 

[Willowy]

Eek, you have to get them eating something! Maybe the gravy-ish Fancy Feast? My cats just can't resist the gravy flavors, even though I would prefer something lower-carb :/. I always keep some gravy flavor cans around in case a cat isn't feeling well and I need something to entice them.

Have you ever tried any of the non-canned, non-kibble foods? Like frozen, refrigerated, or freeze-dried? Some are cooked and some are raw, you'd probably have to experiment a bit to find what they like.

Another option---I have a cat who stopped eating canned food at one point and can't eat dry food due to urinary issues and won't eat raw. So I cooked/prepared her food myself. The basic recipes I used were the no-grain recipes from www.dogcathomeprepareddiet.com (he's a pet nutritionist and a vet so I feel safe recommending his recipes). It might be a bit expensive for 7 cats, depends what prices you get.

 

[tabbysia]

I know you mentioned that you have tried Wellness, but I'm not sure which flavors you have tried. The ONLY canned food that my picky cats will eat is the Wellness Sliced Salmon. I know because I have tried a gazillion different kinds. It has a strong fishy smell and is apparently delicious. If you haven't tried that one yet, you could give it a shot.

 

[kimber]

Thank you everyone for your replies. To answer some of your questions, I have not given any dry food in the last 6 months. I have tried the commercial raw food diets with absolutely no luck. I have also tried all of the wellness flavors and they just turned their nose up to it and walk away.
Today I'm going to search for Tiki cat food and hope I can find it locally versus ordering online. I will also try to find the weruva bff, pulverising freeze dried chicken & order the purine feline fortifloa. Thank you for taking the time to help me with info and ideas, I truly hope this works. if you think of anything else I'm open for suggestions.
sorry for any typos reply given by phone.

thanks again I'll keep you posted
-Kimber

 

[bonepicker]

Did you try rockstar rabbit by pride and rabbit by Natures Variety? Did you try Merrick Duck pate and chicken pate? Did you try Nutro Natural Choice Chunky Chicken Loaf. My fussy cats love NNC chunky Chicken Loaf and Rockstar Rabbit by Pride. It has to be those particular flavors. Mine like rabbit, duck, and Chicken and not much else!

 

[2cats4me]

Thank you everyone for your replies. To answer some of your questions, I have not given any dry food in the last 6 months. I have tried the commercial raw food diets with absolutely no luck. I have also tried all of the wellness flavors and they just turned their nose up to it and walk away.
Today I'm going to search for Tiki cat food and hope I can find it locally versus ordering online. I will also try to find the weruva bff, pulverising freeze dried chicken & order the purine feline fortifloa. Thank you for taking the time to help me with info and ideas, I truly hope this works. if you think of anything else I'm open for suggestions.
sorry for any typos reply given by phone.

thanks again I'll keep you posted
-Kimber

Good luck , I hope you can find something they like ..  I know what you are going through  .  I have two of the most finicky cats on the planet . They do not really care for wet food  I cannot find anything they really like . 

p.s  check with your vet about the Purina Fortiflora , they may sell it . I know mine does ..

 

[Willowy]

A lot of cats don't like raw but will eat cooked meat. Try cooking up a little chicken for them and see if they like it. If they do, you could see what needs to be added to make it a balanced diet.

How much are they eating now? Half? Less than that? I would be really really concerned if they're eating less than half of what they should eat, and if they're eating less than that I'd consider it an emergency. They could end up with hepatic lipidosis if this goes on much longer.

Maybe, if all else fails, try soaking the kibble they like. That way they'd still get moisture but could have their kibble too.

 

[kimber]

Some of my cats (3) are eating less then 1/4 of what they should be eating, but when this happens I do take steps to make sure they get a feeding. Even if I have to syringe feed them. Like I've said before all of my cats have had checkups since this has started & all 7 are in great health. They are just being BIG BUTT HEADS who have no idea who they are messing with, LOL... They may have won this round but in the end I will be the winner!

  It's just really hard on some of them because all of the cats I have are rescues & some of them have had very traumatic life's. Jack one of my babies may have four legs but he is only able to use three of them because he was shot twice by the time I found him. While I have been able to turn him in to a very loving cat, if the wind blows wrong he is under the bed. Moo was one of the hardest because she was declawed & left to die. It took me six months to catch her & even though I was feeding her three times a day she still only weighed  1 & half pounds (adult cat) when I got her to the vet. I'll save all of you from the rest of the heart braking stories but I will say this they only get sadder & more heart wrenching.

I'll do anything in the world for my cats & this is just another hiccup. I promise I would never let my babies get sick over this change in their diet.

I went to many stores today with know luck in finding anything on my list i.e. Tiki cat food, purina feline fortiflora, nor freeze dried chicken. So I put a rush order in online & hope to have it very soon. When I got home from work I did cook up some chicken, boiled, baked, partly cooked & even raw again without any luck. I will not go back to dry food not even adding water to it because of the problems it was causing my cats so that is off the table. I was thinking about adding some cat nip to the food to see if that would work. The parmesan cheese trick did not work, bummed....

 I'll do my best to keep everyone posted but the next four days my work schedule will be crazy to say the least, don't worry they have a great daddy to care for them while I am working!

So please keep coming up with more ideas if you can think of them I'm will to try them!

Thank you

-Kimber

 

 

[the3rdname]

Like I've said before all of my cats have had checkups since this has started & all 7 are in great health.

Obviously you know your cats better than anyone else, so maybe this doesn't apply to your situation.  I just wonder if you might be overly concerned about how enamored your kitties are with their food because these poor babies have had such a rough start in life.  Sometimes sympathy and love get all tangled up and people can go a bit overboard in attempting to compensate for the hardships others have endured.  Cats won't starve themselves if they're in good health, they'll eat when they need nourishment.  And rotating foods too frequently is actually what creates finicky eaters.  If you try too hard to cater to their palate, you make them pickier about what they'll deign to eat.  It's like parents who give their kids separate meals because the kids "won't eat what the adults are having"- it creates more problems than it solves.  

If a cat is in good health and not underweight, I would trust them to self-regulate at the food bowl.  Every cat is different: different metabolisms, different activity levels, some just love eating and have a large appetite, some are naturally sustenance eaters.  If I was concerned that a healthy cat wasn't getting their RDA of vitamins and minerals, despite eating a high quality, nutritionally dense food, I would opt for vitamin supplementation.  Unless a cat is diagnosed as anorexic (and there's always an underlying medical condition), I wouldn't worry about the amount they're eating.  Cats are remarkably good at self-care.  They're also remarkably good at manipulating their caretakers 

 

 

[momof3b1g]

Could you soak the dry in water? I have been adding some water so the dry food is not so dry. 

 

[the3rdname]

 
Could you soak the dry in water? I have been adding some water so the dry food is not so dry. 

Just a quick heads-up, because I've done this with weaning kittens and had to contact food companies, etc., for advice, moistened dry food can only sit out for two hours tops.  After that, the food becomes a smorgasboard for bacteria.  Obviously not a problem if kitty gobbles up her dry food in record time, but most people feeding dry do so for convenience's sake, so I just thought I should mention that!

 

[momof3b1g]

 
Just a quick heads-up, because I've done this with weaning kittens and had to contact food companies, etc., for advice, moistened dry food can only sit out for two hours tops.  After that, the food becomes a smorgasboard for bacteria.  Obviously not a problem if kitty gobbles up her dry food in record time, but most people feeding dry do so for convenience's sake, so I just thought I should mention that!

Yes mine eat it in 10 minutes tops. I would assume if she is feeding wet, she isnt leaving it out. I would be concerned if they are not eating enough and need to get some nutrition in them.  I use FortiFlora, it works most of the time. Don't need a whole lot.  I use 2 packs for 3 small cans. one in and one to sprinkle on top(for 7 cats) About 7-8 oz of food. I have bought it on amazon.