Weaning a 2 1/2 y/o new adoptee off a TERRIBLE diet

[hlvanpatten]

Hello all! This is my first time posting so please forgive me if I've missed a thread already detailing how to do this. 

Long story short: I'm adopting a 2 1/2 y/o female American shorthair from a cat rescue with a great reputation. However, the foster owner who has been caring for her for the past year or so has been feeding her canned Friskies (two cans a day), table scraps, and leaves dry cat chow out throughout the day. This was super disappointing considering I was hoping a transition to a healthy diet was going to be relatively simple - now I'm not so sure! 

I was hoping to gradually transition her to an all wet Natural Balance or similar canned diet (there are better brands I know, but they're unfortunately out of my price range). I know that I need to incorporate some Natural Balance into the Friskies in greater and greater amounts until its ALL Natural Balance but my question is this: how to wean her off the dry food? And how to wean her off of SO much food throughout the day to half a 5 oz. can in the morning and half at night? The foster tells me she eats a lot, but that could be due to the low nutritional content of the food she's being given. Any advice on this would be super helpful!

 

[msserena]

read this

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/transit...-to-a-new-type-of-food-canned-raw-or-homemade

Once she's done with dry & you're totally on the food you want, just cut down like a teaspoon per feeding, it's not going to be overnight & I'm sure that little bit will make a difference, but you'll get there eventually!

 

[hlvanpatten]

Thanks so much msserena, that's extremely helpful!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Here's another article on getting them on scheduled meals, from being free fed.  This prbably the toughest part, but it CAN be done.  Believe me, because I was able to accomplish it, and did it when two of mine had been free fed for over 10 years. 

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals

BTW, there are actually many worse foods out there than Friskies Pate.  As long as you are feeding her the Pate, at least it's not full of carbs like a lot of other foods.  (some of them  advocated by many Vets

)   Many cats won't even eat the "better for you" foods, but if you can at least keep them with the Friskies, Fancy Feast and Sheba PATES, it's a lot better than some of the other stuff (IMHO)

 

[lisahe]

"Gradual" was definitely the key to taking our cats off dry food: over a month or two, we started offering less of it, then confined it to small dishes at night, then kept reducing that until it was only a small garnish on top of their last canned meal of the day. And then we all forgot about it. Our cats are rescue cats who had a pretty definite preference for dry food: they initially tried to wait it out during the day but then realized they really did like canned food.
 

And @mrsgreenjeens is totally right about timed meals! We switched our cats over, too, though I hadn't thought it would be possible because one of our cats always seemed to be a very slow grazer. I also couldn't agree more with her "IMHO" about Friskies and (particularly) Fancy Feast, and Sheba pates: I'd much rather feed those than some of the Natural balance foods, which look like they have much higher carb levels because they contain multiple pea-based ingredients. The more you can avoid carby ingredients, the better--it's animal-based protein that cats need to feel filled up, so the more meat they get in their diet, the fuller they'll feel!

 

[hlvanpatten]

Thanks for all the advice! I'm definitely going to do a bit more research about food content per all of your suggestions. Gradual is the rule I'll use for whatever direction I decide to go in. Thanks again!!