4 cats suddenly picky eaters?

caseopele

It's as if they had a little secret meeting and decided they didn't like their regular food. For the past 1-2 years I've been feeding them Felidae, before that it was one of the Wellness ones. I figured out that the cats and dogs have to be on the same brand of food, otherwise the cats eat the dog's food.

I thought maybe we had a stale bag or something but they did the same thing with the next bag. My mom gave me a bag of Wellness cat food last Sunday and the cats loved it at first but are now turning up their noses at it. Any ideas on why they would do this? It's kind of strange how the 4 of them are all doing this, like some kind of weird borg collective. :?

erikka

I don't know but my cat is doing the same thing--I've been feeding her raw meat and she turns up her nose and walks away. Maybe mix a little wet food into the dry food for a bit to trick them back into eating it?

boygabriel

We were feeding our cats Friskies for a year and all the sudden one of them threw up one day and wouldn't go near the wet food anymore. So we switched to a new wet food (fancy feast) and haven't had any problems.

brettma

They must be in cahoots with my cats, who now eat Fancy Feast wet (only certain flavors) and each one eats a different dry food. No matter what brand or flavor dry stuff I get, the boy likes the expensive stuff (Hill's) and the girl goes for the cheap stuff (Cat Chow)

stacey

Boygabriel wrote: wet food (fancy feast) and haven't had any problems.

My cats LOVE this stuff but they only like the grilled variety of it. I had a friend who had a finicky eater and she switched to Fancy Feast and her cat eats it each meal.

Also my cats love Temptastions (which we call Kitty Crack in our house).

caseopele

Well, I guess this confirms my initial theory. My cats are temperamental brats. These are the same cats who strew their food all over the place and refuse to eat dry food if it's a few hours old. Ooh, they think they are so clever, that they have me wrapped around their little paws. Wait a minute, they do!

Damn these furry little demons with their cute bellies and toes! They are so lucky I love them. I guess it's time to start trying different dry food brands to see which one they will eat. Which brands do you guys like?

alafairnadia

I'm a total bitchy mom. my mother told me to make a pb&j sandwich if I didn't like dinner. i tell my cats that, too. and they're on weight loss wellness food. they whine at me, but whatever. they eat it, and aren't punishing me with pee everywhere or pooing on my bed. so ....

shishkab

alafairnadia wrote: my mother told me to make a pb&j sandwich if I didn't like dinner. i tell my cats that, too.

if they were dogs, they might take you up on the offer!

boygabriel

caseopele wrote: Which brands do you guys like?

Our cats have been loving any fish-flavored Fancy Feast. (It's funny how uninterested they are in beef or chicken flavors)

I think when Pepper threw up after eating Friskies once she automatically began associating the brand with throwing up (maybe she's right, maybe it does something to her). So we simply moved to a new brand. At first she was hesitant about the new brand but she came around.

Important note: Cats stomachs are sensitive and some go through a little trouble when switching brands. If you can, try a few transitional days where you mix the old food and the new food together. This helps their stomach adjust.

Although if they're not even touching the old brand I guess this isn't necessary. In that case you might want to go straight to the new stuff.

MOD

I had a 1/2 feral kitty I was feeding once. I loved her and I was totally her bitch. She only liked Friskies. When a really expensive cat food brand went on sale I bought it for her thinking I was doing her a favor, getting her the good stuff. Nope! She wouldn't eat it. A feral! With no real home! And she turned her cute nose up at it. Jeesh I even tried to mix it and she'd pick at it and only eat the bits that were Friskies.

So I gave in and bought her the Friskies again. Kitties, gotta love em. :P

stacey

Mamacita wrote: And she turned her cute nose up at it. Jeesh I even tried to mix it and she'd pick at it and only eat the bits that were Friskies.

So I gave in and bought her the Friskies again. Kitties, gotta love em. :P

I know when we first adopted our two fur faces I thought "well my cats deserve the best" and I started buying the expensive, organic, etc foods and they never even gave them a chance. So we switched to Fancy Feast and I give them Kit and Kabodle dry food, which is the only dry food they will eat (except for Doritos and popcorn )

oiseau

My cat used to eat Kal Kan when they still made that. Now it's Whiskas. I think it's all the same thing.

My solution to a finicky cat - LET THEM STARVE!

erikka

Oiseau wrote: My cat used to eat Kal Kan when they still made that. Now it's Whiskas. I think it's all the same thing.

My solution to a finicky cat - LET THEM STARVE!

It sounds cruel but the will eventually come around and eat again. Take it from someone who has to feed their cat super expensive hypoallergenic food (when she'd rather be eating the cheapest thing from the darkest corner of a bodega shelf).

caseopele

They don't even refuse to eat, they just make a big deal out of having to eat it. They're just spoiled I tell you. I'm going to head over to Acme and see what dry food they have for dogs and cats. I'm going to stop using NYC Pet (heard some stuff about them that I don't like) and use Acme instead. So, the babes will probably be in for a change in food anyway. They'll like whatever I give them or they won't eat!

bk1980gb

hahahahaha...good luck with that and let us know how it goes ;-)

(I'm laughing because I know how long I last when I try to "out stubborn" my cats)

ev965

A couple of our cats had big health problems, including kidney stones (shortly after we switched to the Venison and Green Pea dry food that was just recalled ... one ended up needing surgery) and the vet suggested we get more liquid in their diet by giving them wet food. The vets said smelly is more appealing to cats (generally).

We started with special stuff the vet gave us, but nobody would eat it. We got several high-end varieties, they wouldn't eat them. We got grocery store varieties--one of every flavor. We made a chart tracking their reactions to each flavor. Finally we found they liked Fancy Feast flaked tuna feast. Until they stopped liking it. They snarfed the stuff down for a few weeks, then they wrinkled their noses and backed away from it. We thought from can to can that some smelled better than others (to our untrained noses), but what could we do?

A guy at a pet store said Weruva brand was popular, so I tried it. You can see on their website (http://www.weruva.com/ and click on cuisine), the food looks good enough for a person to eat! (I didn't want to recommend them without reassurance, so I wrote to the company, and the president wrote back that their cat food is produced in Thailand in a human-food factory, they use none of the suspect ingredients, and the factory is FDA approved and USDA certified and a bunch of other acronyms for quality control.) As soon as we opened a can, the cats were all hooked. Before one would like one flavor, another would just tolerate it, and the third would be downright offended by it. But we finally got agreement on the Weruva. We tried most of the flavors, and they only like "Mediterranean Harvest" and "Mideast Feast." I suggested it to a friend at work whose cat had been eating a brand that was recalled, and her cat loves it too (not sure what flavor). It's been months, and so far they consistently love this stuff. We add warm water for extra juiciness. It's not cheap, but it's worth an extra 20 cents a day to us.

Except one cat (one of those who had health problems, and could really use more liquid) throws up whenever she eats any wet food. Tender stomach, I guess. Poor kitten. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get more liquid into a kitty who gets sick after just two bites of wet food? She drinks water from freshly filled water bowls, and from the tap if we let it run, so maybe that's all she needs, but if you have any ideas about her tender tummy, please share?

We also leave out Science Diet Nature's Best dry food, mix of chicken and fish flavors, all the time. --E.

bolletje

One of the ways we get our cat to drink water is to put a little milk in a small dish (maybe a tablespoon) and thin it with water, so it's about 1 part milk to 3 parts water and it only seems to attract her if it's whole milk.
I only buy milk from the greenmarket so I spoil her by giving her the creamy milk from the top of the bottle with some water mixed in and she drinks it up in like 2 minutes!