15yr Old Transition To Wet Food - Process & Brand Recommendations?

Hi All,
My 15yr old cat is 14lbs, and should be more like 10. Our new integrative vet would like to see her on wet food. We currently feed RC Dry Weight Management Food. In the past, we had tried wet, but she was getting hairballs/vomiting a lot so perhaps we just couldn't find the right kind. The new vet recommends the more expensive stuff, like Tiki Cat and Weruva which are chunky. I think we've only done pate in the past, so I'm not sure if she will be finicky on texture or not. For pate versions, she said Wellness or Nature's Variety.

Any success with these brands, or is there a good affordable brand to start with to try? Is there a better texture to start with? We already have a dog on RX food, and the cat is coming home today from surgery to remove a couple growths, and then a tooth extraction they also found due to an absorptive legion. I wanted to get a wet food in case her mouth is sensitive!

Our old vet had the attitude of the damage is already done on her being overweight at such an old age...but obviously if we can help her be more healthy we want to do it!

sunshi500 said:

if we can help her be more healthy we want to do it!

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Good for you!!
Those foods could work, and you.could try Fancy Feast if your kitty isn't impressed with the others.

These articles may have something to help;

Transitioning Free-fed Kibble Kitties To Timed Meals

Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food (canned, Raw, Or Homemade)

I transitions four cats from being free fed kibble to timed meals of canned food, and they were all ages, ranging from 1 year to 13 years, so I think you should be ok. We did this because we also had a chunky one .

Every cat has different likes and dislikes when it comes to food, so it's really hard to say what yours will like. You may just need to experiment. We happened to use Soulistic, which is made by the same folks who make Weruva, but they make it for Petco, so it's less expensive. Since then both Weruva AND Soulistic have vastly expanded their lines, so I'm sure you can find all kinds of textures and flavors now that we didn't have available for our transition. Not sure why your girl was getting hairballs and having vomiting issues last time, but since she was, I would try to stay away from any foods that have wheat gluten, corn, soy, that type of thing. If you feed Fancy Feast, try to stick with their pates, as they don't have the above mentioned carbs. The fewer carbs, the better, in my humble opinion. Cats are meat eaters, they don't need carbs.

Good luck. Hopefully your girl will lose a few pounds. Our boy did, once we started counting his calories! He managed to lose about 4 pounds. Just what the Vet ordered.

Hi! I agree. You will likely have to experiment. I have had two issues with getting Feeby (15+yo) on at least some wet food (2-3 years ago) after years and years on urinary care dry foods.

1.) She is a grazer, so trying to change that habit has been impossible. She wants to eat tiny bits of wet as she did tiny bits of dry. I have not had much success in getting her to eat more than 1/6 of a can of wet food at one time.
2.) She licks/laps at wet, so she smashes the food down and then doesn't want to eat it unless I re-pile it up for in the middle of the dish. So, it is 20 minutes at least of pile, smash, re-pile, re-smash, etc. before she is done. It used to be an hour when we first started.

If your girl is anything like this, maybe the chunky is where to start? If the chunks are bigger than the pieces of dry she has been used to, you might have to cut them up. However, if she has had pate in the past, this might not be an issue.

Also, you know not to change her food over without a gradual transition, yes? Meaning a little new and mostly old for the first few days, then a little more new, and little less old, and so on (that might be why she threw up before?). Since you are worried about her mouth being sensitive, try wetting down her dry that she is used to (you can even add chicken or tuna water from cans), and/or also try a wet she used to eat that didn't cause her digestive issues. Once her mouth is healed, you can experiment with some new wet foods.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!!

Pate/mousse texture is better if her mouth is sensitive but every cat has their own preference. Worth to try different textures.

My Hima likes wet food but she refuses to eat more than one of the same can a day, and two cans of any wet food is the maximum she will eat in like 12 hours. She also eats not more than 40grams at a time at most.

Also, (more weirdness!) Hima doesn't eat wet food from ceramics or glass plates. I think maybe because it feels cold more with wet food, her tongue touches more... I don't know, but there is a clear difference on how much she eats when I serve on a ceramics/glass plate vs paper or plastic or silicone. Just to say if you have trouble with the transition, the challenge might be something else other than the food.