Can Cats Taste Whether Wet Food has Chicken?

spac

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My father is claiming the feral cat won't eat wet food with chicken and that's why the cat won't eat certain foods. To me, that sounds absurd because nearly all regular wet food (anything under $0.75) has chicken. Even the fish food has chicken. The flavor listed on the label is just that - a flavor. It has nothing to do with what's actually in the food. Prescription food or certain high quality brands may be a different story.

I would like to hear what other people think about this. The cat eats Sheba pate food very well, but he's picky about other foods.
 

neely

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Our cat will only eat wet food with chicken, I've tried offering him beef, liver and duck but he flat out refuses it. I think they're all individual and our boy is an exceptionally fussy eater. Hope that helps a little. :)
 

FeebysOwner

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Well, if you look at the Sheba Perfect Portion pates' ingredients - for example, the roasted turkey and the beef have chicken in them. Even the fish pates contain chicken broth and/or poultry liver. The tuna one even has chicken listed as its first ingredient. All of them have the protein in them which is reflected on the label, but most if not all of them contain some chicken related substance.

The Fancy Feast pates that I feed Feeby do not necessarily contain chicken in those that are labeled as something other than chicken, but most of them do contain 'meat by-products', so I can't rule out for sure that doesn't include chicken. Fancy Feast beef pate, for example has beef listed as the first ingredient; this is the case with other 'flavors' as well. So, they do contain the protein they are labeled as.

Have you tried Fancy Feast pates for this cat?
 

Azazel

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Chicken in the ingredients list can mean lots of things in pet food (bones, fur, diseased parts, etc.). And the sourcing quality of the food will vary too. Plus, most canned foods have multiple ingredients which affect the flavor. Expensive prescription foods aren’t any better quality. Welcome to the pet feed industry :)
 
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daftcat75

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Well, if you look at the Sheba Perfect Portion pates' ingredients - for example, the roasted turkey and the beef have chicken in them. Even the fish pates contain chicken broth and/or poultry liver. The tuna one even has chicken listed as its first ingredient. All of them have the protein in them which is reflected on the label, but most if not all of them contain some chicken related substance.

The Fancy Feast pates that I feed Feeby do not necessarily contain chicken in those that are labeled as something other than chicken, but most of them do contain 'meat by-products', so I can't rule out for sure that doesn't include chicken. Fancy Feast beef pate, for example has beef listed as the first ingredient; this is the case with other 'flavors' as well. So, they do contain the protein they are labeled as.

Have you tried Fancy Feast pates for this cat?
AAFCO will tell you that meat byproducts are unnamed organs from food mammals eg cows, pigs, sheep, or lamb. No chicken.

But Krista would have told you the turkey and giblets flavor has chicken giblets in the “poultry giblets” on the label. It wasn’t a huge amount to make her vomit like chicken did in her IBD years. But it was enough to set off the ear shake. It was her chicken detector. Poor girl. I hope she’s eating all the chicken (and fish) she desires on the other side now. 😻😭🤧
 
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spac

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Thanks everyone.

I've tried four flavors of Friskies pate, about 6 flavors of Petsmart's store brand pate, all the Special Kitty (Walmart) pates, four Fancy Feast pates, one or two Tiny Tiger pates, and about three Fancy Feast shreds. He won't eat any of it. He was eating the Petsmart food ok for 2-3 weeks or so. Weird.

I wish I knew if my father was giving him food besides cat food. Tonight I found two rolled up pizza crusts (from two slices of pizza) outside on the plates. I don't know if he scraped everything off the pizza or what he did, but that's certainly a strange thing to do. I picked them up and threw them in the trash. People :doh:
 

FeebysOwner

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If you suspect your father is giving him human food, is there a way you could set up a hidden cam somewhere that your father would not catch onto? If he is being fed enough human food, it could cause him to be less interested in his own food. Also, you said this is a feral cat, yes? Could other people in the area being feeding him as well?
 

mizzely

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Mine won't eat anything with tuna in it or "fish" but does fine with salmon, so they must have more refined/picky palettes then we give them credit for!
 

kitsune85

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Our cat will only eat wet food with chicken, I've tried offering him beef, liver and duck but he flat out refuses it. I think they're all individual and our boy is an exceptionally fussy eater. Hope that helps a little. :)
mine is doesn't like salmon too and duck only in lower amount in dry food. forget about goat meat in wet food, he'll smell and walk away. i have a theory that it's the fat levels in those meat that made it smell more gamey. my cat tends to hate those "fatty" meat including salmon. he only sticks to lean meat like chicken, venison, turkey and to some extent kangaroo meat in his diet.
 
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