Cat Doesn't Like Variety :/

[broutilde]

Hi guys,
It's been a long time and I would like your advice.
I have been feeding my kitty homemade raw food for a more than a year but after a visit to the vet, we realized that my cat may be allergic to the chicken protein.
I will switch to other proteins and will stop chicken but in the meantime, I bought some very good quality local homemade raw food for him (venison, beef, lamb and kangaroo) until I can receive my red meat order (I'm a chef so I can easily get organic grass fed lamb or beef).
Yes, the brat is spoiled.
Anyways, main issue here is that he's not touching his new food AT ALL. I tried everything: mix with the chicken, smother the food on his paw, add some nice "toppings", treats... Nothing works.
It's been one day and he has touched anything; and the food is going back and forth from the fridge to his plate.
I'm out of options.
What would you do?

 

[daftcat75]

Many cats don't like red meat. Can you try turkey, duck, or rabbit? My Krista has a chicken sensitivity. Turkey and duck are different enough for her but rabbit with salmon oil is her current favorite. Salmon oil has turned a "likes it okay" into a "cleans the plate every time."

 

[broutilde]

My vet recommended to remove poultry alltogether as they could also trigger that allergy, that's why I wanted to switch to red meat. I read that duck is not a good option though, is that true?
Thank you for your help

 

[broutilde]

Unfortunately my cat is not a big fan of salmon oil, more like a "likes it okay" kinda thing.

 

[daftcat75]

Every cat is different. But Krista did very well with turkey when I had to cross chicken off her list. The only reason I'm not still feeding her turkey is that I got a bad batch of Rawz cans (watery, not spoiled) and since rotated her to rabbit. I've found duck is a good guest star but a little much for her as a full-time food.

As convenient as it would be, Krista may never like red meat. I've offered her beef, lamb, bison, venison, lamb, ... I said lamb. I probably offered it twice too. So if I had to follow your vet's advice, Krista would have starved by now.

What about pork? Krista doesn't care for pork but maybe yours might. I'm not entirely clear where the line is for red meat since I don't eat it myself.

 

[broutilde]

I didn't think about pork, might as well give it a try. In the meantime I guess I'll try the rest of what I bought. This will help me figure out what meat to choose to make big batches in the future!

 

[broutilde]

May I ask why you had to cross chicken off her list?

 

[broutilde]

Sorry I thought that there was an potion for editing messages but I can't find it anywhere! I'm starting to read about raw food and pork for cats, and apparently it's not recommended (for the same reasons that humans have to cook it well done)

 

[daftcat75]

There are other members here who feed pork who can comment on that.

I have had to cross chicken and salmon off of Krista’s list because of IBD. When she was at her worst, those were the two proteins she was eating all the time. She got a lot of relief switching to tuna (novel protein only has to be novel to your cat, not all cats) because Tiki Cat was the cleanest recipe I could find at the time. She’s very sensitive to all the gums. But she didn’t really start to turn around until she was eating Rawz and Rad Cat. Turkey mostly but rabbit lately. Sometimes duck. And even though salmon protein is on her no-go list, salmon oil has been a godsend for her. It’s the only arthritis relief that doesn’t soup her poops, and it makes her food worth cleaning the plate.

 

[daftcat75]

You get edit privileges after a certain number of posts. Ten maybe? Fifteen? I don’t know. Posting pictures of your cat counts, I think.

 

[broutilde]

I'll look into posts about pork, thank you!

 

[Tobermory]

I think you have to have 20-something posts before you can edit.

Several folks here use pork in their rotation, and I don’t think it’s a problem. I’ve tried pork but unfortunately, one of my three won’t touch it. She also didn’t like duck. And she also won’t eat any commercial frozen raw. Yes, spoiled brat. She does, however, like Stella & Chewy’s Duck Duck Goose freeze-dried raw, rehydrated. You might see if your boy would go for that crumbled onto his food. And have you tried bonito flakes as a topper?

Duck has more fat so you’d want to watch the calories if you use that. Rabbit is always a good choice. I use rabbit in my rotation.

 

[maggie101]

When my cat Josie had IBD, pancreatitis, and liver inflammation. she was given canned duck LID or Rabbit LID. Pork would have also been a good option for her.
My cat Peaches throws up wellness core chicken,chicken liver,and Turkey but not dr elseys chicken. Maybe because wc has so much meat in it. She also cannot keep down shredded chicken.
She is fed many small servings a day. Mornings are the worst for her. Something about her GI Tract.
My cat Josie was on chicken only till she got sick. Now I feed my other cats a wide variety of meats in Hope's that they will never have allergies

 

[maggie101]

My cat Maggie has a preference of what she wants to eat. So mornings she insists on me adding shredded chicken. You could try some shredded chicken for a topper but very small amount in tiny pieces
for your cat

 

[lisahe]

Our cats -- especially our pickier one -- love pork! I feed it to them in freeze-dried commercial (Primal) raw food and homemade cooked (with two different supplements).

Don't give up on a protein after just one cut. Our cats love chicken breast but have never been fans of thighs. Same with turkey, where tenderloin is great but thighs, not really. They like pretty much all pork but especially tenderloin, though boneless ribs (fattier) not so much. It just occurred to me that the cats hated (hated!) Rad Cat pork but loved RC chicken and turkey, both of which contained thigh meat. So much of this is irrational, at least to us humans. I feel like absolutely everything has to be tried... you might even try different supplements, I notice that the cats have a slight preference for their Alnutrin food over EZ... at least right now.

There's also the texture question, which can make a huge difference for some cats... ground, chunked, minced, etc. Ireland seems to especially like pulled pork and chicken breast but that's pretty labor intensive so more of a treat.

I wish our cats liked duck more and that it were more affordable/available where I live!

 

[broutilde]

I think you have to have 20-something posts before you can edit.

Several folks here use pork in their rotation, and I don’t think it’s a problem. I’ve tried pork but unfortunately, one of my three won’t touch it. She also didn’t like duck. And she also won’t eat any commercial frozen raw. Yes, spoiled brat. She does, however, like Stella & Chewy’s Duck Duck Goose freeze-dried raw, rehydrated. You might see if your boy would go for that crumbled onto his food. And have you tried bonito flakes as a topper?

Duck has more fat so you’d want to watch the calories if you use that. Rabbit is always a good choice. I use rabbit in my rotation.

My local pet store gave me some Stella & Chewy's Duckduck goose to try and my cat didn't touch it. Bonito flakes don't work either. As for rabbit, I wanted to try but I'm having a hard time findind whole rabbits with organs in a decent price range (I live in Canada).
I gave up this morning and gave him his usual chicken cubes...

 

[broutilde]

Our cats -- especially our pickier one -- love pork! I feed it to them in freeze-dried commercial (Primal) raw food and homemade cooked (with two different supplements).

Don't give up on a protein after just one cut. Our cats love chicken breast but have never been fans of thighs. Same with turkey, where tenderloin is great but thighs, not really. They like pretty much all pork but especially tenderloin, though boneless ribs (fattier) not so much. It just occurred to me that the cats hated (hated!) Rad Cat pork but loved RC chicken and turkey, both of which contained thigh meat. So much of this is irrational, at least to us humans. I feel like absolutely everything has to be tried... you might even try different supplements, I notice that the cats have a slight preference for their Alnutrin food over EZ... at least right now.

There's also the texture question, which can make a huge difference for some cats... ground, chunked, minced, etc. Ireland seems to especially like pulled pork and chicken breast but that's pretty labor intensive so more of a treat.

I wish our cats liked duck more and that it were more affordable/available where I live!

Hahaha I feel kinda better know knowing that my cat is as picky as other's! I feed my cat raw -organic!- chicken tighs and add supplements (basically the recipe from catinfo.org) and I do both grounded and chunks. He was a lazy bum at first and didn't want the chunks but now he doesn't mind chewing a bit. I don't have to brush his teeth anymore, which is a relief.
I guess I'll take some more time to figure out what kitty likes. As a chef I can 100% say that he's my pickiest customer!

 

[broutilde]

(sorry for all the typing mistakes, my auto-correct is going crazy here)

 

[broutilde]

My cat Maggie has a preference of what she wants to eat. So mornings she insists on me adding shredded chicken. You could try some shredded chicken for a topper but very small amount in tiny pieces
for your cat

Thank you for your suggestions. Yesterday I tried to top the raw venison meat with his usual treats (freeze dried chicken) and he didn't touch it/them. It's frustrating!

 

[lisahe]

Yes, cats can be pretty picky, especially if they don't feel great! (You didn't mention what your cat's symptoms are but some of them can really reduce a cat's appetite.) Anyway, yes, definitely try mixing things up... speaking of "mixing," I wonder what might happen if you mixed a little pork into the chicken? Sometimes gradual changes like that work well.

Good luck!