Cat food samples

[Katdog]

Rawz just sent me 4 FOUR! 5.5 oz cans of free cat food samples. I couldn’t find any near me and didn’t want to have to buy a whole case only to learn that Korra Kat hated it. (For some reason she stopped eating wet food when she was sick and I was fearful the transition would be tough.) I had reached out to ziwi bc of the same issue, who sent me one 3oz can. Just one!

Def Bravo to rawz for being awesome in this scenario, def way better customer service than ziwi.

Sorry just wanted to share with someone about how excited I am about this and hopes it works out (haven’t fed it to her yet) so I can ultimately support rawz over ziwi.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Wow! That's wonderful. Hope she likes it.

 

[daftcat75]

Tips for making those four cans last and getting your "money's worth" out the samples.

Since you say she's not eating her wet food right now anyway, do a slow "naked" transition as if she were. I call it naked because you'll leave the old food off the plate since she's not eating it anyway. If you started out with a 25% new food to 75% old food transition, just plate 1/4 portion of the new food. Use her poops to judge whether to continue with this food. A softer poop may be expected because it is a new food. You'll know when it's just not the right food for her. Good poop? Go ahead and slowly increase her portion sizes over the next day or two until she's eating whole portions of the new food again.

Now because you're not plating a whole can at a time, you're going to have to convince her to eat leftovers. I often find this is a matter of serving temperature more than anything. For my Krista, I would spoon every portion of hers (fresh from the can or leftover from the fridge) into a plastic baggie, press it flat as I could (this speeds up the next step), and brought the food up to lukewarm serving temperature by running the sealed baggie under hot water. This shouldn't add more than a minute to your feeding routine. But my Krista certainly appreciated it. She never turned her nose up to leftovers when I warmed up every portion for her. When you're (eventually) paying upwards of $75/case, you don't want your kitty rejecting the leftovers.

 

[Katdog]

daftcat75 thanks so much! I was wondering about the food temp when you put leftover in the fridge. I've been doing a bain-Marie with the leftover Ziwi cans and have been a lot of luck! essentially the same as your method!

 

[dustydiamond1]

Gypsy eats around 1/2 can of Fancy Feast about 3 times a day, of course it is something different each time.
I put a small piece of cling wrap over the open can, snap a plastic lid over that and refrigerate. The fridge leftovers go into a fresh out of the dishwasher Correlle bowl, I pop it into the microwave for 5 or 6 seconds then crumble two Temptations treats over the top.

 

[TardisDance]

I’m going through the same with trying to transition to dry to some sort of wet food. I‘m starting out with BFF OMG flavors since she seems to love the Friskies Lil Soups. I thought since it’s mostly gravy, she could eat 3 oz. at once and nope, too much. I tried again with 1.5 oz in the morning. She gobbled it in the morning, but then once I gave it in the evening and microwaved for 4 seconds, the smell was super strong fish . .I almost gagged and then she wouldn’t touch it. I put it back in a fridge and took it out just before I went to bed and mixed some warm water. She ate most of it overnight.

I’m going to try half a pouch a day for now and do the hot water over the bag trick for leftovers. I’m not sure if it was the smell or too much when I tried the whole pouch divided into separate meals. I‘d really rather not have food sitting out overnight.

 

[daftcat75]

I don't like the idea of microwaving cat food. Microwaves can break apart chemical bonds e.g. destroy nutrients. You also lose some of the moisture to evaporation. What you take out is something different than what you put in. How different? Is this problematic? I don't know. But your cat had opinions. Yeah, the water trick takes a little longer, and if you use baggies, it can be wasteful. (But is it more wasteful than dumping food?) The baggies can be rinsed out and re-used a few times. The proof is on the plate though. When I warmed up leftovers in a bag under hot water, they got eaten.

 

[TardisDance]

All I know is that is smelled really bad when I heated it up only 4 seconds on the plate. I try when I can to rewash ziplock bags (my only exception is raw meat really). I think I’ll try using half of one flavor then the next day rotate on a new flavor so it’s always something new to her.

I’ve tried to transition her several times in the past. When I’ve tried to microwave leftovers, she seems to reject them, even if I rotate a flavor. I kept them in the cans with one of the pet food covers and microwaved them on a plates. I can only guess that she’s bored of the flavor or the microwave is making it taste yucky to her.

 

[daftcat75]

I think more likely it's the microwave changing the flavor, aroma, and texture of the food. Cats don't really need variety. In fact, variety can be a double-edged sword. It can expand the universe of ingredients you are feeding her. The more ingredients in her diet, the more likely you'll hit upon one that doesn't agree with her. The other pitfall of variety is that they learn they can hold out for something different. I had to restrict Krista's diet because of IBD. But even when I did have other choices, I would have scheduled variety. She would always get one flavor, the same flavor, for every breakfast. And she would get the other flavor for another meal, always the same meal. Food A for breakfast(s) and Food B for dinner(s). If she didn't want one, I'd plate the other. Usually side-by-side and let her sort out her pickiness. I never withheld food in an effort to make her hungry enough to eat what I served her.

 

[Katdog]

TardisDance did you try a water bath? This has worked well for me granted I’ve only used it with one type of food and could just be lucky so far. We have an electronic water kettle so it’s much faster than over the stove water boiling. Usually just takes me 5-10 mins from starting the water kettle to food being warmed and ready to serve.

 

[TardisDance]

TardisDance did you try a water bath? This has worked well for me granted I’ve only used it with one type of food and could just be lucky so far. We have an electronic water kettle so it’s much faster than over the stove water boiling. Usually just takes me 5-10 mins from starting the water kettle to food being warmed and ready to serve.

I haven’t yet but am going to give it a try. I don’t have an electric kettle. The stores ran out of Lil Soups this week which she loves, so I bought a 6 flavors of different BFF OMG pouches locally to see what she likes. Like K Katdog I didn’t want to buy a whole case to find she only likes 1 or 2 flavors. And of course last week I sent an email to Weruva asking for coupons/samples. The rep was super nice and said he would send some samples. I was expecting maybe 1 or 2 cans - they sent a box of 6 cans (3 oz. each)! They sent 2 BFF OMG, 1 BFF Play, 1 Pate, and 2 Stews. I’m trying to take notes so I can keep it all straight and figure out what Miss Picky likes.

 

[daftcat75]

Cats will often be skeptical of new foods. If she takes more than a couple bites of any new food you offer, bring that one back. Cats will often try only a few bites of a new food to see how it treats them before eating more of it the next time.

 

[TardisDance]

Cats will often be skeptical of new foods. If she takes more than a couple bites of any new food you offer, bring that one back. Cats will often try only a few bites of a new food to see how it treats them before eating more of it the next time.

She’s been mostly eating anything I offer her because it’s gravy based. She loves her gravy. It more of a challenge to figure out what meats she’ll actually touch. She tends to leave the meat and eat all the gravy. If she eats the meat, it’s a keeper I think. I‘ve been trying on and off to get her to eat wet food, but she’s a total kibble addict. Not my fault, but she came from hoarding situation and I assume she was only fed low quality dry food. I only recently discovered she loves Friskies Lil Soups when I decided to give wet food another shot. If she doesn’t take to these, at least she’ll eat the soups. Most flavors have been out of stock everywhere lately.