Cat Hates Wet Food. Will She Like Raw?

[Elfilou]

Title says it all really, but I'll briefly explain.

I've fed Elfie at least one wet meal a day since the day I've had her but it's always been a "for your own good" type of deal and it feels almost like I have to fight her for it. She will eat it when she's hungry but, aside from tuna, she doesn't seem to enjoy it at all. If she's not hungry she will just leave it. I rotate flavours, try to keep it interesting etc. But honestly, I wish she would enjoy it more.

I didn't think I'd ever consider raw because I'm a vegetarian myself and I just feel more comfortable with something in a tin can. Bbut I don't want to keep feeding half of her diet as kibble forever. At the same time... I don't like seeing her eat her food with clear disgust.

If I get commercial raw food - to try it - will it all go to waste? Or is there a good chance that she will actually like that. I can imagine that this cooked meat tastes very different from raw.

Yeah, so is there a fair chance she will take to raw?

 

[Ardina]

One of the biggest reasons I switched to raw was because Saipha used to be a kibble addict. I managed to transition her to canned food, but she would always eat very reluctantly with lots of toppers and coaxing required. I gave her a spoonful of raw cat food once, and she loved it! Thank goodness for no more coaxing at every meal and tossing of expensive wet food. Now she meows with excitement at mealtime and licks her dish clean.

Why she likes raw but not canned - who knows?

 

[lalagimp]

I haven't tried my little tortie on raw, since the first time I tried her on raw. She wasn't eating canned food so I thought I'd give it a shot, and she turned me down flat. Later on, I put a split dish in her feeder with my other female, and put canned in one side and kibble in another. She suddenly started recognizing canned as an actual food. She eats them both maybe 50/50? It's about 1/8-1/4 cup of high cal low carb kibble a day.
I guess forcing it in front of her with her regular food kind of perked her up to the idea.
I did try dehydrated food reconstituted with water and neither of my girls liked that idea.

 

[himawari]

I think it really depends on the cat as I've heard a few who said their cats just won't transition to raw & others' who's cat immediately took to raw. I know my local store sets aside from samples of Rad Cat, so perhaps yours will too? That way you can grab a bunch & see if she likes it. Regardless, it's worth a shot & you can always return the product if it doesn't work out. Keep in mind that it will have to a slow transition & could take a week or so, depending on how easy your cat is to transition. Personally, my cat took a week. For the first couple of days, I would only use dime-size raw food as a treat so he knows that it is food & completely edible before giving him small amounts on a saucer. Here's an article about feeding raw to cats.

 

[Elfilou]

Ardina
Hah, that's the kind of reaction I'm hoping for with raw. But I don't know how big that chance is. I guess I won't know until I try!

lalagimp
I have tried that method of offering the usual food next to the wet food. 9/10 times she chooses dry. Unless its tuna lol. It's been two years and I still can't feed a 100% wet because will just not intake enough calories. She eats about a tablespoon, sometimes not even a tablespoon, of wet food a day - with reluctance and toppers and only because she's hungry.

H himawari
Thanks for linking that article! Read through it and I think I am ready to give it a try. I just checked and unfortunately I can't get any samples. I live in Europe and we don't have RadCat here as far as I can tell. There are a few webshops that sell raw and I think I will order pre-ground raw, the least amount I can get. Which is about 500 grams and I'm already kind of lost on how I should go about handling that. I can't just keep freezing and defrosting it right? How did you feed the dimesizes?

 

[Ardina]

You can defrost it all one time, portion into an ice cube tray, and refreeze. Then, you can defrost one "cube" at a time. One full cube (standard size) is ~ 1 oz or 28 grams of meat.

 

[Elfilou]

You can defrost it all one time, portion into an ice cube tray, and refreeze. Then, you can defrost one "cube" at a time. One full cube (standard size) is ~ 1 oz or 28 grams of meat.

Oh that sounds great! A plastic tray? How do I get one cube out without defrosting the rest too? Thank you this is helping a lot

 

[Ardina]

You can use a fork or something similar to pop out one cube at a time. Alternatively, you can pop them all out, stick them in a plastic freezer bag, and just pull out one at a time to defrost.

 

[LTS3]

Or use a silicone ice cube tray. All you do is push up the bottom of the tray up to pop the frozen food out With a plastic ice cube tray, just whack the tray on the counter to loosen the cubes and take what you need. The rest can stay in the tray or put into freezer bags to save space in the freezer.

 

[Elfilou]

Thanks! I ended up using silicone cupcake trays. Couldn't find the icecube ones, apparently it's more of a summer item.

Anyway I think it's going pretty well. Right now I'm offering raw next to wet food and she picked the raw the second time (granted that I added toppers and a bit of warm water, she does not like cold food) and she ate quite a bit of it actually! I offered her a tablespoon of raw and she liked that too. We'll see how it goes and if she likes the other animal I got but I'm optimistic!