Changing a cat’s food preference

[Abc12345]

I have been trying for months to shift my cats onto a wet food diet. After finally finding a wet food they like, I recently learned about the dangers of fish-based cat food. The only wet food my cats will lick clean is the fancy feast seafood flavors and any other wet food they will reluctantly nibble at are all fish flavored. My cats will turn up their little pink noses at any other meat, to the point I’ve seen one of them throw up from an empty stomach. With dry foods though, they will eat anything and everything.
I would definitely like to eliminate fish from my cats’ diets. How can I get them to eat other flavors?

 

[Ashanti]

One thing that might work is a slow transition mixing the food they like with a food they like less but is better for them. Like if you feed one 3oz can of food you can have 2.75 be the food they like and .25 be a less liked but better for them food feed that for a week or so then go up by .25 or something the next week. It'll take a bit that way but it may switch them to a better food. A good quality dry food may also help them. My boy is soo picky he wont eat canned cat food so I soak dry in some water a few times a day to get some extra water in him.

 

[Purr-fect]

We moved our cats from dry to wet when we adopted them. Now they almost only eat wet.

I ground up some of their dry food in a coffee grinder.

Then i mixed/sprinkled the ground dry food in with the wet food, gradually decreasing the amount of dry over time.

 

[minish]

If they can't resist fish, you can add fish oil to their food, omega fatty acids are great supplements for them but I don't know if there is danger in giving too much as with some kinds of vitamins

 

[Abc12345]

Thank you all for the great ideas. Will try each out.

 

[Abc12345]

We moved our cats from dry to wet when we adopted them. Now they almost only eat wet.

I ground up some of their dry food in a coffee grinder.

Then i mixed/sprinkled the ground dry food in with the wet food, gradually decreasing the amount of dry over time.

It works! I don’t know why I never thought to top with kibble. I’d tried sprinkling crushed up greenies before but kibble works MUCH better.

 

[Purr-fect]

Your cats will get smart and learn they can simply lick the powdered dry food off the top of the wet food. I mix the dry into the wet and also slice the wet pate and sprinkle the dry between the slices, forcing the cat to eat wet to get to the dry.

Over time, weeks or months, reduce the amount of powdered dry. Years latter I still sprinkle a small amount on their wet food. It gives them some variety and hopefully pleasure.