Fruit Flies And Feeding Wet Food

[Pitapapaya]

Hello everyone, I am new to this site and and recently adopted my first cat, a two year old ginger tabby.

She’s a sweet lap cat, but I can never get her to eat enough food—she typically eats a couple bites, leaves and comes back to eat over the course of an hour or two, and only if I happen to be next to her when she is eating (If I go to the bathroom after giving her food in the morning, she abandons her food dish and meows at me until I come out of the bathroom). Since she’s such a slow eater and regularly walks away from her food half-eaten, her wet food has been attracting fruit flies, at which point I have to throw out her food before she has eaten the entire portion. I want to encourage her to eat more quickly, but how do I do so with this fly problem? (I’ve been setting up traps and have successfully dealt with fruit flies before, but this was before I had a wet-food eating cat.)

I’ve been feeding her wet (Sheba) and free-feeding dry (Crave). She only eats about 50% of what is recommended (the vet says her weight is fine, but that she should eat more) so I try to make food available to her in case she gets hungry while I am at work. Should I just switch to only feeding her dry until the fly issue is resolved? Should I take away her dry food and risk that she eats even less than she does now?

Appreciate any advice that you might have.

 

[maggiedemi]

Can you do wet food twice a day when you are home and then just leave the dry food out? I wouldn't take away the wet food, I would worry about urinary problems if you did.

 

[Pitapapaya]

Can you do wet food twice a day when you are home and then just leave the dry food out? I wouldn't take away the wet food, I would worry about urinary problems if you did.

Thanks for replying. That’s what I’m doing currently, it just takes her a long time to eat a good portion of the wet food. She eats a couple bites, walks away, comes back again ten minutes later, and in that time the fruit flies are already at it. It’s gotten to the point that I’m following her around the house with her half eaten food dish (I’m sure at this point that I’ve spoiled this cat...)

 

[maggiedemi]

Is there any safe way to get rid of the fruit flies? My female cat takes an hour or two to finish her wet food sometimes too. But we've never had a problem with fruit flies.

 

[lisahe]

I agree with M maggiedemi about not taking the cat -- what is her name, by the way? -- off wet food.

We have a slow eater and two things have helped. The first is that we feed the cats a variety of canned foods because they get bored easily. The second is that we feed them five small meals a day. There are lots of reasons for all the meals but I find it really helps ensure that Ireland, the slow eater, will finish her meals. She can take 10-15 minutes to eat even the smallest meal, taking a bite, staring out the window, taking a new angle on the food, having a little more food. And on and on and on! And since you mention following the cat around with the dish, let me add that Ireland also takes her meals in various places, sometimes at the (glass) front door, sometimes on the screened veranda. Sometimes at other places. I just pick up the dish and follow her wherever she goes. She's a bit of a challenge sometimes. But a very sweet cat!

As for maggiedemi's question about fruit flies, I don't think there's much you can do!

 

[Lindsay1126]

You could set a fruit fly trap. That's what I have to do to keep them from taking over in our area. I use a piece of old banana, a few tbsn of apple cider vinegar in a bowl, but seran wrap over and poke holes with toothpicks. They will be super attracted to both things and get stuck inside. It brought our amount down by 75%. Might be agood idea to put the trap near the cat food bowl, but somewhere Kitty can't get to it. Good luck.

 

[DreamerRose]

There's another kind of fly trap that I thought was wonderful. It looks like an empty paper towel tube but all surfaces are sticky. I rubbed a bit of banana on it, and soon it was covered with fruit flies. They stick right where they landed, which attracts even more flies.

Mingo is a slow eater, too, and he does not like me to leave him. This is instinctive from the wild where one cat will stand guard while the other cats eat. Sometimes, he has completely stopped eating when I went out the door for a moment. So I would suggest you sit by while she eats. At least, stay close enough for her to see you.

 

[Pitapapaya]

Thank you everyone for your responses.

Seems like the general consensus is to stick with what I’ve been doing (monitor wet food consumption, set fruit fly traps—I’ll set up some more) until the problem resolves itself.

PS: her name is Brioche.

 

[artiemom]

Here is what I have been using to trap fruit flies and those nasty little black gnats, which just come in through the screens..

I take a small shallow bowl, put a little bit of water in it, some Dawn Dish Soap, and some Apple Cider Vinegar.

It traps them. The ACV attracts them, once in, the Dawn traps them in the thick soap...

I did it next to bananas, and the pesky flies disappeared into the deep unknown swimming pool..

Did it last week and trapped an annoying gnat...

 

[MissMolly08]

I was just curious why the vet thinks she should eat more if her weight is steady? Steady weight is a good sign she's getting exactly how much she needs! The recommended amounts of food listed on cans/bags is usually an overestimate and you go by calories instead...
How much food is she actually eating? Are you giving a whole can of Sheba at once? Do you measure her dry?