Is it safe to starve my picky cat into eating his damn food?

livismom1

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I feel your frustration! My daughter's cat is the opposite though. He will not touch a food if it has seafood in it. Hates it. When we rescued him he would not touch wet food at all. Thought I had him liking Fancy Feast and Tiger Cat Pate, Weruva slide 'n serves, and Tiki Cat velvet mousse...Well he decided he hates them all. Well, if I leave out the Jeopardy chicken Weruva he will eat maybe half a pouch. He will eat about 2/3 of a can of Farmina wild boar. But what really screwed me was getting him Stella and Chewy's Duck, Duck, Goose. I rehydrate about 6 of those things with extra water in the bowl and he devours it in about 20 mins. He only nibbles on his dry food if he is pouting because I refuse to only feed him the Stella and Chewy's. He will no longer bother himself with that other "trash". It is so beneath him. LOL So I have the rabbit variety being delivered tomorrow. I put off getting that one because it seems wrong to feed him rabbit when he used to be friends with my daughter's rabbit. But since he didn't eat Lucy, maybe it isn't a big deal. I wish you luck with yours. I have had 3 siamese cats in the past. They are wonderful and vocal little buttheads.
 

ladytimedramon

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I haven't noticed anyone mention this brand, but one of the wet foods I manage to get Delilah to eat is Crave. She won't touch the pate, but about 75% of the time she will eat the cuts. I don't feel so bad with the individual containers because if I open one and she won't eat that flavor, I can put it on the side for a couple of days without it languishing in the fridge. She'll also eat Sheba... but just cuts. She won't touch pate with a 10 foot pole.

Delilah gets wet twice a day and dry twice a day. For her dry, I feed her Fromm, either Beef Livattini or Chicken au Fromage. They sell it in a 2 pound bag, and she only gets about 2 tbsp at a meal, so I don't mind switching the two every bag or so.
 

Swttea

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I had a REALLY hard time with my kitten when I got her, she wasn't addicted to dry food or anything like that, she wanted wet food but seemed to hate everything I gave her. It was so frustrating. She'd take a few nibbles and leave it. I was throwing SO much food out!!

In the end I have found several wet foods that she will eat, and some are "healthy" and some are not so healthy. She also has dry out all the time. Sometimes it's tiki cat sometimes it's dr elseys, she likes both, and both are healthier then otheres in terms of carb % - some of the lowest carb dry foods.

My main criteria is that it doesn't have carrageenan in it, or a bunch of veggies, and she can only fave a fishy food if she won't snub others. She does get a tin of Fancy Feast every day, if I try to put her something else down for breakfast she won't eat it (but she'll eat it for the next meal). Shes got to have Fancy Feast Delights for breakfast - either the "Fancy Feast Creamy Delights Chicken Feast in a Creamy Sauce", which has no fish, or the "Fancy Feast Delights with Cheddar Grilled Chicken & Cheddar Cheese Feast in Gravy", which also has no fish. There is also a turkey one of the cheddar variety.

Fancy Feast has some things in it I don't like but I don't really think it's as horrible as some people think it is. You can find flavors without fish, and they aren't loaded with veggies that cats don't need (some high-end foods have so much crap in it that cats DON'T NEED!).

The other foods I have success with are,

Tiny Tiger Turkey. She MIGHT eat the beef or chicken once a month but she'll eat the turkey any time. No fish

Weruva Lamb Burgini. This is the only Weruva flavor she'll eat. It does have fish broth and tuna as the first ingredients (even though it's a lamb food...) so may not be one that you want to try. I don't feed it daily.

Wellness CORE Turkey & Chicken Liver Pate (kitten variety - but there is probably an adult variety). No fish. But expensive. Both the kittens like this a lot.

Another food I had success with for a while is Tiki Cat After Dark Pate - Rabbit & Chicken Liver. She stopped eating it eventually, but it's got great ingredients and no fish. Unfortunately it's sort of new and Chewy isn't carrying it yet, but petco/smart have it. It's expensive.

Farmina Natural & Delicious - this is a bit of a weird one. It's totally random when or when not they'll eat it. It smells really good to me lol. I have the kitten version but there are others.

American Journey. Another Chewy house brand (like Tiny Tiger), but better ingredients. I've only tried the minced in gravy. It's so-so but as long as I don't offer it a lot, it gets eaten. No fish, decent ingredients, affordable

I had a LOT of samples sent to me. In the end, none of them worked out - she'd eat it once and not again, but maybe you would have better success. It's surprising how many samples I actually got! I can't recall the exact amounts I was given but all of these companies gave me several full sized wet food cans and small pouches of dry food. I just sent them an email and said I had a picky kitten that likes x y z proteins, explained that they weren't carries anywhere locally, and they sent out samples.

Dr Elseys (contact here)
Rawz (contact here)
Hound & Gatos (contact here)
Wysong (dry only) (here) <-- this one isn't totally free, but you just pay $2.50 shipping. It was all dry food, but some treats and treat bars, too.
A note about Wysong - I think it's really dumb that they make a Vegan cat food. I don't support that at all and they'll probably send you a sample of it. The Epigen / Epigen 90 are the best dry foods they have.

You could also try bonito flakes mushed into the food, and also try microwaving it for about 10 seconds if you haven't.
 
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