My cat has stopped eating wet food

[indie72]

Hi Everyone

I'm new to this site.  I adopted my beautiful cat Indie 4 months ago (she's approx 2.5 years old).  She seems happy, is very affectionate and playful and settled in extremely well.  The only problem I had with her was her food.  Over the months she has tried so many different brands and flavours.  She would eat one particular brand for a couple of weeks then go off it.  This happened a few times.  So I have a stock of Gourmet, Sheba, Felix and Whiskas! Finally I got her settled on Hi Life Essential and she loved this for about 3 - 4 weeks but she hasn't touched any in the last 3 days.  She will eat the delectable normal dry cat biscuits , dreamies or Webbox sticks and an occasional slice of ham but she just seems to have gone off wet pouches altogether.  Yesterday I put it in her bowl (she has 5 - porcelain - she won't touch plastic), she wouldn't eat it, I tried a bit on the floor, she ate it but when I tried this again later in the day she wouldn't eat it again.  She is still using her litter tray every day and like I say, seems happy.  So many people say 'if a cat's hungry it will eat'  so many people say 'they won't eat if they don't like it'  - I'm so confused because I obviously don't want her to be hungry

Many thanks

Julie

 

[Draco]

Welcome!!

Cats can and get bored with their food. I'd keep rotating food around so she won't get bored. Have you noticed if she prefers particular types (chunks, paté..?) my one cat refused to eat anything paté for the longest time.

I would also try to add a little bit water, and heat up the food a bit in the microwave.. just enough to warm it up and give it a smelly aroma. make it a little more tempting.

 

[dianamc]

I'm not an expert, but I've been trying to rotate foods so my kitten doesn't get stuck on them.  It seems that sometimes they do just refuse to eat. at a meal.  At Christmas, my husband fixed her a fairly large serving of FF which she promptly refused to touch.  He put it  back in the fridge and just a few minutes later, I got it out, put some back in the can, and set it down in the kitchen, expecting to pick it up again in a few minutes.  Instead she ate it all and I had to give her a refill. I have no idea what went on in her cat head the first time.

One food that seems to be well liked (found it on this forum) is FF Classic Chicken Feast.  It's not a bad food and I heat up the leftovers using the "defrost" setting on the microwave. 

 

[pushylady]

I agree that they just get bored sometimes, so we always have a variety of different cans. Some will go down better than others. I also like having different brands because of all the recalls of pet food. This way at least I can change their food easily if one of their brands gets recalled or is out of stock.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

Hi Julie, and welcome! ..

My female is a bit of a finicky puss who often gets bored with the different wet food diets. She will eat something for a couple of weeks, and then will suddenly turn her nose up at it. Mostly pates which I don't buy anymore. But even some of the chunky diets will not satisfy her. She prefers to eat the low fibre kibble which is disappointing but what can you do. My other two males will eat practically anything I serve. LOL

I find part of the problem as Draco mentioned, can be from lack of aroma after food has been refrigerated. For this reason I have started purchasing small 3 oz. cans of Wellness chunky as I don't own a microwave (never have) for my female so that she always gets room temperature food. The large Wellness cans I use for the boys. If you have a microwave, warming your cat's food may help to make it more appetizing for her.

 

[dianamc]

If you don't have a microwave, you can heat the food by putting the dish and all into a container of hot water. I tried this and it worked fine but the dish got kind of hot. A few seconds in the freezer will fix it or just use another dish beside the food bowl. One time her food was warm but her bowl was cold and she wouldn't touch it.  We changed dishes and all was well.

I think there's a fine line between catering too much and not realizing when they really don't like something. We've had two cats who didn't like Blue Buffalo dry formulas, two who loved Royal Canin dry (just a comment), and I finally decided it wasn't worth the fight to get Hound & Gatos wet chicken into this one but our outdoor cat will eat it.  You don't want to have a cat "stuck" on gravy though.  DH got FF Grilled Chicken Feast in Gravy and I'm not at all impressed with the ingredients in it. At least we only have 5 cans.

Check the calorie count in some of the cans and you often see why the cat isn't satisfied. Weruva is on the top of my head but it is really low-cal. This FF in gravy is lower in calories than the Liver & Chicken Classic Feast. The first ingredient is chicken broth.

 

[indie72]

Thank you everyone.  Indie has just eaten half a pouch of wet food so hopefully she was just having a few off days.  Time will tell.  At least she is not in any distress or losing weight, if that happens I'll take her to the vet.  Maybe she's just fussy like her mam ha ha.

 

[marc999]

 
I'm not an expert, but I've been trying to rotate foods so my kitten doesn't get stuck on them.  It seems that sometimes they do just refuse to eat. at a meal.  At Christmas, my husband fixed her a fairly large serving of FF which she promptly refused to touch.  He put it  back in the fridge and just a few minutes later, I got it out, put some back in the can, and set it down in the kitchen, expecting to pick it up again in a few minutes.  Instead she ate it all and I had to give her a refill. I have no idea what went on in her cat head the first time.

One food that seems to be well liked (found it on this forum) is FF Classic Chicken Feast.  It's not a bad food and I heat up the leftovers using the "defrost" setting on the microwave. 

FF Classic Chicken Feast - good stuff, yet still has that mystery fish as 5th or so ingredient?  Not like there's much of a choice though if you're rotating a baker's dozen

 

[gravekandi]

Everything mentioned above is good advice. My kitten gets a rotation diet so she won't get finicky on me. Try different textures of food, such as chunky, diced, shreds etc. You can try warming it either in the microwave, hot water mixed into it or letting it sit in hot water. How much water does your kitty consume? Could she be dehydrated? Another thing you can do is add food toppers. Either freeze dried treats crushed on top or her regular treats on top and see if that tempts her. Or if you also happen to feed dry, try crushing that on top of the food or just putting some pieces on top of it.

 

[dianamc]

 
FF Classic Chicken Feast - good stuff, yet still has that mystery fish as 5th or so ingredient?  Not like there's much of a choice though if you're rotating a baker's dozen

 That came back to haunt me!  It's not my favorite FF but it's apparently beloved by cats and if they need to be tempted by something, it's probably  a better choice than a diet of Temptations (there are actually instructions on the pkg. for feeding them as food!). We are just trying to rotate FF in with some other brands, such as Wellness.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

Some good tips GraveKandi ..

I just read an interview that Jean Hofve, DVM did where she talks about cats needing a variety diet, not just what us humans are willing to serve. Makes a lot of sense to me when you put it in the perspective of, would we as humans be willing to eat the same thing day after day,. most likely not. If we are tuned into our cats needs and are willing to make the effort, we can make it so that our cats can enjoy some variety in their diet, that we do. She mentioned the importance of not only using different flavours of wet food but different brands as well as all pet foods good and bad at some point in the manufacturing life style, seem to fall victim to the recall list due to contamination from mishandling and what not. It seems inevitable as I have seen good brands such as Wellness, Origen, Acana, etc., on the recall list at one time or another.

 

[indie72]

She won't eat any other brand either though, she hasn't just got bored wîth the one she was on. I have 4 other brands in the cupboard but she won't entertain them. I tried heating the food up - didn't work, tried adding water, didn't work. Since my original post i have tried her on kitekat, pet's pantry, felix sauce sensations and felix as good as it looks . She either tries a little then walks away or scratches the floor/door surrounding the bowl. Or she licks the gravy and leaves the meat. I give up. She's absolutely adorable, very affectionate, active, bright eyed and using her litter tray daily so she doesn't seem unwell but what on earth is she supposed to live on? She's not that keen on dry biscuits either

 

[marc999]

That's just odd to say the least.  

I'd be very frustrated as well.  

You've done the tricks I presume:

(1) add some parmesan cheese on top

(2) dribble some tuna juice on top. 

(3) add some probiotics as appetite stimulant

(4) sneak some plain yoghurt in her food. 

(5) sneak a piece of sardine in her food. 

(6) dribble some coconut oil on top. 

(7) crushed kibble sprinkled throughout so she has to eat through it. 

(8) go through the primary proteins - chicken / turkey / duck / pheasant / beef / venison / rabbit....meat by products / poultry by-products. 

(9) texture variation: pate / chunky / sliced / grilled / mangled!!! etc. 

There could be some common ingredient to all the offerings that she's refusing to eat after awhile. 

No shame in trying to trick her with various tactics, something will work. 

 

[newkittyowner]

This post sounds like what I am going through right now with my two! Very frustrating to say the least! Going to try some different textures next I think.

 

[peer jones]

Our cats are real fussy eaters, I probably feed them too often and my wife keeps an eye on which flavors and textures they like, plus, the breakfast, lunch and dinner 'menu'

Kat-Kat want's Friskies 'Ocean whitefish with Tuna in sauce'  for breakfast and chicken shreds for lunch - with a separate bowl of Deli Cat dry food

The almost always refuse pate of any flavor, like shreds mostly chicken and turkey, Whiskas pouches, -but not the fish flavors, that has to be Friskies or Fancy Feast

They also like th crunch of  Deli-Cat, plus, Kat-Kat will be a right nuisance until he's had some Friskies 'Party Mix' (walks in front of or sits directly in front of TV, 'playing' with dvd cases, sticks his head in your water glass, etc - it's actually funny sometimes)

Paulie usually goes out in the morning (unless she was out all night) and comes back for breakfast around 11:00am

 Sadie prefers dry food and water - she was brought up on it since a kitten but also likes any 'gravy' rarely eats the ' mystery meat' -Pauli will push Sadie out of the bowl to get it though.

I'm pretty sure the cat is just 'testing' you to see how far things will go (I'm sure that's how ours 'trained' me, the 'studied indifference' of cute little pussy cat

)

Sorry for the rambling on, I had to take some painkillers surgery didn't work out as expected on my arm or back

 

[tigger61]

My cat has recently gone off his regular wet food as good as it looks he eats a bowl of go cat dried per day I've tried loads of different brands and he won't touch them I've tried warming up in the microwave adding warm water etc he dosent seem unwell and is still crying for food Im going to try the Parmesan see if that does the trick it's very worrying

 

[bonepicker]

I rotate 12 different foods on a daily rotation. I feed timed feedings of wet only, no dry. I feed 3 oz cans or 5.5 oz cans between two cats. Nothing gets refrigerated. Everything gets eaten in 5 to 10 minutes. I feed Pate, chunks, and shreds. I feed chicken, duck, rabbit, tuna and lamb. All are grain free. For treats I feed Purebites freeze dried chicken in the dog size.

 

[dpgirl]

Be very careful with any food in "gravy" or basically any with "wheat gluten". Deadly, cause
Feline Diabetes!

 

[handsome kitty]

 
Our cats are real fussy eaters, I probably feed them too often and my wife keeps an eye on which flavors and textures they like, plus, the breakfast, lunch and dinner 'menu'

Kat-Kat want's Friskies 'Ocean whitefish with Tuna in sauce'  for breakfast and chicken shreds for lunch - with a separate bowl of Deli Cat dry food

The almost always refuse pate of any flavor, like shreds mostly chicken and turkey, Whiskas pouches, -but not the fish flavors, that has to be Friskies or Fancy Feast

They also like th crunch of  Deli-Cat, plus, Kat-Kat will be a right nuisance until he's had some Friskies 'Party Mix' (walks in front of or sits directly in front of TV, 'playing' with dvd cases, sticks his head in your water glass, etc - it's actually funny sometimes)

Paulie usually goes out in the morning (unless she was out all night) and comes back for breakfast around 11:00am

 Sadie prefers dry food and water - she was brought up on it since a kitten but also likes any 'gravy' rarely eats the ' mystery meat' -Pauli will push Sadie out of the bowl to get it though.

I'm pretty sure the cat is just 'testing' you to see how far things will go (I'm sure that's how ours 'trained' me, the 'studied indifference' of cute little pussy cat

)

Sorry for the rambling on, I had to take some painkillers surgery didn't work out as expected on my arm or back

I'm printing this out and putting it on my fridge!  My daughter says I cater to the cats too much.  You have it down to a science LOL

 

[dpgirl]

Again, please beware of any food in "gravy" usually contains "wheat gluten", deadly for cats.