Not a problem just curious

[slykat12]

I am trying to get my 4 month old kitten to eat raw food. She pretty much ignores it in the bowl but when I offer it to her in my hand she gobbles it up. Her bowl is ok for her other food why not the raw? As we all know it is not so healthy for me to be handling raw meat all day but I want her to eat and this is the only way. Do other kitties do this?

 

[tdonline]

Does she eat other foods in the same type of bowl?  My cats prefer to eat their wet food in a shallow dish rather than from bowls.  Now when it comes to their kibbles--they don't care, they'll gobble any which way.  But with foods which they are persnickety with--they are more apt to eat it in certain types of dishes.  I suspect with the wet food, they prefer to lap it up from a shallow dish rather dig slurping from a bowl.

 

[slykat12]

Nope she has the exact same dimension bowl for water, wet, and kibble and she has no issue. But with raw it has to be my hand. lol

 

[lokimonster]

My cats do this too. I'll offer them something on the floor or in their bowl, and they'll look at me like "I'm not gonna eat that", but if I offer it to them in my hand, they're suddenly ok with it. That's only with treats or the occasional human food though, they eat everything else in their normal bowls just fine.

Do you feed her the raw food in the same dish her other food comes in? Maybe she's an OCD kitty and doesn't want to eat in the same bowl her other food is in.

 

[slykat12]

Well ya I do sometimes. Once a bowl/dish has had raw in it I wash it. But on occasion I put her raw in a dish that had dry earlier.

lol "OCD kitty"-I have a MA in psych. Now I am going to be watching her    

.  My last kitty had Pica and ate all sorts of non food items.

I guess I just wanted to see if other kitties liked hand feeding. I will try with an even shallower dish w raw to see if that works too.

 

[blackcat416]

Well your answer is in your first sentence. She is a 4 month old kitten. She's a little play thing who misses her siblings and her mom so unless you want to have to feed her in your hand raw food for the rest if her life, start putting it in a plastic dish that could then be placed into the trash. Avoid using any of her other bowls or dishes as something raw will leave a scent behind especially if you are using hard plastic serving bowls. You need to be trained to place her food in a flat solid platter and walk away. When food time comes around again you pick up the old food, even if she didn't eat any and replace with fresh food. I feed my 6 cats, 3 times a day, breakfast is at 7am, lunch is at 5pm and dinner is at 11pm, Dad feeds them dinner because Mom is now sleeping. They get used to the routine. Their meals are always canned food, they have a stainless steel doggie bowl with IAM's hard food just in case Mom wants to sleep until 830 am on weekends. Once they have all finished their dinner 4 come into bed with me and 2 sleep with their Dad. It works. My 6 are 2 years old to 20 years old. Show that kitten who has that MA.

 

[slykat12]

Errr I think plastic bowls are gross and bad for cats~ Kitty chin acne and plastic hold smells and you cannot put them in the dishwasher safely. Plus many are made with unhealthy chemicals. If I used them I would not be tossing them in the trash every night either as that is wasteful and bad for the environment but ty for your post .

I will hand feed as long as she wants.

 

[blackcat416]

You know I just adopted a 10 year old on Dec 28th and they told me he had chin acne from eating out of a clay bowl. I had never heard of chin acne til then. I have been feeding him out of a ceramic kitty bowl, that is glazed, hope that's ok? But where we live we recycle so all kitty cans and plastic plates go into the recycle bin. We usually have 2 giant recyclable bags to our 1 little trash bag. We recycle everything allowable even the cat liter is biodegradable Wheat Scoop no silica. We are the big green people up our street and win the monthly award for most recyclable.

 

[jcat]

You might just have to find the "right" bowl for her raw. Our last cat was really weird about his bowls. He decided all on his own that he only liked certain bowls for specific types of food or drink (glass for wet, china for dry, onion soup bowls for water, rice bowls for cat milk). If you gave him the "wrong" bowl, he wouldn't eat or drink and would sit there and wail. :lol3: I used to have to leave a list for the cat sitter.

 

[laralove]

Oliver couldn't care less! He's got two stainless steel bowls that I alternate between for the same wet and raw. His water is in a dispenser. 

You could try serving on a saucer or plate. When reading over materials to study about transitioning to raw and watching videos on it, I saw a lot of people feeding their cats on plates. Not sure if you'd be interested in that, or if your cat would do it. May be worth a try, though!