Picky 1yr Old Siberian

[desmondt]

Hi All!

I originally posted this on the /r/cats subredit but was told about this forum in my one and only response. Electra () is very bad at eating. She's an otherwise, very energetic, playful, and affectionate cat. She's just really really bad at eating.

When we got her, we fed her kitten dry food (Purina One) that she was already eating with the breeder, and then we switched to canned food, to which she was never that great at eating. We kept trying different canned foods until we found some chicken soupy one that she really liked for a while, but then she started to lose interest. She does still is keen towards the Purina One, but we try not to give her too much dry food.

We eventually transitioned to raw food blends (that has the protein, fats, taurine, etc, that she needs) which she took to for a while. She's never been too enthused about her raw food, but she would eat it. It just took a lot of work on our part because we can't leave raw food out for too long. We'd put treats near her food after presenting to her to entice her to eat.. which worked for a while until now where it's not really working anymore. We might have spoiled her by doing that, though.

She's lovely other than the eating. She follows us around the house everywhere. She loves playing fetch, and always brings her balls to us to throw so she can bring it back to us - except when she brings a ball into our bed at midnight or at 5 in the morning. She's also often chasing her toys on her own when she's not trying to get in our way. Health checks at the vet always turn out great too.

I think it's a behavioural problem but it might be getting worse. She doesn't like leftover canned foods (difficult to get her to eat it) but she does like freshly opened cans. We're considering buying food toppers that we can put on top of leftovers and raw food, but not too sure on this.

Any tips on how we can fix this?

 

[verna davies]

Try sprinkling dried bonito flakes on her food or mix some of her favourite dry food with the wet. Just do small amounts and feed several times a day of you can. This is an example of the flakes but there are lots of different ones available.

 

[desmondt]

Yeah, I've heard about these bonito flakes. I need to learn about them.
Maybe I can start by putting the Purina One into her wet/raw food.

 

[verna davies]

I have a picky eater, bonito flakes work some times but mixing wet and dry has worked every time and as you have both available you have nothing to lose. Mash the wet food before you add the dry to make the meat smaller than add some dry and mix together. Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

 

[desmondt]

Thanks, guys!
I'll try mixing in the dry food instead of her treats.

 

[lutece]

Is her weight normal? Unless she is not eating enough and needs to gain weight, I would back off on the treats and toppers, and I would just put out small amounts of food to reduce wasted leftover food. If you are feeding canned food, use small cans that have just the amount of food she will eat at a sitting.

 

[desmondt]

I suppose she is slightly smaller and lighter than what I'd expect for her at this age, but it's nothing too abnormal (8.5 lb at 1 year).

We were afraid of starving her because I've been reading that starving a kitten is bad. We're already using the smallest cans possible, but a lot of times, she just isn't interested in the food, and we can't wait for her to eat in the morning when we leave for work. We can't leave raw food out for too long, and we don't want to just leave the wet food out all day in case she doesn't eat it for a while.

There are times when we play with her (dabird) and she'll run around until she's out of breath, and then afterwards she'll have a bigger appetite to eat, but this isn't guaranteed.

 

[Richard2121]

I have 4 cats and we also try to avoid feeding too much dry or giving too many treats. Every now and then I give them an evening snack of high quality dry food or replace on of their day time meals, just to be more cost-efficient. And I also have streaks where I am giving more treats than usual. And just like clockwork, my 4 cats start becoming more finicky and more elusive around feeding times EVERY SINGLE TIME that I start the dry food or increase their treat intake. It's like they game the system in their favor and start to rely on those treats and anticipate the dry feeding. They are "saving room" for desert, in human terms!

The other thing that all 4 of my cats seem to do is try to prolong their feeding times by walking away and then coming back in a few minutes for more. When I allow this, they slowly start walking away more frequently while eating less. So I stopped playing their games. When they walk away, their food bowl will not be there if they return. I have to be quick and vigilant about it but it teaches them to value meal times and value my time (probably not, hehe). Of course I still make sure they get adequate food intake each day and do NOT starve my cats. But they are quick learners and realize that I am not giving in to their shenanigans.

I am sort of a cat behavioral enthusiast and I am in awe of some of their quirky behavior! The only reason I felt the need to bring these two things up is because it is all 4 of my cats. I think this is something common with most cats. They like to see how much they can get away with and try to outsmart the system. They don't really like being tied down as "pets" and instead like feeling as though we are their house-servants and maids!

So maybe try eliminating dry food altogether and stop giving treats and using toppers. It sounds like these things may be hurting the situation and teaching bad behavior. Not to say you are doing anything wrong!!! I would just recommend trying to find a wet food she genuinely likes without all the extra stuff to exploit you later!! (She may only like 3 or 4 brands and maybe only specific flavors from those brands, if she is anything like my boys)

 

[lutece]

It won't hurt her if canned food is left out when you leave the house... it's OK to leave it out all day. She will either eat it, or not. You can throw out the dried-up remains when you get home.

As long as her body condition is good (that is, she is muscular, not bony) and she has plenty of energy, I would not worry that you are starving her.

With picky cats especially, I try to avoid fussing with their food too much and hovering over them and begging them to eat (although it's tempting to do that )

 

[desmondt]

So, we stopped leaving out her dry food all the time and were stricter with feeding her. She immediately understood and started eating better.

It's not consistent, but she doesn't give us nearly as much trouble as before.
We don't wait for her to eat now and we'll take it away if she doesn't touch it. If she hovers around her eating area, we don't feed her unless it's either eating time or if it's the last call time before bed.

 

[daftcat75]

Krista is a senior IBD kitty who had pancreatitis and continues to have intermittent dental issues (resorptive lesions and subsequent extractions and the new mouths she comes home with each time.). I’ve had to deal with all kinds of eating issues with her.

Some tips:

1. Reserve treats and enticements for when they are sick and you really need to pull out the big guns to get her to eat. This makes sure that when you really, really need them to eat, the enticements still hold their charm.

2. Don’t “poison” her food. If there’s any supplements or medicines you are trying to give her and you’re tempted to mix into her food, if she doesn’t love it, don’t put it in her food. You don’t want her to associate food with “poison”.

3. Please don’t mix kibble with raw. The kibble will make the raw very difficult to digest.

4. As you have figured out, you have to remove the dry if you want her to get hungry enough to eat wet.

5. Salmon oil is a wonderful addition to food to entice her to eat and it’s medicine and it violates all of these rules. Except that she will likely love it and it can absolutely be given with every meal because it’s good for her. And it can increase her enjoyment of wet food/raw food.

Salmon oil has been the difference maker for my Krista. She loved the Rawz duck but it would make her sick. But she doesn’t have a duck sensitivity. So I looked at the recipe and the difference between duck and rabbit (the one she doesn’t eat as well but treats her better) and the difference was salmon oil. So now I add the salmon oil, one pump into the 5.5 oz can when I open it and mix it good before giving her any food from it. Now she eats the rabbit like it was duck but doesn’t get sick. I think there’s more oil in the duck than my 1 pump per can or I just wasn’t mixing the can well enough when I would open it.

 

[daftcat75]

Forgot my tip for leftovers. Krista used to snub leftovers too. This will work well for raw grind and wet pate textures, and not so much for shreds. Shreds tend to get soggy when reheated this way.

I take her portion and put it in a baggie. I take a Pyrex measuring cup (or any microwave safe cup for that matter) and microwave 1 cup of water for 1 minute. I pour that water into a shallow container. I place the baggie into the water and press the portion flat with a fork against the closed baggie. The cold portion will bring the hot water to body temperature so you don’t have to worry about keeping the portion in the hot water for too long. But it usually only takes a few seconds, press it flat, flip it, press it flat again, feel it for cold spots, maybe press it flat once more. Turn it out onto a plate and serve.

 

[desmondt]

Forgot my tip for leftovers. Krista used to snub leftovers too. This will work well for raw grind and wet pate textures, and not so much for shreds. Shreds tend to get soggy when reheated this way.

I take her portion and put it in a baggie. I take a Pyrex measuring cup (or any microwave safe cup for that matter) and microwave 1 cup of water for 1 minute. I pour that water into a shallow container. I place the baggie into the water and press the portion flat with a fork against the closed baggie. The cold portion will bring the hot water to body temperature so you don’t have to worry about keeping the portion in the hot water for too long. But it usually only takes a few seconds, press it flat, flip it, press it flat again, feel it for cold spots, maybe press it flat once more. Turn it out onto a plate and serve.

Thanks for the reply, daftcat75.

So far Electra has been steadily improving even more. We haven't seen any Salmon oil on the ingredients of her food, but it seems we just need to change it up between canned foods and raw food every once in a while to keep things fresh.

I think her issue with leftovers is starting to improve as well. I'm not sure if we can use your method on her raw food as warming it up could cause some of the bone fragments in the food to splinter, and we shouldn't be applying heat to it. Have you done this to raw blends?
Electra's preferred foods are very soupy canned foods with chicken shreds, so I'm not sure if that will work there either.

 

[daftcat75]

I never fed raw with bone on a consistent basis to Krista because she has IBD and doesn’t do well with bone. But I use this method because the heat transfer is more gradual than a microwave. I wouldn’t think this would cook or splinter the bone like a microwave would. But then I really don’t know because I don’t feed bone.