Picky about wet food...

[renny]

Hi all! Just wanted to get some opinions/suggestions. I have my two on wet food in the morning and dry in the evenings.

They absolutely love their wetfood...unfortunately before i educated myself more i was buying the inexpensive stuff (fancy feast, sophisticats etc). I am trying to get them onto a better quality wet food but with out much success. I bought Merricks and they absolutely refused to eat it. Even when i mixed it with some Fancy feast they seemed to eat around the Merricks

I tried Nutro Pouches and again the same thing. My friend suggested that they've gotten used to McDonalds (fancy feast) and don't want gourmet.

Any suggestions for maybe some wet foods that are better quality but might enable me to transitition (wean them off fancy feast) them over time to liking the higher quality wet?

 

[yosemite]

Originally Posted by Renny

Hi all! Just wanted to get some opinions/suggestions. I have my two on wet food in the morning and dry in the evenings.

They absolutely love their wetfood...unfortunately before i educated myself more i was buying the inexpensive stuff (fancy feast, sophisticats etc). I am trying to get them onto a better quality wet food but with out much success. I bought Merricks and they absolutely refused to eat it. Even when i mixed it with some Fancy feast they seemed to eat around the Merricks

I tried Nutro Pouches and again the same thing. My friend suggested that they've gotten used to McDonalds (fancy feast) and don't want gourmet.

Any suggestions for maybe some wet foods that are better quality but might enable me to transitition (wean them off fancy feast) them over time to liking the higher quality wet?

Firstly, what flavours of Merricks are you feeding - I ask because our kitties will not touch any of the seafood flavours - they only will eat Thanksgiving Dinner, Granny's Pot Pie and Cowboy Cookout. I bought a couple cans of the other flavours and they hate them - California Roll they wouldn't even touch, Boston ? they wouldn't eat.

I will also say that in the beginning they weren't as crazy about the wet food but now Bijou pretty much follows me around and meows to let me know it's time for dinner!

As for other brands of quality food, there are several threads in this forum that list the better foods, but basically they are Nutro, Natural Balance, Wellness to name a few. Check on some of the previous threads in this forum and you'll find lots of info on quality foods.

 

[lionessrampant]

Try Evanger's holistic pheasant.

We had a nearly identical problem (of course, it was the shelter giving him 9 Lives) with Leo and he LOVES this stuff. He also "grew into" Trader Joe's single serve flavors, which are all fish, so we don't feed those all the time.

 

[goldenkitty45]

I'd mix a little of the "junk" food with the "better" food until you have them eating more better food.

It's easy to get them hooked on junk food and hard to take it away. Any reason you don't like dry? I only give canned to kittens - by the time they are 4 months old, they eat totally dry (with some people food on occasion - like beef or chicken treats).

The better food really is Iams canned. I also used Friskies canned. Stayed away from 9-lives and the other cheaper foods - they threw it up.

 

[lionessrampant]

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

I'd mix a little of the "junk" food with the "better" food until you have them eating more better food.

It's easy to get them hooked on junk food and hard to take it away. Any reason you don't like dry? I only give canned to kittens - by the time they are 4 months old, they eat totally dry (with some people food on occasion - like beef or chicken treats).

Golden,

You might want to take a look at this website: http://www.catinfo.org

 

[renny]

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

Any reason you don't like dry? I only give canned to kittens - by the time they are 4 months old, they eat totally dry (with some people food on occasion - like beef or chicken treats).

I have no problem with dry food. They are on Natural Choice dry and love it. They just get wet once a day as a sort of treat (and as a way to get them some Omega 3 supplements for Lucky's dandruff).

My cats love the seafood flavours mostly of any food i've tried. So i tried all the Merrick's seafood ones and it was a no go. Rambo will usually try and eat just about anything...but even he refused it. Maybe I'll try the Turkey ones and see. I've never seen Evangers in the stores around here. I'll take a closer look at some of the other brands and try to slowly wean them off the junk food.

 

[goldenkitty45]

Fish is addicting to a cat. I only feed my kits beef, lamb, turkey, or chicken. ONCE in a great while would they get fish. In fact, since they more/less never had it as a kitten, they would refuse it as an adult!

 

[goldenkitty45]

Thanks Lioness, but I've feed top quality dry with no problems and very healthy cats. My cats are Iams cats. They also got Iams canned foods.

 

[lionessrampant]

Originally Posted by Renny

I've never seen Evangers in the stores around here.

If you go to the site, it'll tell you if anywhere near you sells it. If not, you can always order it off the website. It's actually pretty inexpensive at a little less than a buck a can, plus shipping.

 

[renny]

Thanks everyone! I looked online and found Evanger's is at my absolute favorite pet store...i must not have been looking closely. I'm going to go after work and try some out. I might try mixing it with the junk food to start...Lucky is just way to picky about her wet food!

 

[chichismom]

OK, I might gets some odd stares for this one

I feed my cats the "cheap" canned stuff, like fancy feast, whiskas..... But I feed them Nutro as dry food. They will NOT touch any of the gourmet canned foods. I have tried different brands, different flavors, chicken, beef ,seafood... They only like their "mcDonald's"

They seem to like the nutro dry food though.
They usually eat a bowl a day( I open feed with the dry food) as where when I was feeding them the cheap dry food, I usually wound up throwing alot of it away,because they had not eaten it. So I am really happy they like the expensive dry food, otherwise their nutrition would'nt be too great.

 

[renny]

Originally Posted by chichismom

OK, I might gets some odd stares for this one

I feed my cats the "cheap" canned stuff, like fancy feast, whiskas..... But I feed them Nutro as dry food. They will NOT touch any of the gourmet canned foods. I have tried different brands, different flavors, chicken, beef ,seafood... They only like their "mcDonald's"

They seem to like the nutro dry food though.
They usually eat a bowl a day( I open feed with the dry food) as where when I was feeding them the cheap dry food, I usually wound up throwing alot of it away,because they had not eaten it. So I am really happy they like the expensive dry food, otherwise their nutrition would'nt be too great.

Sounds like our cats are much the same. They were on nutro, but i just switched to the natural choice (actually they are still half and half since i'm just changing over). The rave about the higher quality dry food. The difference in their health, coat, hairballs is night and day from the less expensive stuff. Now i'm just trying to wean them of their "mcdonalds" addiction and then all will be good!! fingers crossed it will work. I found it totally necessary to have them on some wet just to hide any supplements or meds they had to get!!

 

[semiferal]

I mash in the "junk food" really, really well with the good stuff - so well that they can't tell what's what.

The other thing you can do is add a bit of tuna juice to the good food, if they like tuna.

 

[vanillasugar]

Originally Posted by Renny

Thanks everyone! I looked online and found Evanger's is at my absolute favorite pet store...i must not have been looking closely. I'm going to go after work and try some out. I might try mixing it with the junk food to start...Lucky is just way to picky about her wet food!

*cough cough* I know we're listed as a supplier, but we don't carry it in regular stock.

(I don't believe the Pet Valu does either... I was in there just this week playing with the shelter kitties.) We CAN however, possibly bring some in for you on special order, but we can't bring in anything less than a case, which I know is terribly inconvenient, especially if they don't end up liking it... if you want to come in and talk to me this week, I'm in in the afternoon every day

Have you tried Wellness yet? It seems to be a winner with most kitties in my experience.

 

[sharky]

I like the tuna jiuce or a bit of tuna flakes on top to get them to dig in... of course with raw I have no eating problems

 

[chichi]

I feed my cats the Blue spa select and they love it. I once went to PetSmart and they had a display, I bought a few cans and a package and it worked well. the only con is that they only sell that kind of food in PetSmart. I haven't seen it in Petco or any other pet store. It has a really good natural ingredient content and isn't as expansive as Wellness or RoyalCanin or MaxCat.

 

[renny]

Well...I tried the mixing very well trick. I didn't get in to see vanillasugar and get some other stuff, but i had a can of Merrick's and mixed it will with their favorite salmon "mcdonald's" can.

Well...lucky sniffed...looked at me like "who are you trying to fool" and followed me back into the kitchen to sit next to the cupboard with their food and cry. Rambo ate a few bites and came to join lucky waiting for meowmy to stop joking and put the real food out!

 

[zak&rocky]

Originally Posted by chichismom

OK, I might gets some odd stares for this one

I feed my cats the "cheap" canned stuff, like fancy feast, whiskas..... But I feed them Nutro as dry food. They will NOT touch any of the gourmet canned foods. I have tried different brands, different flavors, chicken, beef ,seafood... They only like their "mcDonald's"

They seem to like the nutro dry food though.
They usually eat a bowl a day( I open feed with the dry food) as where when I was feeding them the cheap dry food, I usually wound up throwing alot of it away,because they had not eaten it. So I am really happy they like the expensive dry food, otherwise their nutrition would'nt be too great.

I do pretty much the same thing. My cats don't get much though- 1/4 can twice a day for each cat. One of the cats only likes a taste though. The two older ones will not usually touch anything in a pate. They hate iams can especially. The favorite is friskies, especially the shredded turkey w/cheese. They will each nutro pouches and iams pouches, but not as enthusiastically. Once in awhile they will eat science diet. We have a big paws down on whiskas wet usually-which is good b/c it's not good for them anyway. I don't feed fancy feast b/c I think it is dumb to spend that much on a food which isn't that great. Mind you, I'm not saying friskies is wonderful.
For dry which is free fed, the kittens get purina one kitten, mixed with some grown up cat food (they are 6 mos), and the older cats usually get purina one, iams, pro plan, or nutro.

 

[lionessrampant]

Originally Posted by vanillasugar

*cough cough* I know we're listed as a supplier, but we don't carry it in regular stock.

(I don't believe the Pet Valu does either... I was in there just this week playing with the shelter kitties.) We CAN however, possibly bring some in for you on special order, but we can't bring in anything less than a case, which I know is terribly inconvenient, especially if they don't end up liking it... if you want to come in and talk to me this week, I'm in in the afternoon every day

Have you tried Wellness yet? It seems to be a winner with most kitties in my experience.

Haha, if they don't like the case, she can mail the rest to me! We go through that stuff like no one's business!

 

[renny]

Originally Posted by zak&rocky

I do pretty much the same thing. My cats don't get much though- 1/4 can twice a day for each cat. One of the cats only likes a taste though. The two older ones will not usually touch anything in a pate. They hate iams can especially. The favorite is friskies, especially the shredded turkey w/cheese. They will each nutro pouches and iams pouches, but not as enthusiastically. Once in awhile they will eat science diet. We have a big paws down on whiskas wet usually-which is good b/c it's not good for them anyway. I don't feed fancy feast b/c I think it is dumb to spend that much on a food which isn't that great. Mind you, I'm not saying friskies is wonderful.
For dry which is free fed, the kittens get purina one kitten, mixed with some grown up cat food (they are 6 mos), and the older cats usually get purina one, iams, pro plan, or nutro.

That's what i was doing. Low cost wet, they each got about 3oz of it in the morning and free feed on Natural Balance. But having just got back from the wet...Lucky is not on a diet...she seems to have zoomed up since the summer. I think i'll have to really get on this switch over to good wet if that's going to become more of her diet.