Picky Cats Refusing to eat food that we’ve fed for years

[hellothere1234]

We have been feeding our cats the same brand of food for years now. We got a replacement bag of the exact same flavor, exact same brand, exact same everything. The problem is the brand changed the pebble shape. My cats are now freaking out and barely eating. I guess they are pretty picky. They have eaten a little bit, but nowhere close to what they usually eat. I put some wet food on top yesterday but I can’t feed wet food everyday.
Any advice on what to do to get them to eat? Will they be ok, or will they get sick?
P.s please spare any rude comments, they are not needed. Thank you

 

[Flybynight]

Hi,
It could be your cats are not so much picky as used to eating only one dry food and they are suspicious of anything different. The change may be confusing them and there may be a difference in smell as well as shape.
Is the pebble shape bigger or smaller? If used to say a smaller shape, I would find a new brand of that size, and try to introduce that. Maybe write to companies to get samples.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. If the pieces are bigger, you could try to break them up. When you say everything is the same, did you compare the ingredients in the new to the old, just to be sure? It is not necessarily always true, but a shape change likely means there is something different in the ingredients - or, possibly in the processing, such as the coating as most dry foods have a coating on them usually as a flavor enticer.

It sounds like they might like wet food based on what you said - so, how about trying to moisten the new dry food with water and see if they will eat it that way?

 

[catsknowme]

Sometimes the food companies have contracted with different factories so the food sources may have changed. Cats are usually not picky but many people don't realize that cats have an incredibly keen sense of smell; some researchers say cats can discriminate more scents than dogs (which makes sense since dogs have stronger stomach acids and can easily stay healthy on putrid food that would kill a cat or horribly sicken a human being). Food sources include fish from overseas and rendered animal products that, depending on each state's laws, can include shelter overflow. There may be a similar food that your cats will accept. For awhile, Friskies canned was causing diarrhea but, at least for my crew, that seems to have improved although some of the members on various FB pages are still having problems.
FACT CHECK: Does Pet Food Include Rendered Euthanized Pets?