Started them on raw yest.

[katluver4life]

I too now find I have to use more toppers to encourage Boots and Baby to eat the ground mixes. Jack is the only one who happily eats the ground and looks at the chunks very questioningly

.  I have no extra cats around to hand off their uneaten food to, so they HAVE to eat it sooner or later, which they eventually do, thank god. But I have like 30lbs of chubs in my freezer so they have to keep eating it. Our recent stray rescue (Buddy) who now resides in my BF's shop, is also now starting on raw, so I have been passing along some of the prepped ground to him. Buddy has also taken to it like a champ.

But that barely makes a dent in all the food I have, and his freezer space is VERY limited.

My new order of fortiflora has arrived, so will be trying more with Jack on the chunks using that, since he really loves that stuff. I want him to get the dental benefits of chunks or I wouldn't care otherwise.

So.....this morning I had to chase Boots around the house with his ground which had the freeze dried chicken as his topper, the only one that works with him, but even with that he was reluctant. He finally cleaned the plate, which I knew once he started on it, he would.

So I know it's not like he doesn't like it, just doesn't prefer it.

Thanks to you both, for the reassurance that at least they are eating in a balanced way.

 

[meranaldar]

FYI, my cats that stopped eating ground will eat SOME ground - with coaxing. I make them eat four meals of it a week, because they also hate egg yolk. I don't use Alnutrin, so the only way I can get egg yolk into them is with ground food. Four meals a week with 1/4 of an egg yolk (the most I can get them to eat in any one meal) means one egg yolk a week.

I have to use a fair amount of toppers on their ground food - and the toppers have to be refreshed for several of them about half way through the meal.

Have you tried mashing the egg yolk up with a canned sardine?

I haven't tried ground with my cat, though everything else I tried was a failure, including cutting her meat up as fine as I could and mixing it with that. But she loves her sardines, so I gave that a go one day, and she cleaned the plate up with no hesitation. With one sardine, I can put a whole large egg yolk and mix it together well, which ends up really mushy, but nothing that really looks like egg yolk. Yesterday I gave her a sardine which weighed 36g, and mixed it with an egg yolk which weighed 20g. She ate it all and actually wanted more, which surprised me, since she never does that, and her usual meal size is only about 37-40g.

 

[ldg]

That is SO funny you mention that! We'd tried a new tuna - in a jar. It had a LOT of liquid in it.

So today I tried egg yolk (I feed it raw) with the tuna juice drizzled over it (I have a few kitties that aren't wild about the sardines either. ). All of them ate at least 1/2 a yolk! I did have to mix it in water so it wasn't so goopy. I have Vetri-Lysine treats for my ferals with herpes. I crushed one of those and sprinkled it on for the kitties that were only half-heartedly eating the tuna-water egg yolk. :lol3: