Took in my mom's cat and have 3 cats on different food than him...help

mysterylover

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Hi all,

I have not posted here in a while.

Anyway, over about 5 months last year, I managed to get my 3 cats (siblings, 2 male and 2 female) to a mostly canned food diet and onto a better quality of wet. It took a while to slowly get them all to accept that they could live without Fancy Feast (at least they were on the Classics since they liked the pate). Two of the cats hacked up giant hairballs with any canned food that had carrageenan, so we have selected only varieties without that, and I only have spit ups of yellow bile liquid rarely when I oversleep or get caught up at work and they go too long without food.

They are on the following:

Nutro Soft Loaf Chicken Senior (Have never seen an adult on of this one, just kitten)

Nutro Chunky Chicken

Nutro Chunky Turkey

Nutro Minced Shrimp and Chicken as an occasional treat

Nature's Variety Instinct Lim.Ing Turkey

Nature's Variety Instinct Chicken

Nature's Variety Instinct Beef

Weruva Paw Licken' Chicken

Weruva Quick and Quirky

Weruva On the Cat Wok

Weruva Steak Frites

For treats, they get Purebites chicken and Blue Wilderness soft Chicken and Turkey and rarely the Chicken and Trout.

Dry food is a handful split between them of Natural Balance Grain Free Chicken and Pea (which seems to work for all of their bowels until they can maybe give up dry completely--like I said, the transition has been slow, but I am so pleased with the fact that we have come so far from them once splitting one can of Fancy Feast a day with mostly dry food to this point. We lost a cat to hyperthyroid and renal failure, so I am working to protect their kidneys.

We have recently adopted my mother's cat due to some health issues she is having. At the moment, he is in my daughter's room and segregated from my cats-just trying to adjust to the stress of the change. I would love to think they all will some day share this house without bloodshed, but we shall see. Jackson Galaxy seems to think it might be possible. I am hoping to use his tips, one of which is to feed them on the opposite side of the door and then put up a baby gait or whatever during feeding time.

Mom's cat has been eating a diet of 100% dry food, free feeding, Science Diet Indoor Formula, since the day my mother adopted him (was seemingly left behind when a family moved suddenly--possibly from eviction from a rental house in the neighborhood). He lived in my mother's room for the 6 years or so he was there, as they always had a dog they were afraid would not get along with the cat. The vet thinks he is about 8 or 9 years old. My cats are now 5 years old and did live with another cat (my mother-in-laws older female mentioned above who died of the hyperthyroidism and renal failure). They were older kittens when they started sharing the house with her and did fairly well coexisting with the occasional swatting as they passed in the hall.

My goal is to ultimately see if there is any way my cats and Mom's can live in the house together, but for now, he is in my daughter's room as his safe haven. My daughter is at college and will come home for Thanksgiving with him in her room. At the moment, he is starting to warm up to us and let us pet him but still sits under the desk a lot while I sit on the floor and talk to him, but he does greet you when you come into the room. We are letting him come to us for affection (and he was very affectionate and slept on my mom's lap when she would sit up in the bed and such).

Since he was not eating that much the first day he was here, I thought that might be a time to try some wet food on him, hoping he might be hungry enough to try it, maybe even consider it a treat. I have tried several flavors of the above-listed foods and even had some Forta Flora here and sprinkled that on the Nutro. He acts like I am crazy when I put a bowl of the wet down. He is eating some of his dry, but I still think he is eating less than he was at Mom's, and I don't want him to start losing weight fast since that is dangerous. 

I don't want to push change on the cat too fast, as I know just being in this house with my cats on the other side of the door some (we have boxes in front of the crack under the door for now) is stressful enough. He won't even eat his kibble with anyone in the room. He sneaks some when we leave him alone for a few hours (I am counting the pieces to make sure he is eating). My goal is to get Mom's cat away from free feeding on the dry and ultimately to eat wet, but I have read on here the stories of the many cats who hate wet food and resist eating it. I threw away tons of canned food transitioning my cats to the diet they currently now eat on rotation. Since they eat as a group, they never balk--if you don't eat your portion your brother or sister will gladly eat yours as well as theirs.

Would it be too stressful for him for me to start taking up his food bowl and only putting it down 3 times a day at first and then twice a day? My cats have never been free fed. I would love to get him used to the idea of eating when the food is down, but again, i don't want to stress him out any more than he already is with the transition of moving.

Clearly, this cat could be months away from eating wet food, and it may be Fancy Feast at first if that happens, but I do believe that our cat who died of renal failure likely had that compounded with her mostly dry food diet with wet food considered a bad thing and a treat that might keep her from wanting her dry. I am pretty sure she was free fed dry food until we adopted her. So, Fancy Feast would be an okay start, but it was hard to wean one of my cats off of it to the brands without by products. Still, the general opinion is that Fancy Feast is better than dry Science Diet, if we can ever get there.  I would like to get him to at least eat a grain free dry. I offered the Natural Balance to him, and he left the pieces in the bottom of his bowl. I might try Science Diet's Ideal Balance Grain Free. At least, I can take it back to Petsmart if he refuses to even taste it.

Sorry about the novel. I thought background might help. Here are my questions:

1. Is it too soon to stop him from free feeding in terms of stress?  He has been here about 3 days. I don't want to stress him, but it sort of seems like make that change from the start would be easier than letting him get comfortable with food down all the time and then taking that away in a week or something.

2. Has anyone successfully been able to get a cat this resistant to wet food to eventually taste it? I am not sure he would even eat just boiled chicken, since he turned down the Purebites freeze dried chicken treats. I seriously think he thinks food only crunches at this point. I did save a great article on the transition and about how patience is key and saw there is an excerpt on here summarizing those points.

3. Would it be a good idea to try to move to a grain free dry at least at this point? In other words, if I am about to embark on another 5-month journey of trying to move a cat to wet food, maybe praying he will give up his wheat and corn gluten is a start. Of course, I think SD makes 3 different grain-free dry foods now (regular, Ideal Balance, and Ideal Balance Crafted), so I would have choices that could be returned if he would not eat them.

I welcome any other advice in terms of the transition as a whole.

Thanks!
 

missmimz

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I would not attempt a feeding scheduling until he is comfortable and eating regularly. Just free feed him until he's adjusted to his new home. Then start dealing with scheduling kibble feedings and trying to introduce wet. I have some very picky cats including 1 that basically hates wet. I was never able to get him onto wet food, but i was able to get him onto raw food. You might try some really stinky fish flavored ones just to stimulate his palette to the wet food. Like Tikicat chicken and salmon. I think if you can't get him to eat much wet food that a grain free or higher quality dry is the way to go. I feed kibble still in between wet meals and i think high quality kibble is perfectly okay. 
 

paiger8

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My picky eater that will only eat a couple spoonfuls of wet, but loves dry, basically inhales Primal Freeze Dried. I break the nuggets into pieces and add a few tablespoons of water. 

I don't think she can smell very well, and the Primal nuggets are extra smelly so I think she can smell them better. I also heat her wet food slightly to enhance the aroma and make it extra tasty. 
 
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mysterylover

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Thank you for your insight.  I am just concerned about him, since the vet said his sugar was high at the last visit this summer but thought it might be due to stress from the visit.  I was hopeful that he would eat wet food to get that protein and get away from the carbs, and he is on the heavy side, maybe by 2 pounds at least.  I did not want to run him by the vet with this change already. 

Again, if he would eat Fancy Feast, I would take that.  I know fish is smellier, but with my luck, he will get hooked on fish and refuse all other flavors.  I really work way too many hours to deal with raw.  My husband and son won't even open a can of food.  My daughter will when she is home from college.  God forbid I ever get too sick to feed them or ever leave town for a night! 

How long does it usually take the average cat to start to feel safe with the change, especially given that I have cats he can hear and smell on the other side of the door (mostly when I am in there, since they are probably pretty jealous of any time I spend in that room right now)? 

I will post on other forum and maybe some who have had success will have words of encouragement for me.

Thanks again.  I will take it all slow with the change in food.  He has survived on the SD for 7 or 8 years.  SD is better than no food or him have fatty liver but maybe not better than him being diabetic.  If he is this resistant to change on food, I worry that he would never be able to do prescription food if needed.
 
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