Very basic, possibly redundant question.

Bri5

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Hello. Cali is 1 and has never been a huge fan of wet food. She is a low energy cat. I am trying desperately to get her to eat wet food daily in any amount, even if she has a different diet from the other 4.

Here is what I have noticed...

She will lick at broths or gravies for 10-15 seconds, and then move on to or wait for dry food. If she isn't in the mood for wet and no dry is offered, she'll just not eat. She doesn't prefer pate. She seems to eat a bit more if the protein is fish, but this isn't reliable. I have yet to see her eat more than 1-1.5ish ounces of wet at a time regardless.

I don't have a huge budget for extra special picky eater diet. I picked up some Fancy Feast and some Sheba, all flaked or chopped and in seafood flavors. That's probably a comfortable price point and availability option for me now that most places are getting stock back up. Mainline grocery store options under $1.

So the question is, if you have a cat with similar tastes, what do they like? I'm cool trying new flavors and taking notes til we find a winner.
 

maggie101

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My cats like fancy feast classics turkey&giblets and sheba perfect portions roasted turkey or chicken. They also like nutro perfect portions. I just bought something more pricy,earthborn chicken. 5.5 oz can I can tell will last at least 2 days for one adult cat. Your cat is just starting her adult years so she may eat more or less. Check out catfooddb.com and the thread cat food deals
 

jonb

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Mix small amounts of wet with a dry she will eat, let her get hungry to encourage her to eat it that way and over time increase the amount of wet until she will make a meal of it. I feed mostly dry mixed with water, occasionally I treat them with a can. Chicken and tuna seems to be accepted easiar by finicky eaters wet but i prefer to get them on salmon and Turkey for the most part wet or dry because I read those ingredients are easiar for digestion. I
I have 10 family cats, approximately 8 months to 18 years, not by choice except the 18 year old, 9 Godsends from feral and untamed barn cats to abandon tame kittens .Had several others that went on 1 way or another.
 

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maggie101

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I wish it were that easy but one does not like pate. Has to have pieces of meat or freeze dried chicken. My other cat only likes pate. And Finally Peaches. She likes everything and throws up everything so she is fed many small meals including a timer at night. A licker,gobbler,and slow eater. Maggie takes her time chewing every little bite and easily distracted
 
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Bri5

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So I just gave her a Sheba salmon cuts in gravy. She ate half then looked at me, waiting for dry. I gave her a tablespoon of dry and she ate 90% of it and walked away.

For reference, because she is like this and I often split 11-13 ounces of wet among the 5 of them, they do typically have a bit of dry under the wet, mixed in, or available in a second bowl. She actually tends to eat less if I mix them together than if I put wet on top of dry and she can lick at it then work around. All 5 are TNRd strays that we care for completely. The rest of them tend to give me no grief.

As for seafood being an allergen or addictive, can we clarify that? Is it all types or primarily tuna? I've read salmon and white fish are easy to digest? At this point, I'd be okay giving it to her 3-4 times a week just to keep her hydrated because with the amount she's eating wouldn't equal a 5.5oz can.
 

lisahe

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Be careful with fish. Once a week treat. Since my cats are adult I rarely feed it because it is a high alllergin
This is about what our vet says, too: she's very anti-fish. I used to feed a once-a-week chicken/fish food (usually something from Weruva) because the cats loved it but after Ireland was diagnosed with asthma, I stopped feeding even that because of the allergen aspect. I also cut out the weekly can of Fancy Feast, which has a small amount of fish in it.

Bri5 Bri5 : Our vet recommends not feeding any kind of fish, though she did think salmon was a little better than, say, tuna. (We've only really talked about this once, back in something like 2013 or 2014, so I have no idea how her thinking on fish might have evolved.)

A couple suggestions. Sometimes a gravy-licking cat will lap up pates that are mixed with water. It's possible that certain pates (Sheba, Weruva BFF) that are lighter would make more satisfying lapping food for Cali. Some shred foods also puree really well, though others don't. (A mini-processor is really handy for that!) One other possibility: some cats really are grazers and just won't eat much at one go. We have one. We feed our cats lots of small meals, which works really well for the grazer and the cat who tends to eat too fast and vomit if she's fed too much at once.

Good luck!
 
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