At My Wits' End -- With Canned Cat Food

[Rackonteur]

Yesterday I went to the big grocery store, the one that has more varieties of food than the one close to my house.

I had promised my younger cat that I would buy at least one of everything in an attempt to find something she will like. She is the world’s most finicky cat.

Older kitty is exclusively on kidney-diet canned food and, fortunately, likes it.

For younger kitty, I have tried different flavors of Friskies. She will scarf it down one day, not touch it the next day. Same with Fancy Feast – any flavor. She will not touch pate of any brand or flavor, nor will she eats the shreds in gravy more than one day. Or the shreds in that disgusting white sauce.

She will eat Meow Mix for a day or two – not even sniff at it the third day.

Yesterday I brought home Meow Mix (only one can since she won’t eat it after a couple of days), some Sheba Perfect Portions (different flavors), some Purina One, and some store brand shredded chicken, as well as shredded tuna.

She hardly touched the Sheba beef at lunch; wouldn’t touch it at all today. Ditto the Meow Mix. I just threw out a nearly full can of Nine Lives shredded beef (beef used to be her favorite); two nearly full cans of store brand chicken and tuna. I am refusing to throw out the Meow Mix. Meanwhile she will eat the kidney-diet canned food, but I can’t let her – it doesn’t have the nutrients she needs and I can’t afford to feed it to both cats.

I looked at Paul Newman and some other person’s name brand food yesterday in the store but I cannot pay 89 cents - $1 for one mini-can of cat food.

I am at my wits’ end. I could feed her people tuna, but it doesn’t have the nutrients she needs, either, and it is more expensive than even the expensive cat food.

What can I do? She is obviously hungry, she eats the kidney diet food so I know it’s not her, it’s the food. I tried letting her go hungry the day before – I would put out food, if she refused it I would toss it and try again next mealtime, but I can’t starve her, and I can’t let her fill up on kidney-diet dry food either because it has too much fat content for her.

Should I start feeding her raw people chicken and meat? Where will she get her taurine? She is 12 years old and overweight (thanks to the previous kidney-diet dry food I have discontinued), she has started to lose some of the weight she gained on that, but at her age I don’t want to feed her the wrong thing – but she is getting more and and more finicky about the “right” thing!

Help!

[Marshfield]

Www.catinfo.org has a fairly simple recipe for homemade raw cat food

[vxf111]

If she likes the kidney diet food, why not let her eat that?! And maybe put out dry food to supplement if she’ll eat dry. You might be able to get away with just some wet and some dry if you do that and it could be more economical.

Does your vet really think it would harm her to eat the kidney food?!

Maybe switching all the time is part of the issue. Maybe you need to pick something and keep putting it out until she learns she has to eat it?

[vxf111]

It’s a shame they stopped making it but Purina made this NASTY wetfood that we used to call “fish heads.” It had a more regal name than that. It was mackerel flavored and REVOTING. It literally looked like all the extra bits left over after they took out the saleable pieces of fish (hence the name “fish heads”). Gag worthy smell and looks. And I never met a cat who wouldn’t eat it. NEVER. NEVER. I wish it was still being made.

[PintoPony]

Does the kidney diet food come in a low calorie version? If it does, ask your vet if it would be OK for the cat that needs it.
If it is, switch to it and let the other cat eat it too. My big cat needs prescription kidney food and the vet said it wouldn’t hurt the little cat to eat it too so that’s what I feed both of them.

[vxf111]

Kidney food is generally high calorie because renal failure cats need that. A low fat version doesn’t make sense. But could you supplement the kidney wetfood with REGULAR dry food?!

[Rain]

Does she ever vomit or act like she doesn’t feel well? Maybe it’s not the food…maybe she doesn’t feel good. Thus, after a day of eating, she refuses more food til she feels better. I think some cats with high amounts of stomach acid will eat on and off, depending on how they’re feeling. One of my friends gave her cat tiny amounts of Pepcid AC.

As alternatives, maybe a mid-range canned food like Iams or Blue Wilderness? They are more expensive, but if she eats it, then you wouldn’t be wasting half. (but yeah, you have to buy it and hope she eats it, which isn’t a guarantee…frustrating!)

[Pancakes]

+1 to the comment that gastritis is under-treated in chronic kidney cats. Pepcid AC or an antacid, sucralfate, or even a supplement like Epakitin may help with the stomach enough to make your kidney cat less picky.

I have the same thing right now with my kidney cat. He’ll attack me for my food, and he’ll pick at his canned food, but he’ll eat dry food consistently. One week he’ll eat a brand of food, the next week it’s just not as appetizing. He will eat the fiber food but the phosphorus is too high. It’s frustrating. I added Epakitin and it’s been helping.

[vxf111]

[QUOTE=Pancakes;8869356]
+1 to the comment that gastritis is under-treated in chronic kidney cats. Pepcid AC or an antacid, sucralfate, or even a supplement like Epakitin may help with the stomach enough to make your kidney cat less picky.[/QUOTE]

I might be confused but I think OP has 2 cats. A kidney cat who is NOT being picky about food. And a non kidney cat who is. The one being funny about foods is a non-kidney disease cat.

[Rain]

[QUOTE=vxf111;8869368]
I might be confused but I think OP has 2 cats. A kidney cat who is NOT being picky about food. And a non kidney cat who is. The one being funny about foods is a non-kidney disease cat.[/QUOTE]

True. I was thinking the younger kitty might have a bit of gastritis even without being a kidney cat. Or something else upsetting her stomach off and on.

[betsyk]

Tell me if this totally wacky and not realistic. If she’ll eat a little of something - anything - and you’re wasting the rest of the can, can you scoop the rest of the can, untouched and fresh, into an ice cube tray and freeze it? After a while you’ll have a bunch of little frozen globs of unknown cat food, and you can just grab a meal from the bag, pop it in the microwave to thaw it, and serve something different every time. I’ve never done this because our cats aren’t particularly picky and one of them will clean up all the leftovers, but we do it with spaghetti sauce and that sort of thing when we can’t finish a jar before it goes bad. Cats supposedly like their food warmed up, so microwaved Friskies might actually be appealing? It would drive me crazy to waste all that food.

[vxf111]

[QUOTE=Rain;8869411]
True. I was thinking the younger kitty might have a bit of gastritis even without being a kidney cat. Or something else upsetting her stomach off and on.[/QUOTE]

She might have gastritis. I was just clearing up pancake conflating the two cats. The picky cats like the CRF food. If the picky cat was a CRF cat, there’d be no problem. She likes that food. OP doesn’t want to feed her that food exclusively because she doesn’t feel its adequately nutritious and too expensive for a cat who isn’t actually a CRF cat. The OTHER cat, not the picky one, is a CRF cat eating CRF food and is not the problem.

[redalter]

I remember that food!

[QUOTE=vxf111;8869025]
It’s a shame they stopped making it but Purina made this NASTY wetfood that we used to call “fish heads.” It had a more regal name than that. It was mackerel flavored and REVOTING. It literally looked like all the extra bits left over after they took out the saleable pieces of fish (hence the name “fish heads”). Gag worthy smell and looks. And I never met a cat who wouldn’t eat it. NEVER. NEVER. I wish it was still being made.[/QUOTE]

I had forgotten about that! It was nasty, but they ALL loved it.
:lol:

[Rhyadawn]

I would switch to raw. I have a few people that started feeding their dogs raw but after a little while have switched their cats over as well. They can still get their taurine from whole organs and bones.

Tiki makes a canned tuna with added taurine, and a few people feel a couple cans of that a week to make up for it (just in case).

[Pancakes]

[QUOTE=vxf111;8869368]
I might be confused but I think OP has 2 cats. A kidney cat who is NOT being picky about food. And a non kidney cat who is. The one being funny about foods is a non-kidney disease cat.[/QUOTE]

Then maybe that cat should get checked out…it’s generally not normal to be THAT picky to the point of walking away from a meal entirely.

[Pancakes]

[QUOTE=vxf111;8869432]
She might have gastritis. I was just clearing up pancake conflating the two cats. The picky cats like the CRF food. If the picky cat was a CRF cat, there’d be no problem. She likes that food. OP doesn’t want to feed her that food exclusively because she doesn’t feel its adequately nutritious and too expensive for a cat who isn’t actually a CRF cat. The OTHER cat, not the picky one, is a CRF cat eating CRF food and is not the problem.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for clarifying. It wasn’t all that obvious from the post.

If it were me, I’d be ecstatic the CRF cat wasn’t the problem and just let the picky cat eat the CRF food. It’s not void of nutrition at all, just modified for CRF. Lower phosphorus, lower protein, higher fat/calorie, lower sodium. I get the $$ concerns, but nutrition wise I’d see no problem with it.

[Kachina]

I would try some of the mid-range brands. Best with no fish. If kitty eats one of the good brands, check out price on Chewy.com or one of the other pet food shipping sites. Pretty good discounts for auto ships. Try sticking to canned to avoid kidney issues for as long as possible with this kitty. Will be more expensive, but less expensive than throwing food away.

My picky eater teen age kitty’s appetite picked up with a little Miralax and water mixed into canned food. Turned out he had chronic constipation. One clue was crying in litter box. Thought it was UTI at first, but urine output seemed normal. Poop very hard and dry. No problems for last year except with loose poop sometimes and then I back off of the Miralax a bit.

[tabula_rashah]

Have you tried the Natural Balance canned food? I’ve got one cat who has to eat their limited ingredient duck and green pea one but all of the other cats will leave anything they are eating/doing for this food. I’m pretty sure DH would get into it if I told him it was pate On autoship from Amazon, it’s not bad price-wise

[vxf111]

[QUOTE=Pancakes;8869662]
Thanks for clarifying. It wasn’t all that obvious from the post.

If it were me, I’d be ecstatic the CRF cat wasn’t the problem and just let the picky cat eat the CRF food. It’s not void of nutrition at all, just modified for CRF. Lower phosphorus, lower protein, higher fat/calorie, lower sodium. I get the $$ concerns, but nutrition wise I’d see no problem with it.[/QUOTE]

I probably would too. OP says her vet was against it and that surprises me.

Getting this cat checked is not a bad idea either. Maybe there’s a veterinary cause?

[partita]

catinfo.org, as suggested, is a good site.

I would try alternating foods each feeding. Either leave several open cans in the fridge, or freeze as suggested. You could try transferring the food into a plastic or glass storage container, then put in the fridge in case she’s sensitive to that tinny taste from the can.

Do NOT feed any dry food.*We switched our cats from dry to canned/raw and it is a BEAR to wean them off the dry.*They get addicted to that and will not eat anything else! Our cat got into the dog crunchies the other day and it took two days to get her back on her canned diet!*As mentioned in catinfo.org, ANY canned food is better than dry.

You might need to get tough and let her be hungry for several days. Then stick with the same kind for a while. Once I put my foot down with my cat and said it’s this or nothing, she came around! Now she mostly gets the same can with a single can switchout every now and then. She still is demanding. I don’t leave her food down or the dogs will get it. So it’s food up, food down, food up, food down. She’ll eat a couple bites, then go for a nap. Rinse, repeat. I figure she just keeps returning to the kill!

I agree with a vet check just in case.
Good luck!:lol:*(cats!)