Does anyone here have cats that are very fussy with what food they eat? We have two cats and it is very hard to feed them as the range of food they eat is so limited. To try and sort this I get them whiskers and felix etc and swap them each meal, but still this doesn't work well. I just tired to give them some bacon one sniffed it and and jump backwards like it was an attempt on her life and the other one sniffed and licked it but didn't eat it. One of them also doesnt even eat chicken. Whats wrong with these animals?
Many cats are like that. A lot of people have had the experience so often that they figure it's just how cats are. We tend to lump cats and dogs together as generic domesticated carnivores, but actually their nutritional needs and habits are quite different. Dogs are scavengers as well as hunters, they eat all of their kill including the intestines and their contents, they'll clean up the unwanted remains of other predators' kills, in a pinch they'll eat berries and other easily digested starches, they recycle stool for the symbiotic bacterial culture if what we feed them has too many preservatives, and as we all know they'll happily eat from our garbage. Whereas the description of a cat's diet is very short: kill something and eat the good parts. Leave the rest for the dogs. Cats even have a genetic idiosyncracy that makes them unable to taste sugar, so they're one of the few common animals that won't eat candy. Most cats will eat fresh raw meat and poultry, which is far more economical than commercial cat food and can even be cheaper than canned meat. Beef isn't their first choice so either buy it ground or grind it, and don't give a cat too much fat. I'd be really surprised if a cat turns down fresh raw chicken. Recently they've started recommending against giving dogs pork, I don't know if that also applies to cats. Ask your vet about fish, there's some controversy over that too. Felis cattus is not an aquatic animal so their ancestors never ate it. Cooked food is just not natural for cats and they're not curious, adventurous, gluttonous eaters like dogs so it's not easy to get them interested. Bacon is full of smoke and seasonings that would never turn up in a predator's diet, so with their vastly stronger ability to identify individual components of an odor, bacon probably smells to them like anything but food--especially if it's been cooked and the heat has activated some of the flavors for the benefit of human eaters. It's been almost twenty years since we last had cats in the house, but back in those days vets recommended raw beef kidney, which was absurdly inexpensive. Every butcher in town ground us up a ten-pound batch that we threw in the freezer--once, at which point he had to spend hours washing his grinder. Thereafter we just did it ourselves in a food processor, not wanting to go through the same thing with our own meat grinder. Before the kidneys we fed them ground horsemeat for several years. We weren't the only ones because there was a small thriving industry in L.A. packaging it as "animal feed only." Commercial pet food is designed to be attractive to humans, not pets. Convenient packaging, long shelf life, not smelly, tidily served, easy clean-up, odorless low-bulk stool. It's all cooked. This is not what our pets need and sometimes what they need gets sacrificed to make the sale. Your vet sells healthy cat food that's not much trouble to deal with but it costs a fortune. The stuff in the supermarket is a compromise between the corporation's nutritional scientists and its marketing deparment. Some of the dry foods appear to offer good nutrition, but most are full of materials that cause urinary tract problems in vast numbers of cats, especially the bargain brands. Other than that, since cats don't get the fun of chasing their food and killing it, they like to at least play with it. There's not much to play with in a dish of canned slop. So they do the next best thing, which is to "play" with the person who feeds them. "I don't like this--today. Let's drag this process out. Bring me something different and I'll decide if I like it---today." Cats who have plenty of things to keep them occupied between meals are less likely to need to squeeze every last moment of fun out of eating. But it's no guarantee. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Feed them one kind of high-quality cat food. It doesn't matter if the "range of food is limited", who cares? They don't need a variety, who are you trying to satisfy, you or the cat? They don't need anything else. In fact, feeding cats different things is what makes them fussy. This isn't just my opinion, but the consensus among various cat care books that I read.
Cheers for the advice here I can see the sense in why the cats are having problems. I always thought it was just them as every cat on our street would come in to our house and eat their food so I thought cats wern't fussy. Will have to look for these foods that are more natural to them. And lol to the food makers making it for the owners and not the cats. Its stupid but I should have guessed this would the case.
Her staple diet is dry cat food and canned, alternating between Whiskas and Kit e kat. Sometimes she won't eat her catfood and prefers the dogfood. For treats she loves raw chicken liver or any kind of liver and fresh raw fish. When she wants to give herself a treat she catches mice, birds and gekkos and eats them whole (when she eats birds, all we find are a few feathers and streaks of blood on the walls and floor).
I use Purina One. If you just stick with it, they will get used to it. I'm sure they will eat it if they get hungry enough. Dry food is the best thing, make sure they have plenty of water. I got a circulating water dish that also filters. It seems extravagant, but it's worth it.
We have had our cats for 3 years now and between then they have caught 1 bird and we even think that they stumble across it already dead.
Lol You must really love your cats for a flash device like that. I don't get what the point of it is? My first cat would only ever drink dirty water. I think her ambition in life was to drink from the drain as she would spend hours looking down it.
I guess it's supposed to keep the water clean and oxygenated. I just have the one cat, who adopted me.
I use to have a cat (Daisy). She was a black, sweet looking animal. She developed kidney disease and we eventually had to put her down, but the fact is she lived a very, very long time with us an I am grateful for that. I would probably have gotten her the best cat food I could had I known she'd develop problems with her kidneys, in my opinion it's not worth risking a cats health to save a little money. I miss her alot, Daisy was a friend for a time when I had none. I hate dogs.
Cats love to hunt and will do it for sport. But a well-fed housecat will generally not bother to eat something he kills because it's rather a lot of work to get at the rather small amount of meat. Wild rodents carry enough diseases to fill a textbook because they're scavengers and wild birds, with their stripped-for-flight immune systems, aren't very healthy by veterinary standards either. It's best to find a way to keep your cat from wanting to dine this way. There are some predatory animals, especially birds of prey, who eat their entire kill and regurgitate the feathers, fur, and anything else they can't digest. But cats aren't one of them. If you're not finding the complete set of feathers then they were left somewhere else and perhaps the meat was abandoned too. The cat didn't swallow them.
Funny story about this cat my grandfather's friend had, It catches rabbits, which his owner skins, and guts, and cooks up, all while the cat watches on the counter. Then it gets to share it. One time it brought in a rabbit, which his owner started to prepare. Then some guests came over, and the cat went out the door again. Sure enough, it came back with another rabbit! (presumably for the guests).
My cat doesn't have a habit of sharing, and will generally eat all but the guts of whatever small rodent he's caught. Occasionally we'll find a couple of rabbit ears...
Lol, Does a cat have this level of cogntive functioning? Either way he sounds a great host Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The best cat or dog food will have protein as its first ingredient be it seafood or meat, not meal byproduct. Also more rice than corn. Purina one is well advertised and available anywhere and it matches the quality veterinarians recommend though there are many unknown brands that may be similar. Others you can find at pet stores. The best part of better pet food is they eat less because it is more nutritionally dense so less in, less out and ends up being more cost efficient.
I’m not a vet, but I’m married to one that specializes in cats. We’ve also had more than 20 cats of our own over the years and own a clinic so I’m not talking out my ass here. There’s been some good and some not so good advice so I thought I'd speak up. Cats can be quite particular but there are a tremendous variety of foods available. If you can I’d recommend getting them off of whiskers and felix, they’re not particularly good diets (not many grocery store brands are). Hills and Wellness are much better. We’ve had very good success with our cats by switching and mixing various brands and flavors since they were kittens or when we adopted them. Getting them used to variety from the start seems to help prevent them from becoming so finicky. You may have more difficulty with adult cats though. When switching or trying to broaden their diet mix the old food with the new and gradually build a mixture with more of what you are trying to switch them to. Also remember cats aren’t dogs, they don’t generally run to the bowl and consume it immediately. Generally, a healthy cat will eat what you give it when it gets hungry enough; people often worry excessively if their cat initially turns its nose up at a dish of food. Wait a bit and see if they wind up coming back to the bowl, most cats aren’t so finicky they’ll starve themselves. If they don’t eat within 24 hours though go back to what they will eat and try again later. Organ meats are a terrible idea unless you want an obese cat prone to diabetes and heart disease. And please don’t feed them raw meat. People are under the misconception that raw food is somehow “natural” and healthier but is absolutely is not. Consider that when an animal in the wild kills its prey it eats it immediately. It does not butcher it, wrap it in cellophane, put it on a truck, and then let it sit in a grocery store for a few days. While alive an animal’s immune system keeps the bacteria content down, the moment an animal dies the bacteria begin to grow unchecked and refrigeration only slows the process. You might as well let them lick a Petri dish as feed them raw meat. If you want to go with “fresh” foods, please cook them. Not only does cooking kill off the bacteria but it also makes the meat easier to digest. There are also recipes available for cooking up your own cat food. So unless you’re bringing your meat in fresh from the hunt it is not a good idea. FR is right though about corn and, counter intuitively, fish and milk. Many cats either have trouble digesting these or become outright allergic. You also want a low ash content, particularly if you have male cats because they are more likely to develop kidney or bladder stones (females have a larger urethra and don’t block as easily). Most do well with poultry, rice, peas, and there are even foods where the primary protein is rabbit or venison. Typically, these latter are more expensive though and reserved for cats with food allergies. Exercise will also help their appetites; our favorite cat toy is a laser pointer. Two more pieces of advice: 1. Take your cats in to the vet to have their teeth cleaned and checked for dental disease. This is particularly important if you feed them canned food (dry food keeps their teeth cleaner) or if it’s been more than a year or so since they were last checked. I cannot tell you how many patients we’ve seen that were in poor health and not eating well because they had a mouth full of rot. And the turn around can be almost miraculous. 2. If one or both cats have symptoms other than finicky eating behavior, such as diarrhea, vomiting, or abdominal pain, you should consult with your vet about food allergies. We see quite a few cats that have inflammatory bowel disease due to food allergies. The vet can run allergy tests to confirm or may simply recommend a change of diet to see if the condition(s) improve. ~Raithere
Raithere thanks for typing all of that. Some good advice there and you clearly know what you talking about. Its important to look after the little chaps, so thanks.
