I think my Cat hates her food.

Priest

Hey all,

So I've been buying my Cat Natural Choice for 2-3 years now, after transitioning her from Friskies. I know nothing (knowledge∩null set) about Cat nutrition and food chemical hieroglyphics.

I meet two types of Veterinarians and Pet Store Employees:
a. Shills
b. Ethical enough to stay out of recommendations for sake of remaining impartial, but still useless.

Lately, my Cat has been pushing her food around apathetically. She eats it, but I don't get a sense of 'excitement' about it. She eats other things eagerly like treats, turkey, tuna, wet food.

I keep her bowls clean, using ceramic hand-washed bi-weekly. Her food is stored in fresh-sealed tupperware, about 45 days for a 16lb bag (9 lb cat). She drinks water out of an identical bowl.. Her bowls are in separate rooms from litter box. Her eating area is private from traffic.

I think it's time to switch things up for her. Anyone know something that cats love but is also healthy?

She is a small shorthair domestic, prefers Fish to chicken/beef 100%, has mild-to-no hairball issues, and is otherwise a healthy adult (7 years old). She had renal issues once when she was 3 years old (ate some of that pink insulation that she clawed in the crawlspace... bad kitty!). Pure wet-food diets are verboten (affordability / maintenance).

Thanks fancy lads and lasses.

davidsdurions

I know you said pure wet food diet is too difficult but really if your cat is going to be as healthy and happy as possible, then a natural diet is what it needs.

Googled ideal house cat diet and this was a top hit and seems like excellent advice within:

http://www.catinfo.org

Edit: and yeah, cats don't eat rice ever. They eat meat and meat alone.

Thundyrkatz

I have not had a cat in a long time. But i remember the big issue with a lot of cat food was the ash content. Cheaper foods had a higher ash content which lead to crystals in their urine and ultimately death. I did some quick googling and this old, but very informative article came up.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-03-29/news/9803290433_1_cat-food-male-cats-spay

We always used iams for our cats for the above reason, and it worked well.

admanb

As far as I know, Wellness is still the top brand with Wellness Core being their best dry-food product. Grain-free, very little processing, etc.

Djeet

Check her mouth for inflammation, swelling or redness. She could be less interested in food cause it's uncomfortable to eat.

If she's eating slower, then monitor how much she is eating. If she skips multiple meals or is just eating less for an extended period talk to the vet as cats can quickly develop liver disease with not enough food intake. It's way cheaper to treat if she hasn't lost her appetite entirely.

As for what to buy, read the ingredients list. A rule of thumb I've heard bandied about is 3 of the top 5 ingredients should be meat or meat meal/byproduct. Ingredients lists can be gamed though so I'll steer clear if there are a bunch of vegetable ingredients after meat ingredients, but before the vitamins and minerals.

Haven't been to PetCo or PetSmart in awhile, but IIRC they pretty much order their pet feed from cheapest to most expensive (more or less). The cat feed with more meat in them tend to be closer to the expensive side (tough some expensive feed doesn't have much meat ... thus the ingredients list).

Brands I've found that seem to have a lot of meat in them or Innova, Wellness, Natural Balance, and Merrick Before Grain (but read the ingredients).

When transitioning make sure to do it gradually as some cats may turn up their nose at a sudden change.

Nova_C

I'm not sure if it's available outside of Canada, but Orijen is a very high quality food and my cat totally digs it.

The change in softness of her fur from Whiskas (What she was eating when I adopted her) to when I changed her diet to Orijen was remarkable.

knitdan

Something that works with our cat is we'll mix up a bit of the wet food with the dry.

And every once in a while, we boil up some chicken livers and give her those for a change.

The other thing we do when she turns her nose up at dry food is just don't feed her for a day or two.

Edit: but my cat is probably not a good example, as she also supplements her diet with things she kills and eats.