Old boy - what to feed him?

[Motnight]

Hi
I have a 13 / 14 year old cat whom I am struggling to get to eat much. He basically likes Dreamies, Lick-E-Lix, chews. He seems to hate everything else, he was always fussy but has got worse over the last few months.

He has also done the cat thing of liking food when I buy a tin of it and then refusing to touch it when I get a supply in. Food he won't eat:

Lily's Kitchen
Go-cat
Iams
Whiskas
James Welbeloved
Felix

Any suggestions of food, preferably for a senior cat, but I am at this stage willing to try anything, wet or dry? Thank you.

Photo attached of said gentleman.

We have an elderly gentleman (15) who also doesn't like much! He hates Whiskas, but does like Whiskas Duo (says duo on the box) also doesn't mind Sheba which comes in an individual tray. He also doesn't mind a Felix soup.

We just manage him by buying something different every week, small amounts of each, we can usually get him through by switching it up - no point buying a large supply of anything!

Have you tried a mousse?

Are his teeth ok?

Gourmet pate goes down well here and a chicken liver treat as supper.

My old cat used to get this way and I would “recalibrate” his taste buds by cooking a chicken for dinner and then feeding him some of the white and dark meat. After a couple of these meals he would go back to his regular cat food.

Thank you for all these suggestions, really helpful.

We are spending the kids' inheritance on Purina Gourmet Gold for our ancient cat.

Like a pp, we gave our beloved old boy a mix of roast chicken, poached salmon and normal sachet food, in his case Felix in gravy. He lived to 20 and 3 months, so we must have got it right.

Our boy was the same, and really needed variety as he got older.
Try some of the pates with jelly. He liked to lick those. Until i bought loads in and then he wouldn't touch them.

Try real food too. I started to give my boy shredded chicken, flaked fish - tuna, cod or salmon, tiny balls of raw minced beef or lamb - offcuts from what we ate. And small saucers of cream if he is not intolerant to dairy.

Oh yes, cream too if they can take it. Iggy loved cream, and cream cheese, and would have sold us for a laughing cow triangle.

MrCat likes variety, so we always have at least 4 different brands of wet food on the go. If we need him to eat the food (usually because he's turning his nose up at everything, or he needs to take medication with food) we stir a lickylix into the food.

He loves raw egg, raw salmon skin, raw chicken skin - but not mixed in with cat food, so we can't use those to persuade him to eat the catfood.

In the last 6 months before he was put to sleep, my elderly cat had:

Lilys Kitchen, Gourmet Pate, Melting Heart and Cake, Blink, Meowing Heads and about three other brands that I'd not heard of before and can't remember the names. I was getting desperate at times.

He was a nightmare bless him.

He also loved ham and would take your fingers off for corned beef. 😁

Cooked chicken or turkey
tinned tuna (oil or water, NOT brine)
tinned salmon.

I wouldn't give him much dry food at all (it can cause UTIs in male cats, which can be fatal)

Had many cats over 40-odd years, my last boy lived to be 19

Sardines or mackerel in tomato.

I have two older cats and they both wolf down Royal Canin Sensitive wet food.

When my old girl was close to 18 yrs old she began to find eating a little difficult. I put pate food in a mini food processor with a little bit of water and made it into Lick-e-Liks consistency - she really liked it.

I read that as “Have you tried a mouse?” 😊

My 13 year old will only eat Chicken Sheba. And James Well Beloved Senior Chicken dry food.

Me too!

Might work...

Thank you everyone. I have ordered small amounts of all the foods that have been mentioned that my boy hasn't tried before.

I think that he knows this though and so far is showing very little interest in any of them! His teeth are fine (he has very few left and I know the signs from when they hurt before). He seems happy, has spurts of liveliness and is behaving as usual so I am just going to keep trying regarding the food.

My old boy likes any cat food with plenty of gravy and shreds of meat.
I have no idea if the UK has Fancy feast which is his fav.

My old boy likes Royal Canin Aging - apparently it has the same texture as Dreamies, crunchy but soft on the inside?

Another vote for Purina. Our old boy lived to be 20+ and he ate like a horse until the day before he died.

His teeth were really bad but not causing pain so a dental would have been too risky. Plus he had epilepsy (well controlled but he did have a fit coming out of sedation before).

He liked the gravy ones because he could lick them. He ate 4 or 5 a day 😁. I used to roast chicken breast just for him too!

Out 17 year old Persian went off her usual food recently, tried a few different varieties but she wasn't interested. She loves our food though so now we give her Roast chicken, cut up very finely, salmon, minced beef or lamb, I fry it gently so it's not tough.

I keep these in Tupperware in the fridge so we can alternate and she doesn't get bored.

I imagine that was what she was aiming for @capelmustard at 17 she has you over a barrel and they know it.