Fussy eater

[Zazu44]

We have a beautiful little cat that we have had for 5 months, she’s now 1. She was on whiskers dry and wet when we got her which we changed to Purina kitten wet and dry. She will eat the dry food but hardly eats wet maybe 1/2 pouch a day. I have tried so many
different foods as I am worried she isn’t getting enough protein but no luck. She won’t even it fresh chicken/fish!
also worried about taking her off Purina dry food - any ideas?

You could try gradually changing to the dry food you want to give her? Add it in gradually increasing amounts to the food she likes. A dry food diet - as long as it's a complete food - is fine. Just make sure she always has water.

Our boy (now two) doesn’t love wet food - we went through pretty much every brand with him from super expensive raw to cheap as chips Whiskas. Sheba is the one he eats most of so he gets a pouch of that morning and night, and Royal Canin dry. He’ll happily eat fresh chicken, bits of tinned mackerel/tuna etc, and drinks well.

At his jabs back in April I asked the vet about it and she was happy with the whole set up. I find it odd as our previous girl hoovered up the wet food and licked the plate clean but try to remember what the vet said and not worry.

Mine are exactly the same and they are nearly 1 too.

One of them will eat dry happily but sniffs at wet and we’re lucky if she eats half a pouch. The other one doesn’t really like dry and will eat wet but very gradually over the course of several hours. They used to eat a broad range of food perfectly happily until recently. But they are clearly happy and healthy, full of energy with glossy coats and not acting ill at all, so I tell myself that a healthy animal won’t let itself starve and knows what it needs.

I have upgraded the dry food to a better quality one, though, to one with a higher protein content:

I've got a fussy pants as well. I've tried all sorts of wet food but he will only eat 3 types, one of which is now discontinued! He also isn’t interested in human food, including chicken. He's currently on Purina Revelations mousse and I've been trying Untamed on trial (so far unsuccessfully)

Of the ones yours does like, is there some sort of them - like texture or flavour? It's worth experimenting with a few more types of food based around that. Tempcat only likes mousses nothing solid or 'lumpy' and prefers fish flavours. He has a slow digestion so only poos every 2nd day & gets quite smelly in between and I'd love to get him onto something healthier that might help that so I keep trying new foods despite it costing a fortune.

I have found a better quality high protein dry food that only has fresh meat and not 'meat derivatives' in it.. It's called Carnilove and I got it from Viovet on special price recently. I got the chicken as I thought perhaps the fish flavours are making him pong and he seems to like it so far!

Thanks everyone it’s all really helpful advice, will try some of the ideas and keep my fingers crossed x

Dry cat food is junk food for cats. I had exactly the same with mine, they wanted to eat the dry food all the time and were increasingly ignoring the wet food. One of them started to gain weight. Dry food is full of things they don’t need such as vegetables and carbohydrates, and the pet companies make this food very addictive for cats. I cut it out completely and within a couple of days my cats were happily eating their wet food. I feed them quality wet food like katkin or untamed as that is pure meat, without vegetables / carbs. Cats are obligate carnivores, they need to eat meat only.

Our cat would literally have starved rather than eat the Katkin - I ended up offering it up on the neighbourhood Facebook group. (He did enjoy the sprinkles for the top of it though.) He will pick at the tuna Untamed, but there's a load of chicken ones in a cupboard which I should take to Cats Protection, likewise a stack of Blink. I reckon I could feed an entire shelter for a few weeks on his rejects actually! So funny as he was a stray kitten found living in a shed and had presumably been eating spiders and mice...

Are you also giving him dry food though? My cats didn’t eat it when they also had dry food, as they preferred the dry. The other trick is to warn it up slightly as they might not like it straight out the fridge. I stopped giving them tuna as that also is very addictive to cats and they will stop eating other foods which taste blander in comparison.

Yes - when we adopted him he was on wet and dry Whiskas, so I wanted to get him onto better quality food as soon as he was settled. He has Royal Canin dry (which I know Mumsnet doesn’t approve of) and Sheba wet after trying pretty much everything. Sometimes he eats all the wet food, sometimes he just picks at it.

He very occasionally (once every six weeks maybe) gets a bit of tinned tuna, it’s only me that eats it so I’d only have it if I was home alone. I recently bought some of the Emcore pouches which are all fish and he likes those, but as they’re not a complete food he needs dry with them too.

We had him in for his jabs in April and the vet was happy with his weight/teeth/heart etc, and also said it was fine for him not to eat much wet food. She was with us through our previous cat being diagnosed with/pts from lymphoma last year and I do 100% trust her.