[BotanyBlack]

I buy litter at the nearby feed store. Which is Tractor Supply. While looking for foods to add to my seniors rotation, I looked at the food they have there. 4 Health. While it is not considered the BEST. The first three ingredients are meat, liver, and broth. The meat depends on the flavor. the carbs are potato, or peas. so no grains (I think one has rice). My kibble addict actually likes it. so it has been added to the rotation. It costs about 50c a can too. comparable to fancy feast, ect. The thing I think you might like. almost twice the calories then the same sized can! So they actually need less for the same nutrition, so would help a bit with adding a bit of weight.

Good for me when I have to watch my budget and gives my cats a bit of variety.

 

[Mandy and Ellie]

Interesting! That sounds pretty good, I might have to check that out to add to my rotation. I've never thought about getting cat food at Tractor Supply!

 

[agotor]

Followup:
Now at 7 months and returning from the hospital. A friend feed my pets while I was in the hospital. Instead of the wet which I had been allowing the kitten to have access to several time a day the friend just feed her Purina One kitten food. I returned a few weeks later and my very thin kitten had very noticeably gained weight and was a happier cat. She now snubs wet food completely! I realize dry is not healthy for various reasons as my last cat died from diabetes.

I need help! Feeding her more wet in the past did not work and now that she has had dry for a couple weeks the situation is worse.

Thanks!!

 

[Chris66]

I agree with giving her a mix of wet and dry. Almost everything I read online indicate dry is too high on carbs......

 

[TabbCatt]

No, cats that love dry food will refuse all wet foods until you give in. So I propose you don't really give kibbles at all, or do the transition slower, like feeding her less and less kibble and more wet food at set mealtimes. No free-feeding.

I'd try to implement any of these tricks below to get her to eat ONLY grain-free canned food if you want your kitty to avoid getting diabetes or UTIs.

Basic tricks are using toppers to get her to eat her wet food:

-Try a variety of brands with different textures, protein. Some cats don't care for pate but will go for shredded or chunky foods.

-Adding bits of kibble crumble (smashed or crushed up first) over the wet food as a topper or a few pieces mixed in her wet food.

-Using Fortiflora as a topper (it's a probiotic, but essentially contains the similar stuff to coat kibbles as flavoring)

-tuna juice on the wet food

-Bonito flakes (dried tuna flakes) as a topper

-Parmesan cheese as a topper

-Freeze dried treats (which are usually single protein meat, no other ingredient listed) crumbled on as topper

You can find very detailed tips on transitioning a kibble addict to wet food on catinfo.org which is instructed by a vet. Basically, you'll need an enormous amount of patience and just be much more stubborn than your kitty.

Wishing you lots of luck in the meantime and hoping for a great outcome.

 

[kbear]

of all the dry kitten food purina kitten chow has to be one of the worst! it's full of corn and other grains. cats are carnivores, they need meat. I would seriously look for another vet if mine recommended that food. chewy.com has a lot of different quality grain free dry foods if you really want to use dry and their prices are usually the best. from what I've read dry food can cause diabetes and all kinds of health problems. I recently switched my cats to wet and they weren't happy for a few days but they are fine with it now. when they get hungry enough they will eat the wet..

5.5lbs for a 4 month old kitten sounds perfect to me.

 

[librarychick]

No, [b/]cats[/B] that love dry food will refuse all wet foods until you give in.

Yes, ADULT cats who are kibble addicts will refuse other food...kittens not so much. You can have fussy kittens, but they are growing and their body will not allow them to starve themselves if food is present.

Don't mix too much into the food or she'll always wait for the toppings. Adding a bit of warm tap water and mixing it in, or a tiny sprinkle of crushed kibble is fine, but don't get too fancy or it'll make her worse.

The tips TabbCat suggested are great for stubborn adults, but part of the hoal with a kitten is to keep them on as varied of a diet as possible to help prevent life long pickiness. Now is what those habits are forming.

If it was my kitten (and it was), I'd cut out the dry entirely and feed a different wet food flavour three times per day. Offer the plate for 15-20 minutes then pick it up (dont take it if she's currently eating, but if she's iignoring it) if she hasn't eaten then she can wait for the next meal. I know it feels like wasting food to throw it out, but if she was eating it you'd be going through a new flavor every meal anyways. Don't hover either, call her over, set the food down, and walk away. Pretend you don't care. Picky eaters hate supervision, IME.

 

[agotor]

Excellent suggestions everybody. I will ignore my fear of starving my cat and incorporate some of the suggestions. At this point she seems glad to ignore a canned meal of great looking and smelling chicken chunks for the next meal. I even gave her cooked chopped chicken breast a couple of days ago, tuna fish another time and she actually preferred dry. It's like they have some magical addictive ingredient in dry like nicotine in cigarettes!

Thanks, I will take deep breath and follow directions!

 

[librarychick]

They sort of do have a 'magical ingredient'.

This is the ingredient list with the important bit bolded:

Ingredients: chicken, brewer's rice, corn gluten meal, poultry by-product meal, wheat flour, animal fat preserved with mixed tocopherols (form of vitamin E), whole grain corn, fish meal, soy protein isolate, animal liver flavour, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, salt, caramel colour, choline chloride, L-lysine monohydrochloride, calcium carbonate, taurine, vitamin E supplement, zinc sulphate, ferrous sulphate, manganese sulphate, niacin, vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulphate, riboflavin supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulphite complex (source of vitamin K activity) and sodium selenite

They literally spray fat over the kibble. Some companies add something called 'animal digest' which is meat that's been pre-digested using chemicals to make their kibble more appetizing. It's part of what makes many poor quality kibbles a bit like kitty McDonalds. Tastes great - BAD for you.

 

[agotor]

Wow!!
Purina One dry kitten food is 18% while some canned food I looked at had only a small fraction of this. No wonder I could see a difference in the weight of my kitten in only a couple of weeks! I really don't want to be responsible for a fat cat.
Thanks

 

[doodlebug]

You can't compared dry food nutritional analysis directly to canned because of the difference in moisture. You have to compare them on a dry matter basis.

Dry Matter Basis - A Better Way to Compare Dog Foods

 

[Floridagal]

How about keeping the kibble as a back up? We feed our two girls canned for their regular meals, but keep some kibble next to their water dish in case they are looking for a knosh. I notice the kibble gets eaten mainly overnight.

 

[agotor]

Got my hands full! Cali a little canned late yesterday but today she was literally destroying everything in sight to try to get me to give her dry food. In a split second she bit through the cable on my phone charger, bit the laptop charger cables and was ripping everything in sight. I put her in my dogs cage to stop the carnage and get some relief. She was totally refusing canned today even after adding some dry but when I put her in the cage with the food she started to eat. Oh joy finally! Guess Cali will go into the cage at meal time till this gets under control. You just wouldn't believe the amount of stuff she destroyed in a very short time!

 

[librarychick]

She's 8 months old right? Her destruction might not be just about hunger. At 8 months she may be teething again - back molars. Also, teenager hormones are hitting. There are still some 'crazy' hormones in there, even for s/n cats.

Break out the toys, give her some things she CAN chew on (personal fav: [ame]http://www.amazon.ca/Petstages-Cat-Orka-Wiggle-Worm/dp/B002U5PGLQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428605931&sr=8-1&keywords=cat+wiggle+worm[/ame]), and consider adding some clicker training to keep her little brain busy

 

[agotor]

She calmed down finally after she ate. Fortunately this kitten has toys all over the house and normally she directs her energy on the toys. Cali even carries big ones to the top of her cat tower. Earlier today there was my stuff only up there! I am so glad things are back to normal.

 

[meggie]

Librarychick- I had the same chew toy for my girl who LOVES to chew, unfortunately she chewed off large pieces and swallowed them. Threw up chunks almost a week later. It happened so fast. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and gave her the chew toy, within minutes she had it destroyed.

I would just recommend keeping all eyes on the cat when they are playing with the chew toy. And put it away when you're not around to supervise.

Agotor- my girls love to play in cardboard boxes with tissue paper or packing paper ( I get a lot of stuff from Chewy.com and it always comes in a nice sturdy box with lots of packing paper) They love to jump in the box and rip the paper to shreds, one will even start ripping the box apart with her teeth. Another thing I do is crinkle the packing paper up into a large mound and throw a few toys in for them to hunt. They burn off a lot of energy running through the paper playground.