# Picky cats?



## Caty M

I have two very picky cats. They are on Acana grasslands at the moment but I want them to go to raw. Cats in particular I think benefit from raw because of their kidney issues they can get later in life. Anyway.

How do I go about switching cats who if I put down a chicken wing in front of them they just glare at me and walk away? One cat will eat liver, one will eat fish. Both will eat chicken skin (but only if it's cut up into bite sized pieces). 

Any tips?

Plus can I use the leftover cat kibble as dog treats?


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## Mollygirl

If you find out how to get a picky cat to switch, let me know too. He was eating a little chicken but now he's sticking his nose up and our other cat refuses to even look at it. I've got Meow Meows off of canned, he thought he should have his one can a day first thing in the morning and would come wake us up if we didn't get up fast enough for him and he was always throwing up and having diarrhea. When I switched my dogs to raw I decided to start just giving him some small pieces of chicken instead of the canned. He was eating gizzards and hearts, but won't touch liver. Now he's sticking his nose up at chicken, but he likes canned fish. I'm still giving kibble as the other will not even touch raw, but he didn't care for canned cat food either. If I give a bone he won't even attempt eating it, I have to cut it up in small pieces. Both cats were adopted from a shelter and was adults when we got them. Meow Meows was born at the shelter and had to be bottle fed, he is also a big fat huge cat. They will both starve before eating anything they don't like. I just keep giving him tiny pieces of chicken or whatever I'm feeding the dogs and tell him that's all your getting, sometimes he will eat a little, sometimes it just gets nasty in his bowl and I throw it away. I'm trying the tough love approach even though kibble is aways available for them to eat. At least he's not throwing up and his stools are solid now and it doesn't stink to high heaven now.


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## Tobi

Cat's seem like they can get addicted to junk food, we've been struggling with our zeus for about 6 months trying to get him to go raw, even before the dog... and finally it's sticking. what we did:

Removed all catfood
started giving boneless chicken breast chunks, hearts, gizzards.
Gave him a few hours each day to nibble on it and removed it.

did this for 3 days (was afraid to use tough love before), and now he looks forward to eating when i go into the kitchen with his bowl. 

The thing about cats when you start is that if you're giving bone-in meats it might deter them as they aren't accustomed to chewing everything around like a dog so their jaws are much weaker in comparison. You strengthen them by giving tougher meats like gizzards and hearts. After about 3 weeks we'll start giving game hens, he's only 7lbs and eats about 3.5oz per day (very skinny little thing) so game hens would be relatively cheap and a great rmb workout when he's ready for them.

something We also tried was using the dogs food Blood and pouring it over his meats as he was always polishing off Tobi's stuff after Tobi left. That actually worked a little bit.
one picture is what we started out with, the other is Zeus with his chicken back that he didn't want to let Tobi eat so we let him naw some of the meat off for a little bit. It comes down IMO to letting them know that nothing else is coming so they need to eat what they can... I know some sites will say not to use tough love on cats etc etc but sometimes it's the only way.


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## Caty M

Aww. He's adorable. Is he part siamese?

I think I will try tough love. It will be so nice to have all the furkids on raw!


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## Scarlett_O'

I just switched Ducki recently and how I got her to eat it was/is to cut up everthing I'm feeding her for the day(chunk of chicken neck, chicken breast meat and some tuna/salmon etc.) I then put it all into a tuperware container allowing the fish fluid to soak into the chicken. I do that the night before and then feed the next day!:biggrin: she has done really well in the last week!:smile: and she wasn't one to eat any thing other then the kibble/caned that she was use to!!

I am also on rawcat a yahoo group and they have given me a bunch of great ideas!


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## Tobi

bishopthesheltie said:


> Aww. He's adorable. Is he part siamese?
> 
> I think I will try tough love. It will be so nice to have all the furkids on raw!


ya he's part Siamese, we aren't sure what else, but for sure, the blue eyes really give it away!! :lol:

It's definitely a good feeling having them all on raw... it's so bad i read the ingredients on his food and it would make me sad.

Raw Fed Cats
Feline Nutrition

here are a few sources that we read up with for our kitty, they are basically the same as dog, they just need more whole prey IMO for the correct balance of nutrients their bodies don't produce.


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## Caty M

Success! I think.

I withheld food for 24 hours.. and fed them a mix of bone-in chicken (tiny pieces), canned sardines and beef kidney. I don't know if cats get cannon butt like dogs, but they did eat quite a bit of it..


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## Mollygirl

My very picky cat loves the canned sardines and canned mackerel. He is still eating the chicken I give him but he looks at it, sniffs it, looks at me and meows, telling me he doesn't like it. But he will eventually eat it but not all. Just a little in his tummy has helped with his digestive system. When he used to go poop, he would stink up the whole house, we had to get the air freshener out it was so bad and his throwing up has stopped.


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## CorgiPaws

Picky cats. A topic near and dear. LOL. 
I've had one hell of a time trying to get one of my cats, a ~3 year old DSH to eat anything but kibble for a year and a half now. She will eat ANY kind of kibble... as long as it's kibble. I've had minimal luck getting her to eat canned food, and even less luck with raw. 
My other cat, a <1 year old tabby will eat anything in sight. anything at all.... except bones. He will kinda sorta eat them, sometimes, but not nearly enough and not reliably. He literally will leave a neat little PILE of bones when I give him fish, mice, cornish hens. anything, even if i whack them into oblivion with a hammer first and think there's NO way he can eat around them. He does. SO, I've added primal grinds to his diet. The ones that are just meat, bone, and organ with nothing else. It has many downfalls, in that I am not certain the quality of the meat, nor do I know the exact ratios and whatnot, since it's all ground up. But there's several varieties, and I switch them up, and he gets about 3 ounces of that per day, plus two chicken hearts, but a couple bite sized chunks of whatever I have out for the dogs if it's fresh. Since the chubs come in 5lb amounts, I buy two varieties at a time, and he eats those (along with the hearts and scraps) until they're gone, and then I get two more. 
Is it ideal? Well, no. But his stools are now solid, and he seems pretty happy and healthy. I hope to someday have both cats on real PMR, but if not, I don't mind continuing what I'm doing for them.


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## Caty M

My kitties are kibble addicts as well, it's bad. They are both rescue cats and were eating science diet before I got them at the shelter, and I did manage to get them on Acana/orijen/horizon, but they have terrible breath and teeth, and they aren't very cooperative when it comes to teeth brushing!.. 

My one cat is totally fine on what I have been feeding.. eating a lot actually and it's my pickier cat so I'm surprised. It's not whole bones but they are chopped up into small pieces and it's a start, I guess. Better than kibble.

The other one, Bruiser, he is eating a small amount, but you can tell he's not that interested.. they haven't had kibble, just raw, for three days now, so I hope he starts eating more.. he eats around 1/3 what he should be eating.


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## Tobi

we've started making a lot more headway on ours, he's eating 4oz per day 7lbs (and needs some weight on). Last night when we went to eat dinner we had a leftover hamburger patty on the stove, somehow the little monster got it without us noticing!! he's more of a scrounge than the dog now, i'm thinking of going up another ounce since he's so skinny, but he's eating everything in sight, today he'll get game hen breast! :lol:


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## monkeys23

Oh I would dearly love to be able to even try to switch the Missy cat!

She's living at my mom's right now because my apt blows. 1. I can't afford another $200 pet deposit (thats right... for each pet, what a rip off! Oh well at least the dogs have kept the criminals upstairs from breaking in merely by their prescence) and am too honest to sneak her down here and 2. I'm having flooding issues which I don't want to risk her around the mildew (have I mentioned I hate my apt?) given her history of upper respritory disease when she was a barn cat and 3. No window screens and no AC. 
So she's just safer at my mom's house and I see her every weekend. Not ideal, but the cat is safe. Needless to say I can't even attempt to switch her though, especially because I know she will be hell to transition.

She refuses to eat anything except kibble and just picks at everything except Core and its basically the only thing that she does well on at all. She won't eat tuna or any canned or cheese tidbits, or raw burger/steak tidbits (yeah our cats are spoiled with raw meat treats).... so, its going to suck transitioning. And she's missing 4 teeth and needs a dental badly which probably means they will take more teeth out (this is a result of being infected with upper respritory disease the first two years of her life when she was a barn cat before I took her in and made her a housecat and got her healthy) when I can finally afford that.... so chewing will be an issue and I might have to make my own ground raw for her with pieces for chewing in there. Sigh, I've done the research on what I need to do, its just really frustrating to have my hands tied right now. And she's gaining weight on kibble, she's up to 9lbs and she needs to be down to about 7-7.5 because she's a tiny cat. Bah, well hopefully my next living situation is much better and I can at least try and change what she's eating because if I could get her eating at least some whole gizzards and hearts it would sure help her teeth be cleaner and her feel better because they wouldn't be so icky. Its killing me to know how much better it'd be for her health and have my hands tied like this though.


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## naturalfeddogs

I just brought home a six month old kitten from work, Smokey. Luckily, I think he will be "fairly" easy to switch. I put a couple of pieces of chicken down in front of him and he ate it all so fast! That night, I gave him a drumbstick in his own spot away from the dogs and by morning the drumstick was stripped to the bone! He did that twice and now he has slowed some, but he is still eating raw. I am thinking about just taking the kibble away altogether.


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## MollyWoppy

I have another pain in the axse. When I adopted her at 2yo, 14 months ago, my first cat ever, (I thought I hated cats before I got her), she was eating Nutro, and thats all. No canned cat food, no tuna, no chicken, Orijen, nothing but Nutro. It took forever, and I guess that because I am a new cat owner and I was scared shxtless that she would get that liver problem when they dont' eat for a certain amount of time, but eventually, kibble by kibble, she now eats Orijen and Fromm (both chicken unfortunately), but I'm happy that I got that far. 
The last time I took a poop sample into the vets for the worm test, I could hear the vet techs out the back saying, gosh this doesn't smell at all, that's so surprising for a kitty. So, I know she is on a good food now.
But, ideally, hearing about all the kidney problems kittens have, I'd love to switch her to raw, or even canned. 
She's the same as you's guys though when it comes to being picky. I cut chicken into cat mouth sized pieces, sometimes she eats it, the next day she won't. Sometimes canned tuna, sometimes not. One really good day she ate a bit of pork and a bit of chicken liver, but refused it the next day. She licked half of Mollies cornish hen tonight.
So, I keep Orijen out to free feed, (she's only 7lbs, the vet said she is on the verge of skinny), and offer her some type of raw or canned every night.
I don't mind, I adore her so she's more than worth the hassle to me.


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## mel2mdl

I have my cat on all wet now. I won't fast, because he is older and overweight and I do not want him to get sick - the 'liver thing' is real and can cause problems, especially with overweight cats.

I would always start by weaning them to canned food first, then try to switch to raw. Because I have to cut up Oscar's food right now (though he is eating bones again), I give the cat several pieces of meat in the morning and evening. He'll eat fish and chicken, but still no organ meats or bones. So, for now, each meal is cut up meat, with his BFF or Weruva canned food. He's started to beg for chicken chunks, so I will probably get a grinder (for bones and mixing up organs) and do one meal raw, one meal canned. I worry about the taurine levels since grinding removes it and I don't want to mess with having to add it back in.

BUT - I don't think 'tough-love' is a good idea for cats. They can have some severe issues if they loose weight too rapidly. They are NOT the same as dogs. Again, if they won't eat raw, switch them to canned. Start by mixing the canned food with their favorite kibble and DO NOT free feed them. (Though, if possible, feed 3x a day!) Slowly remove the kibble until they eat only canned. Even the worst canned food is better than kibble. And, trust me, on a good canned food diet, their poop is smaller, their pee is less and the smell is GREATLY reduced. Plus, the canned food really does a good job on their teeth! I would also suggest feeding chunked can food and not pate (in aspic). This gets them used to chewing their food and makes it easier to get them to eat raw later.


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## Mollygirl

I would argue to you about canned. We have 2 cats, one that has stomach problems. He demanded his canned every morning then kibble is always available to them. After eating it he would throw up, have runny poops and stink to high heaven. Then he would be hungry again, crying at us wanting more because it came out of his system so fast. We tried so many different brands and nothing helped. Then when I discovered raw for the dogs I tried it on the cats. I no longer buy canned, I have to cut it up into very small pieces or he won't eat it. I do the this is all your getting and nothing else. He is a changed cat. No more throwing up, poops are solid and don't stink. He doesn't chase us around the house like he is starving. I still feed kibble, I have not been brave enough to take it away as the other refuses to eat anything else. Possibly one day I will. But the canned food is what was causing all his problems, he still eats kibble and always gets one feeding of raw per day. This was a cat who would come wake us up at 4:30 a.m. because he was "starving". He no longer does this, seems happy and very content now.


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## Tamara

Try this website. It has some really good info on switching cats (even picky ones) to raw

Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition :: healthy cat diet, making cat food, litter box, cat food, cat nutrition, cat urinary tract health


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## monkeys23

Would I be setting us up to fail if I skipped the wet food step of transition?

My cat only eats kibble, she will refuse even tuna. A lot of the raw transitioning info says to use stinky canned food to transition them and sneak in raw, but she doesn't like canned at all...

This is theoretical, it'll be a while before I'm able to transition her. But I will probably transition using Rad Cat or Primal and some whole boneless chunks here and there because she is missing a lot of teeth.


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## mel2mdl

monkeys23 said:


> Would I be setting us up to fail if I skipped the wet food step of transition?
> 
> My cat only eats kibble, she will refuse even tuna. A lot of the raw transitioning info says to use stinky canned food to transition them and sneak in raw, but she doesn't like canned at all...


Honestly? If the cat won't eat canned, why do you think she will eat raw? My cat completely ignored the chunks of food I would put in with his kibble. Acted like he didn't know what to do with it. It was hard to transition him to canned - we had to mix feedings. Fed canned in the morning, kibble and canned mix at night, then slowly increase the amount of canned until no more kibble. Also, we switched to a high quality kibble - grain free, etc - before trying to go to a high quality canned. I won't feed my cat corn or wheat gluten. 

The difference of a cat on kibble to canned (if it is a good, high quality canned) can be as big as the difference between a dog on kibble and raw. My cat has lost weight, has a much less stinky litter box, has prettier fur and much cleaner teeth! And now, when I put chicken pieces or even Oscar's ground up meat in the food dish, the cat goes crazy. (And my canned food isn't stinky - smells less than the kibble, actually!)


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## Scarlett_O'

monkeys23 said:


> Would I be setting us up to fail if I skipped the wet food step of transition?
> 
> My cat only eats kibble, she will refuse even tuna. A lot of the raw transitioning info says to use stinky canned food to transition them and sneak in raw, but she doesn't like canned at all...
> 
> This is theoretical, it'll be a while before I'm able to transition her. But I will probably transition using Rad Cat or Primal and some whole boneless chunks here and there because she is missing a lot of teeth.


I didnt use the canned step with either of the cats that we have swapped over! They both took to it quite well, even my and my Mum's ubber picky one! We didnt feed either of them their morning foods....and allowed them to watch the dogs eat(As they both do normally,) then mixed largely diced(2-4")chicken in their bowls with some canned tuna(and the water) and let them have it at their normal spot for 30min(or however long they stayed.) After the 30min, or when ever they walked away, it was put up for a couple hours and then offered again. I didnt plan on allowing them to go any longer then 24 hours without eating the raw....but both started eating within 12!:happy: But I wasnt about to play into their spoiled side by mixing it with kibble, it was either raw or nothing for those, at max, 24 hours!:smile:


Oh and Boots is a NO CANNED kind of guy...and he LOVES his raw food!:biggrin1: :thumb:


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## monkeys23

Well she might, she used to be a barn cat. She'd know what to do with whole prey. 

She's on Wellness Core kibble and is perfect weight/health/coat, so thats not an issue at all. Only issue is nasty teeth from commercial cat food. Next dental I can afford they are probably all going buh-bye, at leash that is what my vet said. She actually drinks a ton of water for a cat, so I'm really not all that worried about water consumption either. She just did not like the stinky canned crap when my old crazy roomie that I lived with when I first brought her home tried to give her it (and recalled cat treats.... thank goodness she didn't like those either! That girl was a nut).


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