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If yous've read The Conscious Cat for whatsoever length of time, you know that cats should be eating a species-appropriate nutrition of raw, grain-free canned or properly balanced home-prepared food. Cats should never eat dry food, and the money yous invest in high-quality, premium food volition outcome in improve health and lower vet bills for your feline family members. I'm always delighted when I hear from readers who take switched their cats from a low quality and/or dry out diet to a healthier nutrition because of something they've read here on my site.

Sometimes, switching a kitty off the human equivalent of junk nutrient can be challenging. Understanding why cats are finicky, and knowing how to safely brand the switch to a healthier nutrition, or encouraging fussy cats to eat, is an important step toward ameliorate health for your cats.

What Makes Cats Finicky?

Rule out medical issues. Loss of appetite, specially when it comes on suddenly, tin be an indicator of a serious medical problem. When a previously healthy cats stops eating for more than 24-48 hours, this is crusade for business concern, and requires a veterinary visit. Cats can develop a status chosen hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver affliction, which can be life-threatening if not treated promptly.

Finicky eaters are made, not born. Kittens who are fed a diversity of foods subsequently being weaned from their mother develop varied tastes. Those fed the same food all the time often refuse unfamiliar foods later in life. In add-on to ensuring optimal nutrition and decreasing the risk of developing food allergies, feeding a rotation diet volition betrayal cats to dissimilar proteins, textures and flavors, which makes them less likely to become finicky and end eating. Additionally, if your cat eats one brand exclusively, and that brand changes its formula, or is recalled, yous'll find yourself without a ready alternative you know your cat volition swallow.

Exercise you have the right nutrient bowls? Cats don't similar narrow or deep bowls. They don't like it when their sensitive whiskers touch the side of the bowls. Plastic nutrient bowls can requite off smells that are offensive to sensitive feline noses, and they can also crusade chin rashes in sensitive cats.

Cleanliness. Make sure your nutrient bowls are kept scrupulously clean, simply don't use detergents with a stiff scent to wash bowls and the area around the bowls.

Don't mix medication into a full meal. While giving medications with nutrient can piece of work well, don't mix it in with the cat's regular nutrient. Most medications alter the flavour of food, and even though your cat may eat the food with the medication mixed in the first few times, you may be inadvertently creating a nutrient aversion. If you must apply food to give medication, use a small amount of a different nutrient, and and then feed the true cat's regular meal.

Hard core dry food addicts. One reason why it can exist and then challenging to get a cat to accept healthier food is in part due to what pet nutrient manufacturers do to make these dry food so enticing to cats. Every bit function of the production process, the broiled or extruded kibble is sprayed with animal digest (and aye, it'southward pretty much as icky as it sounds: digest is material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolisis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue.) Cats love the taste of these digests; for some cats, it'south like kitty crack and really causes them to be addicted. Some cats too honey the texture of dry food and may resist the drastic change in texture from dry to grain-gratuitous canned or raw food.

How to Tempt Finicky Eaters

Go boring, and be patient. The key is to transition these difficult-cadre dry out nutrient addicts is to become dull, and be patient. And you may need a few tricks upwardly your sleeve. For some cats, it may take several months. I've heard of 1 cat whose homo would put downwardly a pocket-sized amount of canned nutrient side by side to his dry out food every 24-hour interval for several weeks. He refused to touch it, so she wound up throwing information technology out each time. And then one solar day, several weeks into the transition, he gobbled up the raw food and never touched his dry food again!

Stop free choice feeding. If your true cat is eating only dry food, and you leave food out at all times, stop this exercise immediately. This step is critical. Feed twice a day, at set meal times, and take up what the true cat doesn't eat within near one-half an hour. She gets no other food until the next meal time. Your cat volition not try annihilation new if you lot keep his bowl filled with the sometime, familiar food 24/7.

Be prepared that your cat will brand you experience like you're letting him starve. This phase of the procedure tin be much harder on the human than information technology is on the cat. Persistence is key. A little hunger at meal times can be a powerful motivator to get a true cat to have the new nutrient.

Gradually increase the amount of the new food,and decrease the corporeality of the old food, until you're only feeding the new food.

Add together some incentives to tempt finicky eaters.

  • Sprinkle freeze dried chicken or salmon on top.
  • Drizzle a little bit of tuna or clam juice drizzled over the nutrient
  • Add together small pieces of cooked cooked meat
  • Spread a spoonful of meat-based baby food (make sure it doesn't comprise onion powder) on top of the meal
  • Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the food (yes, the stuff in the greenish can)
  • Sprinkle nutritional yeast over the food
  • As a last resort, beat a small amount of kibble over the food

Minimize intestinal upset. Nearly people recommend to transition to a new food gradually, past reducing the corporeality of the onetime nutrient and increasing the amount of the new nutrient over a number of days to avoid upset breadbasket and soft stools. I've found that when transitioning to grain-free food, this is usually not an effect, simply it's always best to err on the side of caution.

I practise recommend adding a good probiotic every day. I actually recommend this not just during the transition period, merely as a lifelong immune system booster. Probiotics come up in unflavored powders and can be mixed in with the food. I use Dr. Goodpet'southward Feline Digestive Enzymes, a mix of enzymes and probiotics.

Dealing with a finicky true cat tin can be frustrating, and it tin can take time and patience, only these tips should go a long mode toward getting your kitty eating healthier food.

Photo: istockphoto