How I got my cats eating a new food they didn't want to eat ....in less than 24 hours

Fridaycat

Background: For those who don't know, I have five cats: 3 rescue moggies of various ages and two Bengal kittens (brother and sister) who are 21 weeks old.

I want to feed my cats the best food I can and I also want them to eat a reasonably similar diet (especially when the kittens are older) so that I am not faffing about with different meals for them all. In terms of a balanced feline diet and how that fits around our lifestyle, this translates into feeding dry in the morning, left out during the day, and wet in the evening.

The bengal naughties seem to eat anything at the moment, they are especially partial to daddy long legs and flies but seriously, seem to eat any cat food. They are eating the same wet food as the others in the evening (typically Grau) and RC kitten through the day.

The problem came with my adult moggies. They are typical cats in that they have their own weird ways: they will not eat the cheap dry food such as Whiskas or Go Cat, but nor will they eat expensive stuff such as Applaws either! But put something mid-range down, like Royal Cannin or JWB, and they will generally eat these without issue.

However, I want the cats to have a grain free, high meat content, dry food, and something like Orijen fits the bill. Problem was, my cats turned their noses up at Applaws dry (similar to Orijen) when I tried that with them, so why should the Orijen be any different?

So here is what I did....

I was on my last bag of JWB, and thought I'd mix the Orijen in, in small doses, gradually increasing it, as per all the advice on this subject. The problem was that when I poured the Orijen into the food container with the JWB in, it came out much quicker than I was expecting and there was a much higher ratio of Orijen than I wanted :eek:

Oh well, I thought, I'll just give the cats this and they'll be OK. OK?? Of course not! They turned their noses up at it and looked at me in disgust!

So, what did I do? Each time one of the three adults came looking for their food bowl, I sat on the floor with them and fed them individual kibbles of the mixed food! Yes, one by one - first a JWB and then an Orijen kibble etc. I did this two or three times and then put the bowl in front of them with the food in, and yes! They ate it!

Now, they just go up to the bowl as normal and eat the mixed food as if they are wondering what all the fuss is about and why I am telling them they are good boys and girls just for eating their dinner :rotfl: I honestly can't see an issue when I come to give them the Orijen on its own as the concentration of Orijen is so high.

Took a bit of time and patience, but easy eh?

rita-rabbit

I suggested hand feeding a few years ago - they associate anything fed by hand as a treat! Problem of changing dried food solved

rising_from_the_ashes

Wish I'd thought of that!

Will give it a try if I ever need to change their dry again (but really hope not)

Wesker

I had a cat once who was addicted to Thomas cat treats, but he would only eat them from my hand, if i put a pile on the floor he just couldnt be @rsed. He was a big fat lazy b*gger
I say he would only eat them from my hand, i actually mean from my fingers, one by one, directly into his mouth. He would open his mouth and i would drop them in one at a time. Half the time he would swallow them whole, and the fish flavour ones are quite big :eek:
He had to have tablets once a week for an ongoing condition and luckily he would eat these from my fingers too. He saw it as his weekly treat although as he usually swallowed it whole he probably didnt taste it anyway
Unfortunately it didnt work with other tablets though