Advice please: my kitten won't eat wet food

Dimey

inkie wrote: »

Take the advice of the vet. Cats can be perfectly fine on a sole dried diet. Our cat has dried food due to dental problems, to reduce tartar build up. Keep trying him/her with bits of other food periodically, you never know....

And good on you for taking this kitten on

Oh yes of course take the advice of the vet.
I didn't realise cats could be fine on a sole dried food diet. Sorry I got it wrong.

penguingirl

My cat has an amazing appetite and is very greedy, but he won't eat wet food either! He seems happy enough scoffing his dry food, and obviously always has fresh water out. I wouldn't worry about it.

his_missus

RAzWaz, we took him to the vet to check out his age as we thought he was actually only 6wks as he was small. He has started drinking more milk this week, maybe due to warmer weather.

LutonGirl, that is him in my profile pic. It was actually dad's dog that sniffed him out in the long grass. I already have 4 cats so another mouth to feed is no great expense really.

Dimey, I was worried that kibble may not be a well balanced diet too. I may look into buying a more expensive brand with a better balance if he doesn't take to wet food. I know a lot of forum users rate Applaws food quite highly.

Pechow

Will he eat his dry food if you sprinkle it with some water, or gravy? If he does, you could add a little bit more over time and gradually make it softer, like wet food.

Silver-Cat

I have just dicovered that my funny little Chobits who is now 4 yrs old does not like getting his nose wet and this is why he won't eat much of his wet food.

He is now noticeably a lot thinner and I hadn't realised he hadnt been eating properly for the last few years :-(
I cried a bit last night when I finally realised how thin he had become and what was causing it as he is my baby.

I have started putting his food on a flat plate so he doesn't get his nose wet and have introduced some dry food to soak it up a bit.

He also won't drink water from a bowl but happily drinks from a tap or fountain.

his_missus

pechow, I have tried that but he didn't seem too impressed.

Silver-cat, I have tried a plate when I've given him meat or tuna but not catmeat. I may give it a go. Hope Chobits starts putting on weight now x

Silver-Cat

Hope it is working for you!
The food on the flat plate is definately working for my Chobits and he is eating properly over the last few days despite the heatwave. I am adding a few biscuits each time but not many and this seems to be helping as well.

I tend to give him food at 7am and then again at about 7pm so the temperature is a bit cooler too. Little tips that have worked for me.

Funnily enough my other cat Buxton is now eating his food and not pinching Chobits food as there is none left for him to pinch anymore! He also is rather pleased at the introduction of biscuits :-)

iammumtoone

What do you want/need him to eat wet food?

As far as I am aware there is no reason why a cat needs to eat wet food (just make sure they have water available at all times). What your vet advised seems to back this up.

All my cats have only ever had dry food (go-cat) it is cheaper and better for their teeth. The only time they ever get wet is when I need to hide a worming tablet in it.

his_missus

Harley's still eating biscuits only. I haven't worked out when he prefers to eat either. The others all want to eat when we do but he likes to be different. Oh well! I'm not worrying about it yet. If he doesn't seem to have put weight on in a couple of months, I'll take him to the vets.

springer211

As I've just posted this on another thread (in a slightly different context).

In terms of good quality dry food, if that's what you give them, the best I found were orijen (very expensive) and applaws.
I personally give mainly wet food, although dry has some benefits, cost, convenience, and a necessity when we are away for 1-2 days as we use an automatic feeder.
However I would not be happy with feeding just dry or mainly dry. When it's very hot like now, I would worry that my cat wouldn't get enough liquid and could get de-hydrated.
However it's about personal choice, I've not seen any definite evidence that good quality dry food is likely to cause serious damage to your cat, or the other way round that it has some fantastic benefits.
However I would never feed poor quality biscuits like Go-cat, whiskas, Iams. They have too little meat and too much grains (and also soya that is likely to come from GM crops) for my likings.

But as I say it's about personal choice.