Help! Anyone else have to deal with cats with very different eating patterns?

[Beaverhausen]

I have two rescue cats- a mom and son (we think)

I've had them 3 years. The son = Thor -is now a bit chonky but he is a really big cat.

His mom - Gigi - is a bit over 9 lbs and is a tentative eater.

I usually just put all the food (dry and wet twice a day) all day long.

I had been feeding them Natural Balance wet food (kept my cats healthy in the past) but these two don't really like it.


Gigi is a tentative eater and recently has some potential health issues.

I changed to Fancy Feast just to get her to eat. She eats a little and walks away. If i stir up what is left over she will walk back to it and eat some more, but just a little. We do this all day long. (on the days I'm working from home)

Thor is a gobbler. He also can get aggressive with her sometimes. Which is why I won't just lock him away while I try to feed her. He will get mad.

Any tips on how I can handle these two eating types?

also, can anyone recommend something that is really moist and healthier than Fancy Feast that they know cats really like?

thanks in advance!

[Siwsan]

1. I have never had luck with my cats liking the higher end food - especially grain free

They even turned their noses up at Blue Buffalo. They like Friskies. Sophie loved Sheba. She ate that, towards the end of her life, when she wouldn't eat anything else.

As for the gobbling, try putting the food on a flat plate, kind of spread out. It takes them longer to eat. I had to do that with Madoc because he was inhaling his food and then bullying his brothers out of theirs. I've tried mixing pate in with the meat/gravy food and that's actually their favorite.

Arthur doesn't like kitten food (he's 5 months old) so I mix some in 'big boy' food for him. I've started buying 'complete nutrition' kibble and it's usually available to them when ever they want a nosh.

[Tetrachloride]

2. Ring a bell before every feeding.

Pavlov’s cats.

Possibly a timer
on
your phone, followed by Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

[Walleye]

5. I give mine the premium fancy feast in the green cans sometimes they seem to like that

[I_UndergroundPanther]

3. Othello eats fancy feast medleys its not a bad cat food

Bad cat food would be the cat food they sell at the dollar store.

Purina one is the dry food Othello eats. All my cats past have eaten this regimen and have been healthy long lived cats without serious health issues.

The only cat that I had that had health issues was Fricka. I stole her away from an abusive home she had human bite mark scars on her precious ears. Because she was beaten she had damaged kidneys from those monsters that had her before I took her away from them. She had to eat a prescribed diet. And I treated her like the royal most beautiful queen she was.

I suggest using a slow feeder on the gobbler and feeding the tenative cat up on a counter that gobbler cannot get to. Keep her food up there. I had a gobbler,Bear and he had a slow feeder and Sparkle ate up on the counter. Bear was a ground cat and Sparkle was a tree cat.

This is a slow feeder

[getagrip_already]

4. There is a dish that will only open for the cat it is synched with....

We have two litter mates. One is a normal eater, but the other will eat until he bursts. He was getting overweight while his brother was getting thin.

But these dishes saved the day. We can control the piggies diet at a different rate than his brother - and he can't steal the other cats food.

The device works with the chip in the cats neck (if you have one) or you can put a tag on his collar.

[Phoenix61]

6. Feed them in separate rooms that way he won't get mad

and she won’t be worried about him attacking her. Canned tuna in oil always worked to get mine eating. Another trick is to give the slow eater a bowl of dry food and toss a handful of dry food onto the floor for the other one. It will take him longer to eat each piece.

[Genki Hikari]

10. Please don't feed your cats real tuna

The mercury content is toxic for them, and will cause health problems. It's not great for us, either, but it's really bad for them. Plus, most canned tuna has sodium levels far too high for them.

I used to feed mine "our" tuna, until my vet told me to stop. My cat at the time was horking on a nearly daily basis for at least 3 or 4 days after consuming it. It does other kinds of damage, too, but the daily horking was the one causing the most concern with my cat.

[Phoenix61]

12. Seriously? The mercury content is the issue?

If you have a cat that’s not eating starvation is the issue. If a little canned tuna in oil on top of its food gets it to eat that’s a win. Right?

[iscooterliberally]

7. I know when I've had finicky eaters or cats that were underweight I used Royal Canin Baby Cat food.

It's a very rich pate that comes in small cans. Most cats can't resist it. For dry food, I use Purina Naturals. It comes in an olive green colored bag. I haven't run across a cat yet that doesn't like it. If you can't find Royal Canin, I would just go for whatever kitten pate that you can find in your area. I would still feed the cats at the same time, but give them separate areas. Good luck!

[Tetrachloride]

8. Beneful has had a bad reputation. I believe they

are in the Purina group. Just saying.

[Karadeniz]

9. I have had food issues in the past. I put different groups in different rooms. Now I just have two

who need special treatment. They're feed differently, so each has its own wire cage with water and banyo, so they can eat at their own speeds. Google or ask your vet about an appetite stimulant. Also, you can order a 1# bag of nutritional yeast and that should get the less interested one diving in!!!

[Genki Hikari]

11. I've never had cats who acted that way

I'd feed them separately, if you have a way to do that.

Cats are always weird about eating. My former cat loved canned food, but she'd "get tired" of various flavors, so we had to change them up all the time.

The current one has no use for wet food. The day I got her from the shelter, I bought her some of the good stuff, different brands and flavors, but she walked away from it, every time. Total waste of money.

I ended up donating the excess food to the shelter where I got her.