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Thank you everyone for great thoughts, ideas, and suggestions! So so so appreciated!
Garethe - I'm chuckling! I'm a stubborn routine person. I feed my cats between 3 and 4 times a day -- more or less at 8 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., 10 p.m. The schedule goes back to 2009 when I learned a great deal about nutrition and feline diabetes, and I had to feed smaller and more frequent meals to an elderly diabetic kitty. So, all of them went on the same schedule and seemed to like it and thrived. With these now-turned-finicky eaters, if they haven't finished breakfast when noon comes around, I leave it. And I'd leave it past suppertime if they still hadn't eaten except 1) the food develops a disgusting crunchy dried up "skin", and 2) they need the fuel so that their bodies don't start "feeding" on body fats. Hunger might win over eventually - cats are known to eat weird stuff in desperation - but I rather not let that happen.
leanansidhex - I hadn't thought about lots perhaps being different. That could be a possibility since other Fancy Feast feeders are not experiencing the same thing (but let me know, moved and Pikantari, if your kitties change their minds!). I just happened to watch a show the other night about Genetically Modified Organisms, and with one manufacturer of corn chips, with GMO-free on the label, it was discovered that the corn used was GMO after all which the manufacturer did not know. Somehow a batch of GMO corn had made its way in. (Cynical me, of course somebody along the way from farm field to manufacturing sent the corn hoping no one would notice :-) So, I'm wondering if maybe a supplier of a standard ingredient that FF uses, or the supplier itself, was a little different in the lot I bought. But I don't know -- some of the cans I have were purchased at a pet supermarket and the others at a grocery store.
JrzDefector -- um, interesting idea about one cat's behavior changing and the others being copycats. Two eat together in the pantry, and the third, Giselle, has her "dining room" in an upstairs bathroom. She's my overly sensitive kitty, so even though she eats separately, I have no idea what the other two may be telling her.
subject2change - thanks for listing some different brands that have the pate. Pates generally do not have the wheat glutens in them which is what I avoid. I also try to avoid the brewers rice and veggies and grains. None of these things are digestible, and although kitties can do fine with these things, one of my cats is very old, so I try not to tax his system. But if they don't start eating better, my older guy especially might start losing weight which he can't afford to do. Threestep - maybe I'll give the FF Medleys a try.
dbabyatskiy - just checked a variety of the cans and none are even close to expiration date, but I did notice many came from different manufacturing plants.
I think Fancy Feast is off the hook as the culprit. It has to be something else. And like a typical dumb human, I haven't paid enough attention to their world to see what caused the change.
I have no idea why all the cats stopped eating Fancy Feast. I tried Friskies pate and they ate that for about a day or two then quit. I turned to Sheba pate and they ate that and still do to a degree, but it gives all of them diarrhea (for whatever reason). So, I tried Fancy Feast again, and now they're all eating it.
This has been going on for about a month now. It's just plain weird why they all stop and start at the same time with all the different foods even though there are two feeding areas not close to each other. So, it can't be the food necessarily. But for the life of me I cannot see what could possibly be going on in or around the house that's different. And it's not because of George, the kitten who came back this past weekend, since the food mutiny was happening prior to his arrival.
The only thing "different" is that I'm in school and very frustrated with it. Could it be that simple that all the cats are picking up on that in such a way that it's disturbing their appetites? My frustration is not expressed with lots of ranting and raving and stomping around - it's a quiet frustration, so it's not new noises or physical activities that bother the cats - could it be that they're feeling my pain, too? Why I'm actually leaning toward this phenomenon is because what correlates to their eating Fancy Feast again is that I just created a "bright spot" in life, a diversion from school, by signing up to volunteer at the Halloween events at our local zoo. So, I have something fun to think about - still frustrated with school, but I have something to look forward to.
My cats have eaten Friskies canned food for many years, and a couple of years ago I transitioned them to Fancy Feast (classics & grilled chunky style). With either brand they were always unpredictable about what they would like on any given day. One flavor would be a hit for a day or 2, then turned down the next. We always chalked it up to the cats' natural pickiness, and got in the habit of never giving the same flavor twice in a row... which seemed to help. I'm still feeding that way today.
But I don't think it's all necessarily all the cats fault. There is bound to be variations in the food itself. You are certainly going to have variations in the manufacturing process... raw ingredients/recipes/quality control/etc., and these could vary from plant to plant as well. The food is not going to be 100% the same every time, and the cats pick up on this with their noses.
I can say that I've had much more consistent eating with the Fancy Feast than with the Friskies. That's actually why I switched to it. They got to the point that they wouldn't eat any of the Friskies flavors, even their favorites ones.
At least one stress I don't have is that by all the "experimenting" they have been eating something, so none have been losing weight. I guess it's more the frustration of not knowing what they prefer at any given meal ... my take on this is that the cats decided I was too routine and bored and they wanted to shake things up a bit :-)
At least one stress I don't have is that by all the "experimenting" they have been eating something, so none have been losing weight. I guess it's more the frustration of not knowing what they prefer at any given meal ... my take on this is that the cats decided I was too routine and bored and they wanted to shake things up a bit :-)
A few years back (had 7 cats at the time) I thought it would be helpful...shopping-wise... to make up a chart showing what brand & flavor each cat liked on each day of the week. I very quickly realized that my lack of expertise in advanced calculus made this task impossible. So I continued with the old tried & true method of buying every flavor available on the store shelf, keeping multiples of each on hand. Then at feeding time I just keep opening cans till I find the right one. May be wasteful, but it's effect and much less of a mental strain.
I have, currently 12 different types of canned food, lined up in a strict rotation so that no one gets bored. It's the only thing in the house that is that organized.
I have, currently 12 different types of canned food, lined up in a strict rotation so that no one gets bored. It's the only thing in the house that is that organized.
Chuckling!!! I get laughed at because I am the same. Stacks of cans neatly stored by type and flavor ... but then take one look at my desk and it's hard to believe that it's the same person who stacks cans who can't keep a desk with neat piles of papers. But I blame that on the cats - lame excuse to say "oh, the cats just jumped up on my desk and messed up my piles."
Chuckling!!! I get laughed at because I am the same.Stacks of cans neatly stored by type and flavor ... but then take one look at my desk and it's hard to believe that it's the same person who stacks cans who can't keep a desk with neat piles of papers. But I blame that on the cats - lame excuse to say "oh, the cats just jumped up on my desk and messed up my piles."
Doesn't everyone do that?
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Update
May be wasteful, but it's effect and much less of a mental strain.
