My Cat Is Oppositional - likes her wet food super cold (eating, canned food)

[lottamoxie]

For months I was making sure my cat's wet food would be the same temperature as a "dead mouse" so that she'd eat it. And she would take a bite or two and then leave most of the food on her plate and then refuse to eat the leftovers from the can, thereby wasting a lot of food.

I was so frustrated, so I finally started divvying up a can into 1 oz portions, wrapping each little portion in some saran wrap and placing them in a container in the freezer. I was tired of wasting food and figured if she would eat 1 oz defrosted, then maybe I could waste less food, plus each portion of food would be fresh.

Well lo and behold, she eats that food when it's barely thawed. I literally plop a frozen 1oz chunk onto her plate and when it's defrosted enough, she nibbles at it and actually finishes it! Hallelujah! She has even eaten the healthy no-grain wet food she rejected when it was served at room temperature. She gets some grain-free kibble as well because she refuses an all-wet diet.

Warm mouse temperature = no.

Opened wet food stored in refrigerator = no

Flash frozen wet food chunks, frozen immediately after opening a can and served 'frozen' = YES!

Let's file this one under, "go figure!"

[no kudzu]

clever idea. wish my cats would do that, I might try. They stick their noses up at anything other than freshly opened wet. And the good stuff is expensive.

[Dollydo]

Mine will only eat Friskies ocean white fish wet and fresh...plus Iams dry. She will eat nothing else. Talk about finicky eaters, cats take the prize!

[lottamoxie]

If she leaves any food on her plate and it's been sitting out for an hr or 2, I then take a spoon and scoop it to make one little lump and put the dish with the food on it in the freezer! Yep, uncovered. A few hrs later I'll plop the frozen dish with frozen leftover lump of food on the floor and see if she'll finish the food when it defrosts. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Overall I'm wasting much less wet food. And a 6 oz can of wet food nets 6 servings, which on average takes her 3 to 5 days to finish.

I had purchased and had shipped a case of Halo Chicken formula. Turned out she hated it when it was just opened, at room temp, and she didn't like it from the fridge either. I discovered she would eat it if I froze small portions.

At one point I had an open can of Wellness Core (she had rejected, fresh), an open can of Halo Chicken, and an open can of Trader Joe's Turkey, and it pained me that those opened cans might go to waste, so I decided to mix a little of each together and freeze the mixed 1oz portions. She ate those food chunks -- that was the first time I tried it and I was so shocked.

[greg42]

Well, to me, it's not that unusual. Mine likes her food room temp or colder. And her favorite treat is a frozen one. Used to be a specially made frozen treat, but I can't find those anymore. Just as well, as I wasn't much sure of those ingredients. Now I freeze Cat Sip milk in an ice cube tray, thus making 18 or 20 little treats, and that is the treat she is most absolutely gaga for.

As far as canned food, she'll eat it at room temp or even cold out of the fridge. I haven't gotten to the point of putting unopened cans in the fridge because that doesn't seem to be necessary, but I did fairly quickly figure out about a year or so ago that warming in the microwave was counterproductive.

I never tried freezing the canned food; maybe I should try that with something she wouldn't normally eat and see what happens. Given her major interest in the frozen milk treats it could be interesting.

In a quirk of terminology, another new favorite thing is freeze DRIED stuff. I got some nifty freeze dried raw treats made from pheasant that she turned out to really love, as well as a freeze-dried raw food that if I remember is actually mostly chicken (which, if it's in wet canned form, she generally won't eat unless mixed with something super tasty like tuna). The food (Wysong Archetype) is made so it can be eaten dry or rehydrated, but of course she likes it dry. (Another variety that is expressly made to be rehydrated did not go over well at all.)

Not that this means anything for cats, but at the pet supply store where I first learned about Primal frozen raw nuggets, the owner had a dog there who loved the Primal nuggets right out of the freezer. Heh. So I don't think cold/frozen food being appealing is unheard of at all. I think just most of us don't test it out unless we have problems with the more expected reactions to heating the food.