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Question for those of you that feed your felines raw, cooked or a mix. We've recently started adding tuna, salmon, and or chicken - all cooked- to our cats wet food diet. We tried raw feeding for awhile but no body was interested and that includes my husband.
Anyway, Of course all the cats climb about when we have tuna or salmon (or the occasional crab meat treat) for dinner. They act like they haven't been fed for weeks. But when we feed them the chicken they nibble, sometimes they eat it, but mostly nobody wants it.
I've tried putting the fish mixed with the chicken to intice them - that works mostly but sometimes they just pick out the fish I've even tried putting their usually canned food on top of the new plain chicken - last night that worked- today they discovered my trick.
I know the cat foods are loaded with things for "palatability" so does anyone have any suggestions of something to add to the chicken to make it more intriguing to them? We are warming it up so it smells better and it is shredded so it resembles the Weruva texture they are used to.
I'm just at a loss here. My goal, for now, is not to completely replace their cat food and make my own. But I'd like to supplement and get them eating some "real" food and bulk up the cat food to go a bit further. But I've got to get them eating it first
I wish I could help but have a similar problem. Over the months my cats, one by one, rejected the raw meats (including fish) mixed with their canned food. Now they're starting to reject the canned food, all brands tried, and are starving by the time they get their midnight snack of mixed better brand kibble cat food.
At one time all ate the canned/raw mix so I don't know why this "hunger strike" for the past 6 months or so. I'm tired of trying new brands, most pretty expensive when you have 3 cats, just to watch them take a few nibbles and walk away.
Only one, the one we got as a 6 wk old baby from the Shelter still eats canned food but will not eat raw meat anymore.
Just want to echo your findings, well, sort of. I haven't done any home cooking, although I did offer Amber some rather unadulterated cooked chicken a while back as I've been cooking some chicken for myself weekly now. She wasn't interested either. But I've seen the same pattern with her and the canned food: loves tuna/salmon, rather uninterested if it's only or mostly chicken. (With mostly tuna/salmon she'll eat some chicken and in some cases I've added canned pheasant for a while but recently adding the pheasant has made her eat a lot less so I've been leaving that out.)
So I am reasonably curious of the same thing, what might make home-cooked chicken interesting for her to eat. I haven't tried other meats as far as any home cooking yet.
What canned food do you give yours Greg42? So far we've been giving mine the Trader Joe's brand canned tuna and canned salmon and some times the canned crab meat. It's all got the lowest amount of sodium and I choose the packed in water varieties over oil or broth versions. The Starkist tuna has soy in it and way more sodium
I figure I may add a low sodium chicken broth to the chicken meat to try to add some flavor - I cooked a bag of frozen boneless skinless chicken thighs in my slow cooker for my first attempt.
I know they are naturally going to prefer the fish but they just can't have that all the time. And (to me anyway) that chicken I made had a pretty good aroma to it. No it didn't smell like the Weruva but I don't get it - I don't get what wasn't "yummy" about it.
2 years ago my Nemo a kibble head came down with FLUTD and I HAD to get him off kibble, it was the most difficult thing I've ever experienced with a cat ever.....
tried every single possible brand and flavor of canned food , he rejected them all...I mean this guy would barely sniff at the dish and walk away, he was starving. long story...his only savior was the fact that he did love to get table scraps, so it made me realize I had to try a homemade food for him..
started with some raw recipes..no luck, I was near giving up with him...than I found a site with some recipes for cooked diet of chicken or pork...it was my preference to try the pork mainly b/c I didn't want to deal with bones and grinding...I do compensate for lack of bones..
he loves his pork, did take awhile to really love it...but at least he was willing to try it at first feeding and we went from there, did alot of experimenting at first with texture, from ground to more chunky etc...that was over 2 years ago and we are still making out great ...I can copy out the recipe and cooking instructions if anyone is interested.
That's what kills me. My two boys will take stuff off of your plates - including chicken. But they won't eat it out of their own bowl. Granted what they are taking from me usually has a bit of season on it, but I'm not about to pepper, garlic and mayonnaise my cats food And I am CERTAIN that if I did put a bit of something in it then it would undoubtedly screw me because what one cat devours, another would still turn a nose up at.
I'm not so sure about feeding the pork. I know some people say it's fine and some people dislike it for a variety of reasons. I just tend to be on the wagon of staying away from it for feeding the cats. I don't eat much of it myself (just for the fact of I dislike it for taste). I would say there has to be a reason it's not in pet food - it's not an overly expensive meat source compared to others. So there must be something to the bacterial safety hazard of it.
I can copy out the recipe and cooking instructions if anyone is interested.
Yes, please do as I refuse to give in to my two kibble-heads and feed them nothing but kibble. None of them are keen on people food but I'm willing to give it a dry.
They used to eat cooked eggs and cottage cheese but no more....
I would say there has to be a reason it's not in pet food - it's not an overly expensive meat source compared to others. So there must be something to the bacterial safety hazard of it.
It's not in pet food because there is almost no waste on a hog carcass. What could possibly be left by the end of the slaughterhouse line? They use the scraps for things like sausage, cold cuts like Souse, Baloney, Head Cheese, Polish blood sausage, the intestines for stuffing etc. The bones are ground for feed or fertalizer. Like one farmer (hog farmer from M'boro) I knew said, "There's nothing left of the pig but the squeal."
I wonder what they do with the lungs, kidneys and heart? I never saw those sold in any store. Perhaps they too are ground up in the cold cuts.
What canned food do you give yours Greg42? So far we've been giving mine the Trader Joe's brand canned tuna and canned salmon and some times the canned crab meat. It's all got the lowest amount of sodium and I choose the packed in water varieties over oil or broth versions. The Starkist tuna has soy in it and way more sodium
Amber is all about the texture of the canned food so for her daily canned meal she is eating Tiki Cat tuna/chicken mixed with some straight wild salmon from same company. There was some canned pheasant from Evanger's in there but she had been eating less and on a hunch I removed that and she would readily eat the entire portion without it. So for the moment that's not in there. Her other daily meal is dry food. She'd just as soon eat all dry food really, I think (although I think she does get the routine of canned one time of day and dry the other, so maybe she would miss it), but the fish is enough to entice eating the canned. Tradeoff that I'm still not really sure about. But add too much more chicken, even the same Tiki or Weruva chicken, will make her far less interested in eating that bowl even with the tuna and salmon in it.
It's not in pet food because there is almost no waste on a hog carcass. What could possibly be left by the end of the slaughterhouse line? They use the scraps for things like sausage, cold cuts like Souse, Baloney, Head Cheese, Polish blood sausage, the intestines for stuffing etc. The bones are ground for feed or fertalizer. Like one farmer (hog farmer from M'boro) I knew said, "There's nothing left of the pig but the squeal."
I wonder what they do with the lungs, kidneys and heart? I never saw those sold in any store. Perhaps they too are ground up in the cold cuts.
Now there is a pleasant thought - you have just reaffirmed why I do not eat pork. Yuck.
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I've even tried putting their usually canned food on top of the new plain chicken - last night that worked- today they discovered my trick.
