Cat won't consistently eat wet food

Hey everyone. I've been following these forums for the last couple of months after my kitty (Kitsu) was diagnosed as diabetic in early February of 2018. I've gotten to the point where I feel as though searching other people's issues and resolutions is no longer helping me with the problem I'm having, so I thought I'd post for help.

Bear with me, as this post is going to be a bit long, but I feel as though I should share a bit of backstory on what's going on with Kitsu that may provide some insight as to what her issue might be.

Backstory: Kitsu is almost 15 years old (she turns 15 in July). She is a nearly 12-pound ball of fluff! I raised her from kitten to about 4 years old, then I went to college and lived in the dorms, which didn't allow pets. She became my dad's cat after that. After I graduated college and moved into my own place, Dad and I agreed that she would be better off with him. He lived in a very rural area and she was an outdoor cat. I didn't want to bring her to a city where she would either be cooped up inside or outside near dangerous high-speed roads. So he kept her.

Up until November of 2017, she lived with my dad and ate only Deli Cat dry food (I know, I know...). My dad, unfortunately, passed away very unexpectedly and Kitsu's care once again fell into my hands and she came to live with me and be an indoor-only cat. The first thing I did was I switched her food to Natural Balance green pea and chicken dry cat food. This was at the end of November. Because she's a bit old, I took her in for a preventative blood test at the beginning of December 2017 and she came back fine on pretty much everything except blood glucose, which was a little high (137), but not bad considering she was stressed out because of the vet. No biggie.

Towards the end of January 2018, I noticed she was drinking an insane amount of water and urinating frequently. I took her to the vet in early February and her BG reading on the vet's glucometer was 550. The vet tested again to be sure it was correct and it came back again around that same number. They went ahead and took a blood sample to run at the lab to be sure it was correct, but basically I was called back in a few days later to be shown how to give her insulin (Vetsulin) injections, because the lab results came back at around 350 BG and she was officially diagnosed. This was February 12, 2018.

Now, here's what I'm actually posting about...

Since her diagnosis, I have put her on wet food at the advice of pretty much everyone in this forum. The problem? She's addicted to dry food, like many cats on this forum, too. I've followed many different posts here and tried so many things, but I'm having a lot of difficulty getting her to eat consistently.

Here are the foods I have tried so far:

Friskies Pate (all flavors), Fancy Feast Classic Pate (all flavors), Blue Buffalo Wilderness Pate (chicken, salmon, duck, turkey), Nulo MedalSeries Pate (chicken & herring, trout & salmon, turkey & chicken, beef & lamb), and Iams Purrfect Delights (Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner).

Most of the time, when I put her food in the bowl, she will lick the juices up and leave the rest behind. About 5-10% of the time, she will actually bite into the food instead of just licking it. Her favorite of the foods used to be FF Classic ocean whitefish and tuna, but now she will NOT touch it, even just to lick the juices out of it. She hated all of the Nulos except for the beef and lamb. She hated all of the Blue Buffalo Wilderness ones except salmon. Her current favorite is Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner, but even now she has stopped eating it, too.

What I've tried so far with the foods and her reactions to each:

Warming the food up - no interest at all.
Chilling the food in the fridge - no interest at all.
Sprinkling parmesan cheese on top of the food - licks the top of the food until the cheese sets in, then stops.
Mixing parmesan cheese into the food - no interest at all. Will not eat it again even if the cheese is sprinkled on top again.
Sprinkling bonito flakes on top of the food - licks the bonito flakes out of the food, then leaves the food alone.
Mixing bonito flakes into the food - eats a slight bit of the food, aiming for the bonito flakes, but then gives up after a small bite. Will not eat it again if fresh bonito is re-applied to the food.
Adding a little water to the food - 70% of the time, this will get her to lick at the food again, but not eat it. Licks it until the moisture is gone.
Adding a fair amount of water to the food - no interest when it's watered down.
Pureeing the food with a fair amount of water - licks up a little of it, then loses interest quickly.
Changing the food bowl width to avoid 'whisker fatigue' - no change.
Moving the food bowl in case her current location feels 'unsafe' for her - no change.
Changing the material of the food bowl (from plastic to fine china) - no change.
Elevating the food bowl slightly, so she doesn't have to squat down to eat - no change.
Applying food to a clean tile surface, to avoid any issues a bowl might have - no change.
Using a plate instead of a bowl - no change.
Mixing a few pieces of dry food into the wet food - she will dig at the dry food pieces, but once they become submerged into the wet food, she gives up and leaves.
Crumbling a bit of dry food on top of the wet food - she will eat a small bite, then leave.
Putting freeze-dried salmon treats in her food - she will eat the treats out, but if they get mixed in or submerged into the wet food, she will lose interest.
"Waiting it out" by refusing to change her food/give her a new helping of food for up to 14 hours - she will not budge and just lays next to her food bowl staring at me.
Mixing two types of wet food together - no interest.
Pretending to eat the food (she follows me around when I have my own food) so she gauges an interest - no fooling her, still not interested.
Cleaning her bowl before each helping - no interest.
Leaving remnants of old food before adding a new helping - no interest.
Talking to her while she eats - no interest.
Leaving her alone while she eats - no interest.
Petting her while she eats - no interest.
Sitting silently while she eats - no interest.
Spoon-feeding her - no interest.

I've tried so many things, I think that might be it, but I'll edit the list if I remember any others. The one thing that consistently seems to work (although not very well) is stirring her food up a little bit. 60% of the time, she will eat a little bit more once I've stirred it up, but other times she flat out refuses to eat it.

Another thing to note is that when she first got to my house, she had an issue with sneezing frequently. I'm thinking this pertains to some indoor allergies that neither of us knew she had, since she was an outdoor cat before. Then in March, she started getting really watery eyes and sneezed more, with clear discharge from her nose. I keep my place really clean, because I also suffer from allergies, so I just tried giving her some Zyrtec (cut a pill in half, 5mg once per day). This didn't seem to help the sneezing, but it did give her relief from watery eyes and... an appetite! She scarfed down her wet food (not excessively, but enough for her daily caloric intake) and I was so happy! I continued giving her Zyrtec for 2 weeks and she was doing great with eating, but then she plateaued and went back to barely touching her food. I tried Zyrtec for a few more days after that, but since there were no real results, I took her off of it.

About a week later, I called my vet and asked for an appetite stimulant. They gave me six 4mg tablets of Cyproheptadine and told me to give her 2mg twice a day. Day one was a success similar to Zyrtec - she scarfed her food down and was a happy camper. Day two is when she no longer had interest in her food again. I continued to give her the tablets every 12 hours for the 6 days and it didn't seem to help, so now she's on no medications. But the plus side is, she hasn't been sneezing as much. I wondered if maybe her appetite was suppressed because she wasn't able to smell from all the sneezing, but I can tell she is able to smell because her little nose wrinkles up and down whenever I have food nearby (whether it's my food or hers).

I'm creating this post now because I left out her current favorite food (Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner) the last 3 days and she progressively eats less and less each day. Today she didn't even touch the food between 8am - 7pm. At 7pm, I threw the food out, washed her dish, and gave her FF classic ocean whitefish and tuna. She eagerly ran over to it, sniffed it, and left. Not even so much as a lick.

What is going on with her? Why will she eat sometimes and most other times go on hunger strike? How can I get her to consistently eat? Even when I find a food she likes, if she eats it more than 3 times, she starts to hate it. Even as I type this, she stares at me waiting for me to feed her something else. And it doesn't matter if I rotate the food around to give her 'variety', because as soon as I give her something she's had before, she instantly turns her nose up and walks off. And I know if I give her dry food, she'll gobble it up in no time. I know that if I give her some boiled chicken, she will eat it with no complaint. To me, this indicates that she is not nauseated, because she's willing to eat other things. In fact, one day I couldn't get her to eat ANY wet food at all and rather than give her dry, I boiled some chicken, shredded it, and gave it to her. She ate it up in an instant. The same situation happened one day last week and I didn't have any meat to give her, so I had to cave in and give her dry food, which made her drink and urinate three times more than she usually does.

I just need help getting her to eat the wet food. The only suggestion I haven't taken from this forum is to use Forti-Flora on her food, because I'm worried that I'll spend the $30 on it and she won't touch it. I've sunken so much money into different foods for her and she just refuses to eat them, and she refuses to eat them even with cheese/bonito sprinkled on top, so why would Forti-Flora be any different?

Sorry for the super long post, just wanted to include as much detail as possible by giving a bit of backstory and explanations on foods and what I've tried to get her to eat them. Probably me venting a little, too, as this has taken a big toll on me for the last 2 (almost 3) months... I just want her to eat without all the coaxing I have to do each day. I literally spend an hour or two each day just trying to get her to eat (and yes, I've done days where I didn't spend any time just in case I was overwhelming her).

Thanks to anyone who can offer some suggestions for me.

 

While it's not the best thing (No dry is) but have you tried the low carb dry foods just to see if you can reduce your stress level a little?

Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein and Young Again Zero are both low carb (around 5%)....both companies will send samples if you call and ask.

They're pricey, but "nutrient dense" so cats don't seem to eat as much of it.

 

My favorite diabetic friendly dry is Young Again Zero... Specifically I feed young again zero mature limited ingredient. This can only be purchased online. Don't let the high price scare you.... The food is nutrient dense and high in calories so they eat much less of it then regular dry cat food. A serving size is about 1/3 cup per day. That's it. A 4lb bag lasted me 2 months with just one cat eating it IN ADDITION TO WET FOOD. If it's the only thing your cat is eating it a 4lb bag would probably Last 3-4 weeks. They will send you a free sample of the Young Again Zero carb if you ask for it. This food is about 1% carb. Www.youngagainpetfood.com

Another option is Wysong Epigen 90 at 5.3% carb. They send samples too, although sent me samples of about 10 varieties that weren't epigen 90. Lol. Tasty food all my cats eat and not crazy expensive. Again lasts longer than a grocery store brand. You can get the samples from their website or order the food from chewy.com.

Some feed dr. Elsley's Clean Protein chicken flavor. It's supposed to be around 4-5%. You can get it on chewy. Personally I prefer the other two but your cat will decide what is willing to eat. They also send out a few sample if you ask.

 

i have a cat that has decided to stop eating any dry and than decided to stop eating all wet canned food a couple weeks later. he lost quite a bit of weight and i had to try syringe feeding which wasn;t working out great since i wore more of it than he got into him! one day, which i don't see on your list, i gave him the turkey & pumpkin cat food i made straight out of the fridge and poof he started eating it and has been eating it that way ever since. i put a canned food in fridge that he wouldn't eat the other day and he ate 1/4 of it cold last night, guessing some cats just prefer certain foods chilly sometimes. perhaps try giving her chilled food??

also maybe your kitty is feeling nauseated for whatever reason and why she doesn't want to eat much at all. think i read before that canned foods can make some cats nauseated, maybe kitty has associated the two and why she won't eat much wet food?? you can feed her one of the low carb dry foods mentioned or if possible cook her up a simple homemade cat food with ground turkey & pure canned pumpkin plus a complete cat supplement like tcfeline. the mixture comes out between a fancy feast pate and chunky food, good on the tummy and it really does stops digestive issues well. 5lbs turkey, a 15oz can pumpkin and 1/4cp of supplement makes 29- 4oz servings and calories are about 110 per 4oz (not including supplement calories) when using 97% lean ground turkey. carbs are under 5% and cost is $14 for 29 servings, not including cat supplement which varies depending on brand you use.

 

Chris and Janet, thank you so much for introducing me to those foods! I had no idea they made dry foods that were that low in carbs. I've seen people recommend things like Orijen and Royal Canin, so I always thought those were the "best of the best", yet they were still too high in carbs in my opinion. I checked out these new foods you listed and decided to call Young Again's phone number and request a free sample. They are sending me two sample bags of the Zero Mature Health and since Kitsu is diabetic, they said they'd throw in a sample bag of their diabetic kitty treats as well. Super friendly customer service rep who took my call, too. I'm excited for her to try this food when it gets here! If, for some reason she doesn't like it, I'll look at Dr. Elsey and Wysong Epigen. I'm just going with Young Again because their carb content is lower than the other two, but will check into the other two if needed.

Sylvie, thanks for your insight! You are correct, I actually did not list that I tried giving her chilled food. I will edit the list to include it. I've tried chilling most of her foods. She just reacts to them the same way as usual - sniffs, maybe a lick, then leaves immediately after. I, too, thought that it might be nausea-related, so I talked to my vet about it. The vet seems to think that nausea would be more apparent with its symptoms, such as drooling, smacking her lips, and possibly dry-heaving. I haven't seen any of these symptoms yet. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a possibility, and it is something that comes up in thought every now and then. I've considered making her food as well, and it may have to come to this, but we will see how she does on the dry foods that were recommended. Again, thank you for your insight and explanations, every little bit of information helps, especially when it has worked with another cat!

-------------------------------

Just an update as well, since my original post: Kitsu is back to somewhat eating her Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner. The food says it's 88 calories per can and she typically only wants to eat 1.5-2 cans in a day, even though her body weight recommends that she needs between 3-4 cans. I'm watching her closely and keeping her fed with other things as needed.

Also, I took her to a new vet today after work, since I'm not too happy with my previous vet (continuously makes bad calls on treating Kitsu's diabetes). I took her in because she has been scratching at her ears/shaking her head more than usual lately, and I wanted to make sure there was no ear infection/ear mites. She came back clean on both (yay!), but it appears to be allergy-related, which may be seasonal or food. The vet and I are leaning more towards a food allergy. I'm wondering if the allergy is killing her appetite as well. Vet told me to put her back on Zyrtec and see if it clears up her ear scratching/head shaking. Obviously, if it's a food allergy, the best course of action would be to avoid whatever she's allergic to, but it will be difficult to determine with the process of elimination. I'll put her back on Zyrtec as the vet advises, then when her new food comes in, I'll see if she likes it and order a bag. Then we'll go from there and just hope that nothing in the dry food triggers this allergy, and then maybe I can take her off Zyrtec again. If she's still having issues, then I'll do some elimination testing. We've come a long way, but still such a journey to go!

Thanks again for your help so far, everyone!

 

Hi Jenna i went excatly through the same thing with my cat. She would lick the gravy or jelly, she was totally disgusted by the pate, hated when I added water to dry food, I tried pieces of chicken liver beef, nothing worked. I imagined you read Dr Lisa's posting on dry food. Hunger is a great incentive but starving your cat csn cause lipodosis of the liver (fatty liver). Lisa recommend periods no longer than 12hs with no food. I had tried may times before the diagnosis and gave up in frustration. But this time I was determined to succeed, I went through all brands and consistencies with now luck until I tried homemade pate. I just posted a thread about it. In the first batch I added her royal canin diabetic dry food (lisa recommended sprinkling for the smell but she hated that as well) but blending it in the home made pate worked. I have now removed it all together and she really loves it. I guess I got lucky but I was also very strict at picking up the bowl if she was not eating and waiting the 12hs which was a total nerve wrecking experience. But I am so relieved now, it is an awsome feeling of achievement- Do not give up. You have to outstubborn Kitsu. You can do it!
Ah, by the way my first attemps where very watery "pates" almost like a smoothie because I had noticed how she only liked the jelly from the pouches so I figured it was worth a try and that was the first succesfull step. Good luck and let us know how it is going, specially if you have to expres your frustration, we all understand

 

I have my 3 on Young Again Mature Zero, 1 is diabetic. Just wanted to warn you...it’ll seem like they aren’t eating they eat so much less of it. I also am not seeing much poop going on. I did catch Gretchen, the diabetic, at the dish of YA so I know they are eating- just a lot less. Took 3 cats about a month to go through an 8lb bag.

 

If you suspect a food allergy then if it turns out she likes the young again food, consider ordering the limited ingredient one. It has just one protien source. (Pork)

 

Introduce the YA food slowly. Our cats did not tolerate it at all. Gave my diabetic cat the runs for a week and my other cat was barfing all over the place (my husband said he felt like we were being pranked). We do better on Dr. Elseys, they'll send you a sample too. As for food, my cats have multiple personalities. They'll eat something for days, and then simply refuse it, pretty much right after I buy a flat from Chewy. Right now Fancy Feast is on their s-list, thankfully Friskies is on sale at Target so we're stocked up. My cats also will sometimes come back if I scrape the bowl into the middle and pile it up. My cats do well with the FortiFlora, so while ECID, here's one more vote. Plus I find it helps when their stomachs are upset.

 

Laly&Kitiara, thanks for sharing your experience with your kitty! Definitely sounds like a similar issue with Kitsu. Don't worry, I don't let her go very long without food, I know how quickly liver issues can set in if you let them go too long without it. Kitsu does eat at least 150-200 calories in a day, which is good, but her body needs closer to 220 - 260 a day, which is difficult because of her appetite issue. I do what I need to to get her the daily calories, be it giving her crappy dry food, or feeding her boiled chicken/canned chicken when she's being ultra stubborn. I will definitely look more into making my own pate for Kitsu if needed. It's good to know you and others have had such success with doing it for your kitties; it's very inspiring. <3 And thanks for understanding my need to vent, haha. Sometimes I just sit next to Kitsu and tell her how important it is that she eats enough, in hopes one day my blabbing human language will get through to her somehow. Haha.

Bobbi, thanks for sharing your experience with the YA food. It does look very calorie-dense, so I'll definitely keep an eye on how much she's eating, and won't panic too much if she's not eating a lot. As long as she gets close to 1/3 cup per day, that should be alright. The Zyrtec appetite stimulant might help her eat a bit more, too.

Janet, thanks for pointing that out, I might even buy that one as my first bag to see how well it works. I just hope it's something like chicken and not something like fish, which is in virtually every cat food in some shape or form, even the ones that aren't supposed to be fish-flavored.

PiePie, thanks for the warning! I'm actually going to introduce it a little quickly, because Kitsu's fecal consistency has changed over the last week or so, and I want to see if it was Iams causing it, or if she's actually having a separate medical issue. But I'm glad you shared your experience, so I know what to keep an eye out for. I do agree that scraping their food back into the center of the bowl helps a lot, as long as it's one she's actually enjoying. Once she refuses to eat it anymore, it doesn't really matter what I do with it, she just runs away when I show it to her. Haha. I may very well try the FortiFlora sometime, too. The way I see it is, anything Kitsu refuses will just end up going to the local humane society as a donation, so there is no true 'wasting' of anything that hasn't been opened. I do want to give my wallet a little break for a while, though, so I'll try the YA dry foods and check into Forti-Flora later when I try to get her back on wet food again.

---------------------------

Another update: So Kitsu's fecal color and consistency has changed over the last several days. I'm really hoping it's from diet and not a medical issue. Her stools are now black, every now and then there's one that's tarry, but not every single time. I read this can be from internal bleeding, but could also be from a food change. I initially wanted to "wait it out" to see if there were any improvements, but so far she continues to have black stool. The YA food samples came in today and I started her on it already, just so I can take her off Iams long enough to see if that's what's causing the discoloration, since it seems to have started when I put her on Iams. So here's to hoping it's just food and not an actual medical issue. She instantly took to the YA food, which isn't to say that she won't turn up her nose to it later, but I have a good feeling that she will continue to enjoy it. She loves the crunchy textures, unlike mushy pate. YA sent me two sample packs, which is enough to get through 2-3 days, depending on how much Kitsu feels like eating. I have a strong feeling that I'll be ordering her a bag of YA food very soon, just so she doesn't have to go too long between the samples running out and the new food arriving.

Thanks again, everyone, for your help so far! I'll post another update on her progress with the YA food once her samples are exhausted.

 

Hello, It was interesting reading all you have gone through. You have tried a lot of things. Actually Kitsu seems much better than my Ricky about wet food. If I present wet food to Ricky he will try to bury it. He wouldn't want to dig dry kibble out of wet food either. He wouldn't want bonita flakes or anything of the sort.

Can I ask on the days when Kitsu eats little or no wet food, do you then give her dry food so she doesn't starve? Why I ask is I find it stressful if my diabetic cat were eating nothing. I don't think I could stand to let him go a day without eating. The reason being it would then become hard to know what to do about the insulin. I would be afraid of a rollercoaster effect and too much change in BG.

Pam

 

When I switched Lucy to wysong Epigen 90 her poop turned black and tarry too. I was pretty worried at first. That's normal when switching to a high protein diet. She also poops a lot less when I eliminated the high carb food with all the grains. Denser calorie food, eats less, poops less.

I couldn't believe how much less she ate than her old food. I had to start measuring every day to find out how much she was eating because I couldn't see the empty bowl every day.

Good luck with your search for dry food. From one dry food addict to another.

 

Pam, I'm sorry to hear that Ricky is so finicky as well. These darn cats!

For the days Kitsu eats little wet food: I just continuously 'modify' the food when I notice she has lost interest after eating a little of it when it came out of the can. Whether this is stirring it up in her bowl so she becomes re-interested in it, or adding a topping (parmesan cheese/bonito flakes), or adding a little water to it, or pretending to give her a fresh can (she's pretty much wise to my tricks now). The good thing is, I know that she will be interested as soon as it comes out of the can, IF it's a food she likes. For example, Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner is her go-to food. I think she likes it more because it has flakes of meat and isn't pate-style. It also stinks more than her other foods, and cats seem to like stinky foods better sometimes. As soon as this food hits her bowl from the can, she's ready to eat and licks the moisture out of it, then comes back later to eat the flakes of meat. Some days she won't eat the flakes, other days she does, there's no real rhyme or reason. But I will continuously modify the food to get her to eat it. Sometimes this means going to her bowl 6-8 times in a day to make some sort of adjustment to it. Usually this is just stirring it up when it inevitably gets stuck along the side of the bowl. Worst case scenario when she refuses to eat anymore because it's not 'fresh', I dump the bowl, wash it out, then start over with a new can, which will get her interested again. I never let her go too long without eating. She just isn't getting as many calories as I'd like her to in the day, but she's eating enough to get by. Still, I just wish I could plop her food in the bowl and not give it a second thought, then go back later and find it all eaten up without having to modify it.

For the days Kitsu absolutely refuses to eat wet food: This is where I have to start getting creative. I will either switch brands (emergency trips to Walmart/PetSmart have been made for this), or feed her something I already have in-house, such as chicken breast that I will boil for her, or chicken from a can. I will resort to her old dry food if needed, but this is a last resort because it spikes her BG level way high and makes her drink/urinate almost 3 times more than normal. But as others have said and I can't echo enough myself, it's more important for the kitty to eat than it is to keep their BG levels low from forcing them to eat wet food that they hate. There were a few days that I cycled Kitsu's food 4 times until I "got it right" by her standards, so it's not impossible. It just feels like a battle of the wills sometimes, like you have to outlast your cat in terms of being strict and stubborn with your food choice. However, there comes a point where you just have to give in to kitty if he/she is not eating at all, or way too little. The longest I've let her go with no food was 10 hours, and by then I was already cracking open a can of chicken that she happily ate. It's difficult to watch your cat starve itself because it's being so finicky. You would think survival instincts would eventually kick in and tell the cat, "hey, I need to eat, or I'm going to starve!" But cats will literally starve themselves sometimes. It can be very frustrating, and I'm sorry Ricky is giving you trouble as well.

Long reply, sorry, but I hope that answered your question!

Chris, thanks for posting your experience with Lucy's stool changes when you switched her diet. I think Kitsu's is diet-related, too. I've changed her food up so much in the last 2 weeks, there's bound to be some strangeness going on with it. I think her Iams is higher in protein than the previous Fancy Feast classic pate/Friskies pate were, so like you said, the extra protein might be causing it. And now that she's on YA food, it might be even worse, haha. Only time will tell. Did Lucy's stool ever change back to being brown, or is it still consistently black from the higher protein? Wasn't sure if it was just a temporary effect as her body got used to the new amount of protein, or if it was a permanent change in her stool coloring/consistency.

 

Could you tell me how you got Lucy to switch to Epigen 90 ? Was it a process or did you gradually mix that food more and more into the old food?

 

Jenna, why do you think Kitsu is eating so sparingly? Does she ever dig in and eat a good quantity at one sitting? How much canned food does she eat in a day? That's really good if she will eat cooked chicken breast at least. My Ricky won't.

When Kitsu used to eat dry food regularly did she sit and eat a good quantity all at once of that? I'm just wondering if she's always been a light eater or is it only now because she doesn't like canned food that much?

It sounds really time consuming, but I guess if you are getting the results eventually it's worth it. I have 5 cats and 3 have health problems so there's a lot of work all day long. Right now I can't think how I would even start to get Ricky onto wet food. He's repulsed by everything I've seen. I will try that Iams Winner Winner you mention.

Pam

 

I have found that the wysong Epigen 90 seems to be the main thing turning her stool dark. On days when she eats mostly dry it's darker. If she eats more wet it's a little lighter. If I give her some high carb food for whatever reason, it goes back to the old lighter tan color it always was before. It is fairly predictable with color and consistency as to what she is eating.

 

With Lucy it was fairly easy. I mixed a little in her old food and she didn't seem to notice. So I went 50% and that went good so I tried a bowl of all wysong Epigen 90 and she was fine with it.

I think the reason it went so easily was that I switched Lucy's food early on before she was regulated and she still had the ravenous appetite and weight loss from before her diagnosis. This helped her gain back the weight she had lost very quickly. Once she was regulated she got a little more picky with her wet food. Before that she'd eat anything I put down for her.

 

Pam, I wish I knew why she doesn't eat very much, but it's still a mystery to me. She was never the type of cat to dig in at one sitting, she would come back to her bowl every few hours for a few bites. I used to have a cat that would clean his bowl, no matter how much you put in it, so I had to be careful with him and only give him food twice a day with measurements. Kitsu is, more or less, the "typical" cat who grazes throughout the day, which makes it hard with wet food because the longer it sits, the more dry it becomes, meaning less appetizing. I've tried giving her smaller portions throughout the day, but it doesn't seem to make a big difference, and it's not something I can realistically do every day, since I have a full time job as well. She also seems to eat more on the days I'm at work or out doing other things, simply because I'm not there for her to beg at. It can be challenging to feed her when I'm here all day, because she will lay at her bowl and wait for me to do something before she eats. On a good day where she is actually eating, Kitsu eats 1.5 - 2 cans of Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner a day, but to maintain her current weight, she needs closer to 220 calories. That specific can of food is 88 calories per can, so if you do the math, she's definitely falling short of her daily caloric intake recommendation. This is when I will supplement extra calories with other things, like the boiled/canned chicken, or dry food. I don't mind if she falls a little short of her daily calories, since she does need to lose a little weight, but too much weight loss too fast is not good.

I admire your strength and patience with keeping up with five cats, even if two of them are healthier than the other three. That is a lot of work and dedication, and you are a great cat mom! As for Ricky, yeah, see if he will give Iams Winner Winner with Chicken Dinner a shot. I mainly use that flavor because it's the lowest carb count of all the Iams foods, but I've heard good results with some of the other Iams flaked varieties when it comes to picky eaters. See if you can just get a few cans of it at a local retailer first, but if not, you can always get it online for a decent price. If he doesn't like it, I'm sure one of your other cats may not mind it too much. I wish you the best of luck with your picky eater! Picky Ricky... I hope that's what you call him sometimes, haha. It's kind of catchy!

Chris, thanks for sharing that, it's good to know. Kitsu did have a case of the runs this morning after putting her on YA food only - something that PiePie warned me against doing, but I'll monitor it and see if it continues. So far, she hasn't had a bowel movement in a while, so we will see, but earlier it was back to being a darker brown.

------------------------------------

Update on Kitsu: She seems to be enjoying her YA food quite a bit. I had to go out of state after her morning insulin today, and didn't get back until it was time for her insulin again later in the night. I had left out extra YA food for her, in case my car broke down on the long drive home or something happened where I couldn't make it back until tomorrow morning. But I made it home, and her bowl was nearly empty, so she's definitely eating a decent amount of it. Another noteworthy thing is that her BG level was 189 when I tested her tonight before her shot. It is NEVER that low when she's been eating a proper amount of food in the day, it's only that low (or sometimes lower) when she refuses to eat overnight while I'm asleep or during the day while I'm at work. I'm really amazed that this food is so low carb and it's already showing results. I just gave Kitsu a 0.5 unit injection of her Vetsulin, instead of her normal 1.5 dose. Normally I don't shoot when she's under 200, but 189 is pretty close and I gave her a much lower dose as well, so she should be good. I'd like to eventually switch her to Lantus when her Vetsulin is out, but that's a whole other story for another day.

Now the next 'issue', which isn't even an issue at all... it's time to decide which YA food to order for her. Regular Zero Mature, or LID Zero Mature... hmmm... I'm leaning more towards getting her the regular one, then contacting customer service for a sample of the LID one, just so I can check to make sure she will eat it before buying an entire bag of it. Then I will switch to LID if I suspect that she might have a food allergy with chicken. I'll have to put her back on Iams once her samples run out, but if I order that food now, it should come by Thursday/Friday, so that's not too bad!

 

So glad to hear Kitsu likes the YA food. I think it's going to make a big difference in her numbers, and maybe her dose. And it should take a lot of pressure off you with her feeding. Lucy is also a grazer , and being able to leave a bowl of dry food out when I'm gone for her to eat as needed/wanted really puts my mind at ease.