Hi,

I've been reading Hobbs' thread on wet food and decided to switch Benny from Gourmet onto something much better for him.

I bought some Bozita chunks and pate, Smilla tins and Grau tins. I've been giving him half old food and half new food to get him used to it. The idea was to alternate between the new types once he is used to them so that he doesn't get too bored.

Anyway, he's sort of tried Bozita and isn't keen, he won't even touch the Grau and he eats a couple of the varieties of Smilla. I've tried leaving the new food there in the hope he will eat it if hes hungry but it doesn't get eaten and I don't want my boy going hungry!

Can anyone recommend something else to try? I'd like to try giving him a little bit of raw meat but I don't want to switch to raw food entirely. I was thinking maybe once or twice a week. What should I give him?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Rachel, sadly my cats are similar. They seem to really dislike all the high meat content foods that Hobbs so rightly advocates. Animonda Carny, Tigercat, Pfontenliebe...all have been rejected They seem to dislike any pate type food. Bozita has the gravy or jelly liked off it and the meat is largely left behind! Grrrr.

I refuse to feed them Whiskas or similar or a solely dry food diet. They do eat Purely sachets from Pets at Home and Tesco Finest goes down well but it is expensive and has less meat content than the above foods, but more than the cheaper commercial brands.

Fortunately mine do eat raw cat foods and the main component of their diet is Natural Instinct Cat food, which can be ordered on line. It may be worth considering if you are prepared to feed your cats raw foods?

The one food they will always eat is Royal Canin sachets of any type. They occasionally get free samples of these at shows and they LOVE it. But as it costs an absolute fortune and has some cereals in it, it is a rare treat for them. I think Royal Canin must put some form of kitty crack in their foods as it is undoubtedly my cats Number 1 favourite food (just joking if the RC legal team are reading this ).

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I'm not sure if its the pate that he doesn't like although he has only tried the Gourmet pate once before so it could be the pate texture.

Its a bit frustrating as I want him to eat something good for him but I don't want him to eat nothing or worse go out and be fed by someone else!

I will have a look at the raw food. I do want him to eat some raw food but I'm not so keen on feeding him on raw all the time and nothing else.

Thanks for the response!

Rachel, what are your concerns about feeding raw food all the time? After all in the wild a cat would only eat raw foods.

Saying that, mine do not eat raw entirely. This is mainly because I forget to thaw the raw! So their diet is about 50% raw, 40% sachet and 10% dry food.

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Well partly money and freezer space but also I worry about someone else feeding him when we go away. My freezer is pretty tiny and we struggle to get all of our food in there (there's only 2 of us tho!) I think I'm also a little nervous about preparing it etc. And I'm not sure my mum or my partners gran who have him when were away would be too keen on feeding him raw meat and I wouldn't want him to have to eat sachets for that time when he's not used to them.

That said I wouldn't completely rule it out but I think I'm best off starting by giving him a little and seeing how we get on! Knowing how fussy he is he would probably not eat it or get bored pretty quickly!

Have you tried mashing up the food he will eat as this may get him more used to the texture.

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Yep I've tried both mashed and unmashed! He does seem to prefer mashed but he just doesn't seem to be eating much

I don't really notice that much of a difference between the raw minces and commercial food when plating it up for my crew.

You do need plenty of freezer space. I bought a mini-freezer to keep the pets frozen food seperate to our own.

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Still not having much luck with this!

Can anyone else help please???

Not sure what to advise Rachel. I guess you could try again with the Smilla, Bozita and Grau but introduce them more slowly. So, instead of doing a 1/2 and 1/2 with the Gourmet, start it with only 1/4 of the new food. And you could try sticking to one food for now while trying to get him to eat "better" food instead of trying a new brand every single time he turns up his nose.

Or you could a different food - say Nature's Menu (which you can get in pets at home or independent pet shops), or you could email the distributor of Leonardo in the UK to see whether they will send you a couple of sample tins.

Alternatively, if he has a treat he particularly likes you could try crushing that one up and sprinkling it on the food you want him to eat. A sprinkle of brewer's yeast also works a treat with quite a few cats.

Hope that helps