I am at my wits end trying to get my fussy kittens to eat good quality, complete wet food. They like Applaws, Porta 21 & the Prize Choice minces, but steadfastly refuse to eat Smilla, Grau, Schmusy, Bozita, Natures Menu etc - by that I mean that confiscate the dried JWB that they love & just leave them with wet as above. If they are really forced to (i.e I am hard hearted & don't give them any option) they will nibble & pick with great reluctance, but they have lost weight & having done a long round trip to get some Purely kitten pouches that they used to love, they now won't give them the time of day! I have been trying them with just wet & no dry for 10 days now......... the dog is thrilled as he is enjoying cleaning up the leftovers!

I have gone back to trying to tempt them with cimicat, tuna, tuna water, fresh beef mince, bits of cooked chicken, thrive & catnip treats etc but they are quite resolute! Is there anything else I can try, or would adding Fellini Complete mean that they could continue with the complementary foods topped up with orijen dry? (they will begrudgingly nibble at the Portia 21 grain free & Applaws - which gave one of them an upset tummy - so I think they could be coaxed onto orijen.

Perhaps not what you want to hear but perhaps you have tried too much in too short a space of time.

However, you say that they like the prize choice minces. Have you tried any of the more balanced minces, such as the ones from Natural Instinct or Darlings (or even the DAF/Raw to Go ones). Both of these contain a good ratio of meat/bone/offal, which the prize choice minces lack. So, the raw route could be a viable way forward.

No, I wouldn't recommend that you use the Felini Complete to add to bought complementary food, such as Applaws, Porta 21 etc.

However, check out Fortiflora as a possible trick to get them to eat foods that they don't like eating. I think a couple of peeps on here bought some recently and were going to try it. It is made from animal digest, which is the stuff that they use in dry food to make it more palatable/tasty.

TBH, while I am not a fan of dry food by any stretch of the imagination, if you get them to eat a decent amount of "balanced" raw food or wet food, than perhaps I would give them the JWB that they love so much. Then, when they are firmly eating the raw or wet food, you can look into changing that to a better brand or even cutting it out completely.

But I think the key here is - baby steps. Don't try to change too much at once.

Hope that helps.


Edit: Not sure whether you have seen this but this is a rather lengthy expose of how to transition cats from dry to wet, which has loads of good tips. http://catinfo.org/docs/Tips%20for%2...%201-14-11.pdf

Have just reread my post & realised that it does sound as though as though I have thrown a lot of them in the last 10 days, whereas in fact this process has been going on for the last 12 or 13 weeks and it has only been recently that i was brave enough to confiscate the dry food & ignore all beseeching looks and pointed comments about the muck I was putting into their feed bowls!

I was all set to order the Raw 2 Go as I made enough space in my freezer, when i read some threads about it being very whiffy - which will cause a problem in this household. I also gather that the Natural Instinct manufacturer has also run out of the 400g packs? When I tried to order last wek there seemed to be some glitch with the system & it wanted to charge me £100 shipping! (prize chice minces are easy to get hold of as I can pick them up from our local pet shop when I go to get DOC for our owl)

Fortiflora also sounds like a good plan & I will have a trawl through that thread - although they have been on wet food since I got them & its just that they have regrettably acquired a taste for the complementary stuff

NI are apparently going to have the 400g tubs back in stock early next week. They apparently only have 1kg tubs. Alternatively, you could check out their retail outlets to see whether there is one near you who stocks them: Links

Yes, strange that about the DAF minces smell...

What wet food did they eat when they came to you? Is there any way that they can be persuaded to eat that again while you try to wean them either on to better wet food or off the dry food?



PS: Have you tried the chicks on your kits?

sadly none of those suppliers are near me.....

I will try the chicks on the kittens when they are old enough to go outside & play with them as I will otherwise ineviatbly find bits all round the house!!

They came from a BYB and turned out to be only 6 weeks old............ only 1 was eating solid food (the other one I had to bottle feed) and that was the Sainsburys own brand pouches, they are now 5 1/2 months old & are really thriving - although they have got skinnier in the last week.

I managed to find a stockist of natural instinct yesterday and I am pleased to report that one kitten has wolfed some down and even managed to eat some of the butchers classic that I had hidden in the corner. I also found some lamb hearts in Tesco the other day and she was very keen on those.
Second kitty tends to be more fussy, but she loves the prize choice stuff so hopefully she will take to it as well.

If I can get them eating that happily hopefully I can start introducing some other good quality tinned foods.