Tricking a Picky Eater

Forest is a picky eater, he always has been- even when he was nursing from the bottle.  To get this little boy to get enough calories in him, I had to feed more often and supplement his diet with Nutri-Cal for a long time.

I've heard people say that it is harder to get a cat to lose weight than it is to get them to gain.  I disagree with this vehemently. When you have a picky eater, or a kitty that is not well, they lose weight, and fast.  And the amount of time you have to fix whatever is wrong, shrinks with every ounce lost. I'd much rather have a fat cat than a skinny one.

For months, Forest was on wet Prescription A/D.  It was the only food he could keep down fairly well (threw up once a day, rather than after every meal) and which he'd eat.  I tried many, many different types of foods, warming it, chilling it, watering it down, and etc.  It was so very frustrating have a little kitten that just wouldn't grow or get fat at all.  When you think of a kitten, the image of one where you can feel each and every bone in his or her body and your own fingers through their gut is not one that comes readily to mind.  

For the most part, Forest's diet is called, "If he'll eat it, he can have it."  As with anything, Forest is not allowed to eat just anything at all, not everything is good for a cat to eat, and many can actually be detrimental to their health.

I've had experience with picky eaters and low weight cats, but I can honestly say that the support I've gotten from other volunteers at Fancy Cats greatly helped me with Forest.  They've given me many techniques and names of foods to try, and sometimes even food.  Having people I can call with any questions I might have, whether it is food related or not, has been a great benefit of being part of this rescue group.  My stress on whether I'm doing things right is much lower than it otherwise would be.

Little Forest is quite spoiled and well loved in my family.  He eats multiple little meals throughout the day.  My mother makes turkeys just for him and will save a little portion of meats she makes for the rest of the family for him (his portion never contains spices of any kind).  

Forest loves my mom's turkey and will cry and cry for some more of it, but I really don't want him to eat turkey and human food as a regular part of his diet.  I really want him to get onto a normal cat diet.

Thus, with Forest's addiction for turkey and my own determination and creativity, a means of giving both of us what we want has been devised.

With this handy product, which is SODIUM FREE, all I have to do is add water and Forest gets the flavor he wants, and I get to get him to eat cat food.  When I first started adding this flavored water to Forest's food, I had to drench the food in it, but over time I've been decreasing how much I put in.  Now I've gotten to the point where he'll look at me and I'll just have to spray the food I want him to eat (with a water bottle filled with the chicken flavored water) and the initial flavor will be enough to get him moving along with eating the cat food.  As far as cat food, he currently only eats Baby Cat, which has tiny kibble.  This is the only brand of cat food he is willing to eat right now.