After last week’s vet visit for Ranger and his resulting diet, I’ve decided to once again try to convert the guys from eating only Friskies wet food to something better.

Evan eats a diet of Wellness wet with baby food mixed into it. He is doing OK. The other guys were eating Friskies Salmon or Ocean Whitefish. These were the only foods I could get them agree to eat. Dusty was always the most difficult cat, as she would only want to eat dry food.

I have finally found two higher quality foods that I can include into the mix. Dusty, Ranger and Little Bit will now eat Wellness Chicken and Herring and Eagle Pack Holistic Select Salmon and Shrimp. Pippin is now being the difficult kitty – he is turning up his nose on these better quality foods – and he used to be a kitten vacuum cleaner, when eating wet foods!

I bought a half case each of the Wellness and Eagle Pack foods. I will start to rotate them into feeding schedule.

I also purchased some new foods to try: Felidae and Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys. The Elegant Medley’s are quite pricey – at $0.75 for a 3 ounce can ($0.25 per ounce) the food is more expensive that Eagle Pack or Wellness at $1.0 per 5.5 ounce can ($0.18 per ounce).

I will have to see how the new rotation schedule goes. Since I am reducing free feeding (because of Ranger’s diet), I want to improve the overall quality of the wet food. I was counting on the high quality of the Eagle Pack Holistic Select dry food to offset some of the lower quality wet food.

Mark

So Mark....the cats eat Friskies Salmon or Ocean Whitefish every day???? Aren't you worried they would get bored with the same food all the time???? I feed mine 6 different flavors and have them in a rotation where they never get the same flavor within 6 days..... but the dogs eat the same food every day... Hm.....

Sparky is the fussy one here... he sniffs the cans as I open them and start scooping into the dishes then he runs away and plays or goes and lays down or goes into the basement. He seems to only like the dry foods just like your Dusty.

ON A SIDE NOTE: we went to PetSmart today and dh had to go to the bathroom. In order to go to the bathroom you have to pass by the kittys up for adoption in the windows..... while he was indisposed I was looking at the kittys and reading their "stories". One looked like Milo (big orange boy) who had been a stray, ones name was Diva, one's name was Tiger (a greyish not really striped cat - more like - oh I don't even know how to describe him or her - didn't get that far....) and then I got as far as a cute black and white kitten about 5 months old who was "an orphan". I didn't get to look at all of them but Neil was back out there by then and he was standing at the cart while I took my turn in the bathroom.

When I came out he said "keep walking" I said "Why?" and he said "because I might want to take that one home with me" indicating Tiger. They were all (from the local humane society) adults except the "orphaned kitten" (also from the humane society) whom he also mentioned he "would take home". I think..... I'm not SURE, but I THINK, Neil is beginning to really like cats. He was FURIOUS with me when I went to get the first one he agreed to let me have and I actually came home with two. It's a far cry from those days.... hehehehehe...... I just might see some new kitty's in my house in the coming years!!!! WOOHOO!!!

Tiger, by the way, was drinking from his/her dish in a rather cute way.... dipping his/her front paw in then licking said paw rather than drinking the water directly. Apparently while I was in the bathroom, Tiger, made a nearly successful attempt to win my husbands heart. I should have stayed in the bathroom longer....

So Mark....the cats eat Friskies Salmon or Ocean Whitefish every day???? Aren't you worried they would get bored with the same food all the time???? I feed mine 6 different flavors and have them in a rotation where they never get the same flavor within 6 days..... but the dogs eat the same food every day... Hm.....

Sparky is the fussy one here... he sniffs the cans as I open them and start scooping into the dishes then he runs away and plays or goes and lays down or goes into the basement. He seems to only like the dry foods just like your Dusty.

Hi Michelle:

Yes, that is what I have been doing. The gang of four (Little Bit, Dusty, Ranger and Pippin) would get Friskies Salmon in the morning and the Friskies Ocean Whitefish in the evening. I split up a can between the four cats - on in the morning and one in the evening. I put out a little dry food for them, too.

For Evan, I mix up a can of turkey baby food with turkey Wellness. That provides him with three meals. I then switch to chicken baby food with chicken Wellness. He gets three meals of that before I switch back to turkey. Evan is now interested in dry food, too (for the first time in about since last summer!)

I would like to increase the gang of four’s high quality wet food increase. The problem is, of course, finding something that everyone will eat. Dusty was my problem child, but she has slowly started to eat wet food. Now, Pippin is the problem child. He will only eat the two Friskies foods.

Mark

Mark, with several cats, it is almost impossible to find a canned food they all like a lot. So, just do what I do. Buy a variety of flavors and brands, and serve a different one every day. Then every cat gets some days of the food he/she prefers. If one or two of the cats don't eat much or any wet food one or two days a week, it's ok.

However, if you are reducing/stopping the free feeding of the dry, you will have a bit less fussy cats who will be hungry when you serve the wet. Then, greater chance all, or almost all, will eat whatever canned you serve that day.

The Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys are expensive, but apparently much more delicious to the cats than the regular FF.

I have to stop free feeding. I am home from being away since Monday.......and Jeremy looks like he gained 2 lbs.!!!!!!!!!! I am not kidding. When I'm not here, he manages to eat so much. We have to leave food out because Molly grazes - eats a little at a time. This gives Jeremy a chance to pig out......which he loves to do. I think I'm going to have the petsitter separate them at night and leave less food during the day. I think that Molly will at least get a chance to eat more during the night if Jeremy steals her food. I really don't want to separate them the whole time when I'm not here because they play together.

In the meantime, I'm not gone that much, but I will be away for Easter until Tuesday - and Jeremy's weight is a serious issue right now. He was looking good lately - lost about a pound.

When I'm around I don't give them much at one time - and I take the food away when they both eat......and sometimes I put Molly in a separate room until she eats. The petsitter doesn't stay long enough to do all of this. If you feed Molly in a separate room she still eats just a little at a time, so it could take an hour or more for her to eat.

These little buggers love to give me something to worry about!!!!!!!!

Maria

Oh Margaret..... my goodness..... you REALLY went overboard catering to the king. No, he doesn't get that royal treatment here .... no, sirree..... Don't need him getting a bigger head than he already has!!!!



Maria, I'm sorry Jeremy put on so much weight so quickly in your absence!!! I know you were working hard to help him lose weight for a while now. Poor thing, he can't be "comfortable" with that extra weight. I would have spent extra time with the two if I were your pet sitter. I did that in Florida when my neighbor lady Joy went to Michigan for a month and I pet sat for her cat Shadow. I spent at least 2 hours a day with him so he wouldn't get lonely or forget humans. Thankfully, you are not gone for such long stretches.

Things seem to be working well with integrating two new foods, Wellness Chicken and Herring and Eagle Pack Holistic Select Salmon and Shrimp flavors.

This morning, Pippin was quite funny. I have him his plate of Wellness Chicken and Herring. He sniffed it and turned away. While I was walking over to the refrigerator to get out some left over Friskies Salmon, Pippin jumped up on the counter and started to eat out of the Wellness can. He must have liked it in the can. As soon as I brought the plate over to him again, he devoured it with gusto!

Evan has a special treat today – some turkey from dinner. During dinner with Jane and Mike’s girlfriend (as I mentioned in another post, Jane’s two boys and the oldest boy’s wife are in jail right now), Evan came out of the bedroom, walked under the dining room table, and sat down. We gave him some turkey – white meat that was not touched by any seasoning. He did pretty good, he ate a good ounce or more of turkey. The turkey treat seemed to spoil his regular dinner, as he did not eat much of that.

I strongly suspect that Evan was fed table scraps with his former owners. When he first came to live with me, he would come to the kitchen when I was cooking, sit down by my feet, look up, and meow. He was expecting human food. I wonder if that had anything to do with his hyper-t and CRF?

Mark