Help, my new kitty is bankrupting me!

[Paper Roses]

She is a sweet, funny and talkative shelter kitty. I have had her for about 5 weeks, the shelter people think she is about 2 years old. According to the shelter, she was abused and living in an environment not fit for any living thing. She has grown a lot since I have had her with me.

She is fun to have around but feeding her is a big problem. I have bought about every brand of cat food imaginable and except for Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys Shredded white meat Chicken or Shredded Turkey both Savory Sauce with Garden Greens, she turns her nose up and walks away. She will not eat anything else.
I have already given my local shelter about 30 cans of food that were duplicates of food she ignored. I have a bunch more to donate. Many of them are Fancy feast Medley's, other flavors, that she has walked away from. I have had to throw a ton of opened cans away.

I am now at the point where I am considering buying only the two she will eat.
These little cans are 89 cents each...2 a day X 30 days=$53.40. I don't begrudge her the food but it is a chunk out of my SS each month. I don't want to waste any more.

Is it a detriment to her health to have only 2 kinds of food and nothing else to make a variety? I give her a little snack of Purina Chicken and Lamb dry food in the evening.

Any advice for me for the care of this cute, furry ball of fun?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. As long as it's decent-quality cat food she can eat the same stuff

day after day without any problems. It's better to give her stuff she will eat than waste stuff she won't eat. After a few months you might try offering her something else but she will be fine eating only what you are giving her now.

How about a picture?

[Lisa0825]

2. Have you let her get hungry?

Sometimes it takes getting past their point of stubbornness. If she is only offered a certain food, and she turns it down, she might decide it's edible once she's missed a couple meals trying to out-wait you.

My cats all prefer canned food to kibble, but having 7 of them, it costs too much to totally indulge them. So I leave the kibble out, and if they get hungry, they eat it. Then twice a day I split one can of food for a treat for them all. So they get indulged a bit, but also have learned that the kibble ain't so bad either.


So maybe you can get her to give a "less fancy" brand a try if you out-wait her. Maybe she will think it's OK once she gives in. what was she eating at the shelter?

When you buy food, look closely at the cans. If it says something like "Complete balanced nutrition for cats." then it is OK if that is all she wants to eat. I have found a couple of the fancier ones that say (in very fine print) "Not intended to be sole source of nutrition."

[badgerpup]

3. This happened with D'Artagnan (of all people!)

I changed from a good to a better quality dry cat food (Chicken Soup For The Cat Lover's Soul) and at first D'Artagnan wasn't going to eat it...he was holding out for the Diamond Active Cat that he'd grown up with.

I strongly suspect him of...uh...supplementing his diet with...er...fresh meat, so I wasn't worried about him starving.
Sure enough, in about two days, he was scarfing down the new stuff right along with Wimsey and Riktor.



Esme update:
She's gotten very thin...she nibbles a bit now and then. Vet said her coat looks good. I give her subcu Ringer's Lactated solution daily. She still acts like herself, doesn't seem to be in any distress, but she's slowed down a lot.
She'll let me know when it's time...and I will respect that. Until then, we're just taking things one day at a time and glad to have each day as it comes.

[virgdem]

4. I've had the same problem...

with my semi-new cat, Abby. She was an outdoor cat that I was feeding along with three other cats, and I decided to take her in last October. Not long after I got her, she became very picky. I went through countless cans of cat food (mostly Fancy Feast) but she did not eat much. When I took her to the Vet for her booster shot, the Vet noticed that she was jaundiced (yellow skin) due to possibly having hepatic lipidosis. Long story short, she went to a specialist and it was discovered that she had Pancreatitis, which can also affect the liver. I had to feed her canned human chicken/turkey and lunch meat for a long time. I went through much canned food, so I am totally sympathetic to your plight. My experience is this: find a food that she likes and feed her that food. If you want to experiment every once in a while, try small cans of different types/brands of food. The Petco near me that I shop at will take opened cans/bags of food back, so find out if you can return the food. By the way, Abby is doing much better, but is still finicky. She now eats Iams Veterinary low residue diet, which she seems to like.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. I can relate. I have also been a source of donated foods

because my kitty has hyperthyroid, and instead of doing to normal "eat like a pig" with this disease, he was what is called "apathetic hyperthyroid" where he doesn't eat at all. I bought every food I could find, and some he would eat once with gusto, only to turn his nose up when I bought more of it. Right now, he is at a treatment center getting radioactive iodine treatment, and they say he is eating very well. No problems. WTF.

Well, this reminded me of something that I read in all the articles about cats and lack of appetite. There was a suggestion that some cats will respond to food being served in a different place, even if they will not eat it where you usually feed them. Maybe that is it for my cat, I don't know. But see if that works.

I would not indulge your kitty this much. I know how much these foods cost, and with a healthy cat, you can afford to hold out on her. Always leave out a balanced dry food, and every couple of days, give the Fancy Feast that she loves. Better than every meal.

It will not hurt for kitty to eat the same food every day for life---in fact, they say this is healthy for them because they do not get upset tummies or other intestinal problems.

Good luck. There is nothing better than a warm kitty.

[Warpy]

6. I adopted two rescued cats, both elegant purebreds

and I only fed them wet food once. Diarrhea in two long haired cats is not nice to deal with.

I've put out cheap kibble since then and free-fed them since neither had a weight problem. While they made that "bury it" sign next to the dish at first, they eventually got hungry and ate it. Experimentation turned up the brand they liked the best, which turned out to be cheapo Kit'n'Kaboodle.

The tom lived to be 17. The girl kitty will be old enough to vote in June. The tom was a breed that needs dental work every 2-3 years. He only needed it twice during his long life. The girl kitty has never needed it, nary a spot of tartar on her little needle teeth.

I would strongly suggest you find an affordable cat food and stick to it. Cats appreciate consistency and dislike it when we change their food, which might be one problem you're experiencing with your finicky kitty.