Monday, August 25, 2008

New Foods

Uschi is full of energy and seems to be doing better,

back running on his wheel...

And kick-pickling the cat cup too.

Uschi was so sprightly today that we took him outside for the first time since last Tuesday, and he took off down a trail, caught a vole, and ran back to Les to deliver the live vole at her feet. Maybe it was a thank-you for all of the hand-delivered meals this week, in the middle of the night.

I'm hungry!

Now its time for us to figure out how to get weight back on Uschi (and Tanji). Both brothers lost a lot if interest in food ever since the 2007 food recall, and we've had on-going difficulty in getting them to eat enough food to match their active lifestyles. Uschi was so thin when he got sick, he didn't have much reserve energy to rely on.

We leave out two types of dried food all of the time for the boys to eat: Royal Canin Baby Cat or Kitten (Tanji likes this), and Natural Balance Green Pea & Duck (Uschi and Vladi like this). In the morning and evening, we split a can of fancy feast between the three boys (two small cans a day). There is a very long list of foods that Tani and Uschi won't even be in the same room with. We've tried all the brands of "wet" canned food carried by Safeway, PetCo, and our local pet store. Fancy Feast is the only one they will even sample, and that is only in very small amounts, and they typically don't finish their twice daily 1/3 can servings.

Of course they get all the water they want.

We went shopping for more foods to tempt the boys' tummies...

What did you get me?

Innova? Nope.

There better be something else in this bag!

How about some frozen raw food.
(Nope)

Luckily we had a lot of goodies to investigate...

Mmmmmmm.
The packages always seem of more interest
than the contents.

I want this one!
(ZiwiPeak 'Good Cat' Venison & Green-lipped Mussel Treats)

Open this, please.
(ZiwiPeak 'Daily-Cat' Cuisine Lamb)

Tanji wants some too.

Vladi munches while Uschi focuses on his favorite,
the ZiwiPeak 'treats'.

More, please.

Its nice to see the boys this enthusiastic about food.
Although they usually lose interest the day we buy bigger bags.


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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have the same problem with my Bengal girl as well!

I recently got a sampler bag of "Orijen" cat food, imported from Canada, which she's taken a liking to. One of her other favorites is (of all things) "Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul".

If all else fails, we fall back on the cooked ostrich from Whole Foods. She LOVES ostrich.

Anonymous said...

We're so happy to hear that Uschi is improving!

We went through the sick cat buffet with Sam's predecessor and know what a scary experience it is. (Thankfully, we have plenty of neighbor cats who are not picky eaters and were more than happy to relieve us of the rejected items.) Have you tried the Tiki Cat human grade canned food? Sam won't eat the sardine or mackerel varieties (a sales rep told me she hears this a lot) but he sure likes all the others and I'm curious to see how he'll react to the new salmon and chicken selections.

P.S. Love that picture of Tanji licking his chops!

Karen, Tom & Sam
>^..^<

Pam said...

Uschi looks much better, still handsome as ever.
When Tessa didn't feel well a few weeks ago, I used organic chicken breast, no skin, boiled plain no salt, then put in a food processor and ground fine. I added the broth to rice and cooked it. I used a very small amount of rice and chicken at a time. She is so small and thin, that the diarhea could have depleted her strength quickly. She loves this and I now has this recipe in the freezer just in case, the diahrea starts again. I wonder if there is a "healthy bacteria" for cats like what is in yogurt? Ever found anything?
Pam
Kinny and Tessa

Anonymous said...

Hi
we found two new canned foods our cats love....all human grade ingredients. See if you can find "Weruva" or "Tiki Cat". We use only the poultry flavors....our vet prefers those to beef and fish.

Anonymous said...

I have always found cats in general to be picky eaters. Cats from my experience (having tried fancy feast) will not eat anything else.

They seem to love it best, mine will snub their noses at cheaper varieties, and i haven't tried more expensive brands yet...

Anonymous said...

have you tried feeding them raw meat? my cat is a very fussy eater and will go on food strikes of most brands of wet cat food until we give in and feed her raw beef schnitzel or steak or cooked fresh fish.

So she eats maybe only half to a third of the small can meals we put out for her but never turns down fresh meat.

We also suppliment the fresh meat\cooked fish with vitamin suppliments, pet milk and dry biscuits.

Tanj,Uschi&Vladi said...

They won't touch raw meat.