Expert: Karen Craft - 4/13/2011

Question
QUESTION: Dear Karen,

I adopted a kitten a month ago. She was 3 month old by then. She has a healthy appetite, not craving for food but eat as much as a kitten should. She prefers canned food, which I prefer too, but ONLY if its seafood flavored (tuna, shrimp, crab, etc.). I tried to give her chicken, turkey, liver, any non-seafood cans and she won’t eat. She will sniff it for half-minute, and then turn to the Orijen dry food (6-fish formula) that I put on the side. However, if I mix some seafood sauce into these cans, she is happy eating them. Same with lightly cooked chicken hearts, which is actually her favorite. I have to coerce her to take the first bite (by dipping a heart piece in seafood sauce and offer it in my hand). But once she start, she will finish the whole dish in minutes! So it seems she is not against the taste or texture of the food, it’s just doesn’t smell delicious for her to initiate the eating.

Over this month, I tried to mix seafood sauce with chicken, reducing the amount of seafood sauce over time, but every time when it reaches to the point that there is too few seafood sauce to smell, she refuse to eat it. I can try putting away the fish formula dry food and see if she will give in when really hungry, but I don’t feel comfortable doing it. Fasting a kitten is not healthy.

I am at my wits end. It’s not a huge problem but I don’t want her to be picky. I believe variety is the key to health and happiness (do correct me if I'm wrong =D) Could you offer some suggestions? Thank you so much!

ANSWER: Hi Yingying,

It's funny but variety is something that cats don't need. When you change up their dry food they will get an upset stomach and vomit. They can live on the same food everyday for the rest of their lives. If she doesn't want anything besides fish flavored food then give it to her and don't worry. Just make sure it is a good food for her. Here is a good link abut cat nutrition that I think you will find very informative.

http://www.catinfo.org/

Read that. I think it will open your eyes about what to feed your cat. Good luck and take care.

Ciao, Karen



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Karen,

Although I appreciate your explaination that cat's don't need variety, from my knowledge, feeding cats seafood all the time is worse than sticking to chicken/rabbit. This is also confirmed by the link you provided. In an article the author says "...we do not want to feed a lot of fish to cats.  In addition to the problem of cats becoming fish addicted, fish is high in phosphorus (not a good thing for our older cats with aging kidneys) and are also often high in PBDEs which are fire retardant chemicals known to negatively influence the thyroid gland."

So with this in mind, I still want to get my kitten off seafood. I do not want her to eat fish all her life. Any suggestions?

Answer
Hi Yingying,

What is this seafood sauce made of? If she likes fish so much and the seafood sauce isn't too bad then I would continue with flavoring the chicken with it. It sounds like you are not going to be able to switch her over without a battle. If you are worried about phosphorus here's a link that gives you a listing of low phosphorus canned foods.

http://webpages.charter.net/katkarma/canned.htm


And here's one about PBDE that I liked.

http://www.mvtimes.com/calendar/2007/10/11/visiting_veterinarian.php

As you can see there is still a lot we don't know. I would just coat her food with the sauce. And feed her knowing that you are at least trying to limit her intake of stuff that could harm her. Good luck and take care.

Ciao, Karen