Two quick kitten questions

waraf

Hi all, can any of you give me a little advice please?

I have two kittens approx. 3 months old. One of them doesn't seem to clean herslf very well and smells quite badly as a result. A friend of mine told me not to shampoo her as then she will always rely on me to clean her rather than grooming herself. Is this right? WIll she start grooming herself properly in time (I've had her since she was about 8 weeks)

The other question I have is that the other kitten won't eat dry food. In fact all she will eat is whiskas pouches and absolutely nothing else. I tried drizzling a little bit of brine from a can of tuna over the dry food and also mixing a little bit of dry food in with her whiskas but she wasn't interested. Any sugestions?

Thanks:)

Toulouse

Can't comment on the first as I'm not a cat person but please try not to give your cat brine. It's just salt water and alot of salt is not good for them. If you want to give tuna then please use the tuna in Sunflower oil.

waraf

Toulouse wrote: »

Can't comment on the first as I'm not a cat person but please try not to give your cat brine. It's just salt water and alot of salt is not good for them. If you want to give tuna then please use the tuna in Sunflower oil.

I've heard so many different opinions on this. I was told that under no circumstances should I feed cats tuna in any form as it's really bad for them. However, I was told a little bit of brine poured over dry food was fine as a treat once in a while. Might mention it to the vet next week when I'm in with him and see what he recommends. Thanks for the reply though

Toulouse

Possibly something to do with Mercury in Tuna? As a very occasional treat I wouldn't worry too much but if you can manage to get her onto a good quality dry food then hopefully you won't have any need for it.

waraf

Toulouse wrote: »

Possibly something to do with Mercury in Tuna? As a very occasional treat I wouldn't worry too much but if you can manage to get her onto a good quality dry food then hopefully you won't have any need for it.

Yeah that was the idea really. I just wanted to coax her onto the dry food with fishy brine for a few days and then hopefully she would just eat it dry. I've tried 3 different dry foods and she's having none of them. The other kitten would eat an old shoe if you put it in her bowl (actually she eats new shoes in the wardrobe anyway;))

Kitty_mom

try mixing the wet food with some dry food and feed her. Thats what i did when i wanted to change from wet to dry.

PinkTulips

I'm guessing black cat is the smelly one as she was eating dry food here

Her mother is still cleaning the kitten we kept (as are her older brothers) so i think you'd be safe enough giving her a gentle clean with a damp cloth and it woudn't prevent her learning to do it herself... if anything it might encourage her. I wouldn't shampoo her though as that would mess with her coats natural oils and the taste might put her off trying herself.

Have you tried cheap dry foods for the other one? My lot are funny, they don't much like the more expensive dry foods, seems to be the cheaper the brand the more they like it with only a few exceptions.... the buggers rejected Orijen but go mad for Go Cat ffs!

aoife161

I would advise not to use shampoo on your kitten. Even if she's not cleaning herself and smells. The shampoo could be the very thing preventing herself from self cleaning. The damp cloth idea from another poster is a good idea. Nothing more than some luke warm water, you should be able to rid her of anything the might be causing a smell.

I have 3 cats and got them all when they were a couple of months, so they had been used to eating a variety of food. However I persisted with dry food and water. Nothing else. It might seem a little mean, but they'll eventually eat it cuz they'll be hungry!

However if your kitten is very small and you don't want to risk upsetting it, try and ween it with the pouches of cat food mixed with the really small 'kitten' nuts. Gradually add more nuts each time, until eventually there's hardly any wet food. You then might be able to make the switch completely.

I've never given my cats tuna, but I have a sister who used to only feed her tabby 5 year old cat tuna for a period of time. She was advised by the vets not to soley feed the cat tuna. I don't know why, but the vet definitely said tuna once a week is fine, but variety is probably the key here. If you feed your cats complete 'cat food', they should get all they need.

Good luck with the kitties!

Mantel

PinkTulips wrote: »

Have you tried cheap dry foods for the other one? My lot are funny, they don't much like the more expensive dry foods, seems to be the cheaper the brand the more they like it with only a few exceptions.... the buggers rejected Orijen but go mad for Go Cat ffs!

I had a similar experiance with any other cat food if it's not Pro Plan salmon , one cat will eat anything the other won't touch the food and nearly starve itself while going mad to get in to the kitchen for scraps and to raid the bin. Trying different dry foods might get you an acceptable one

As for the smelly cat you could try grooming her a little to try and stimulate some self grooming, they learn from their mother most of the time but it sounds like your one didn't do her homework very well! A bit of role play might be in order We had to do it with our black cat who got abandoned by mother fairly early and was found seeking out his own food in a bin. He's not the best but with a bit of early demonstration and some early help he keeps himself fairly clean now. Don't use anything that smells, just water and a cloth should do. Some pet shops do cat or kitten wipes that are suppose to smell nice to cats or at least smell neutral and aren't toxic/taste bad but act the same way as baby wipes.

waraf

PinkTulips wrote: »

I'm guessing black cat is the smelly one as she was eating dry food here

Yep you're dead right there. She's a bit stinkin' but she's incredibly friendly and loves to sleep with her head resting on my arm. I've been wiping her down with a baby wipe when the smell gets really bad but it hasn't helped. It has gotten to the stage where anyone entering my house can immediately smell cats (and not in a good way). Anyway, she's still very young so hopefully she'll start mimicing the other one and start cleaning herself properly soon.....

The Sweeper

The 'no tuna' rule comes from the risk of pansteatitis, or yellow fat disease, coming from feeding cats human-grade tuna. Yellow fat disease happens when your cat gets too much oily fish and not enough vitamin E.

On another thread, I posted that it would make sense that cat-food manufacturers understand that too much oily fish and too little vitamin E can cause pansteatitis, and therefore bump up the amount of vitamin E in those 'flavours', but given the pet food recalls and problems regulating that industry I don't think I'd trust that well enough to make a fish-based petfood the mainstay of my cats' diets.

My cats do best on a variety of food. If their diet becomes too kibble-heavy, I find their overall condition is still okay, but not as good as if they get less kibble and more wet commercial petfood and human-grade raw meat and offal. (You may think I'm mad, but it's cheaper for me to feed a cheap cut of beef to my five cats for one meal than it is to open five of those single-serve packs of high-end wet pet food.)

On smaller kittens, without their mum, you often need to be wiping bottoms with something like a soft cotton cloth dipped in warm water (I cut a couple of old t-shirts into a pile of 3" squares and then put them through the wash). You can use paper or cotton wool products, but make sure they don't leave fibres. Even the slackers usually manage to get the hang of washing themselves around the 20 week mark, but up to then their bums can do with an occasional wipe (and if they're smaller, you may need to be wiping more often). Doubly so for long-haired fuzzmonsters.

In terms of what cats will and won't eat - they have preferences, like any animal, but you can make those preferences worse by providing less variety and pandering to their refusals. If you put down a plate of food your cats don't like, they will ignore it - but they won't starve. If you take it up off the floor an hour later and replace it with something they do like, all you're doing is wasting your money - you may as well never try the 'failed' food in the first place.

It is easier for me, with five cats, because at least one of them will always try what I put down, so more cats actually = less waste! Still, all of mine have been fed a variety and mixture from an early age, and any kittens I foster get the same. I mix top-end kibble with supermarket varieties and feed both mixed in the same dish. I alternate whiskas in cans with the most expensive petfood on the supermarket shelves, then the most expensive petfood from specialist shops, then back to whiskas, then on to raw meat and organs. I can't control what my fosters eventual families will feed them, so it's best if I provide a wide range.

Cats are driven strongly by smell, and fish based petfoods are most appetizing to them. They're very useful for sick cats - cats with respiratory tract infections or blocked noses will often go off their food, just like we do when we get a cold, and the fish based food can be the only appetizing thing they can smell - or for new foods (e.g. mix a spoon of fish-based petfood through whatever else you're feeding to make it more palatable).