Getting a Cat to Eat!

Antares35

Looking for some general advice (not medical) or any tips for getting a cat to eat.

Our girl is 15 and has been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. She's on meds for it, but will be attending UCD next month for radioactive iodine therapy. I wasn't told at the time that this is in fact the gold standard treatment, and the daily medication option was presented to me (not by UCD but our own vet) as an equivalent treatment. It was only when I did my own research that I realised the meds simply control the T4 levels where's the radioactive iodine treatment actually cures it. Anyway, that's an aside that just shows how important it is that we do our own research etc.

Anyway, we need to get her from 3.4 to 3.7 kilos before she will be admitted. It's proving to be an absolute nightmare. I've got her from 3.28 up to 3.4 and that's taken about two weeks. It's very slow, as she just seems to treat her food with contempt. She will favour dried food which isn't ideal for a hyperthyroid cat, but I figure any calories are better than no calories. We give her the soupy mixes and she drinks the broth and leaves the meat. Sometimes she will spurn the high quality convalescent food for cheapo Aldi stinky stuff The obvious easy wins like chicken (even the soft tasty thigh meat) won't tempt her, but she'll crunch on felix treats.

So just wondering if anyone has tips on how to really tempt her to eat more. I've heard some people say the food should be heated a little, perhaps mixed with some water to increase water intake etc.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

little bit of help

Have you tried cat milk? My elderly cat loves it. She will only eat Tesco, petmania or aldi own brand pouches. Hates felix/whiskas.

Antares35

little bit of help wrote: »

Have you tried cat milk? My elderly cat loves it. She will only eat Tesco, petmania or aldi own brand pouches. Hates felix/whiskas.

Tried that and she looked at it as if it had offended her! I might try the Tesco pouches though thanks!

little bit of help

They all have their funny likes and dislikes! I have to get a good brush or comb for my lady she is struggling with her fur now and it's getting very matted.

SillyMangoX

Check with your vets first in case any food changes would affect her medical condition, but generally kitten food is higher in calories than adult/senior food so it might be worth trying her on kitten food instead as a boost to her weight. You could also try adding in some chicken, or some tinned fish in spring water. If my cats are really fussy I get some of the liquid cream treats for them and top their food with it which also really helps them to get going! I wouldn’t worry too much about quality of the food at this stage, ie. cheap supermarket stuff vs high end pet shop stuff, whatever she’ll eat happiest and regularly to get the weight up would be a bonus!

SillyMangoX

Oh and I forgot to mention, sometimes microwaving their food for 10-20 secs (check it’s not too hot before giving it to her) makes them ravenous. Older cats especially have a lessened sense of smell so when it’s heated up, it’s stinkier and they’re more likely to tuck in

Antares35

SillyMangoX wrote: »

Check with your vets first in case any food changes would affect her medical condition, but generally kitten food is higher in calories than adult/senior food so it might be worth trying her on kitten food instead as a boost to her weight. You could also try adding in some chicken, or some tinned fish in spring water. If my cats are really fussy I get some of the liquid cream treats for them and top their food with it which also really helps them to get going! I wouldn’t worry too much about quality of the food at this stage, ie. cheap supermarket stuff vs high end pet shop stuff, whatever she’ll eat happiest and regularly to get the weight up would be a bonus!

Thanks I'll try the kitten food. If it's higher calories then an equivalent amount of that would be better for her I suppose. She does like the liquid snack creams especially the vitakraft ones, whatever is in them!

yerwanthere123

Anyone else see the thread title and thought the OP wanted to eat a cat?

Antares35

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Anyone else see the thread title and thought the OP wanted to eat a cat?

sorry! That's hilarious. I've five where so I'd be sorted if that was my thing!

YoshiReturns

Yep, thought someone was looking for a cat to eat and was wondering had the apocalypse just started.

Lesalare

YoshiReturns wrote: »

Yep, thought someone was looking for a cat to eat and was wondering had the apocalypse just started.

I'm still laughing. I didn't think of it that way at first but when you realise some people do and look at it again, it does. :D:D

Lesalare

My cat was extremely sick about 9 years ago in Aus and almost died. When she didn't - thankfully - and I had her back at home, she was very, very underweight and would not eat. This may sound extreme but I had to feed her via a syringe for a month every day. They told me if I didn't there was little chance of her eating again. The vets gave me smooth tinned food which I had to mix with water into a paste and fill the syringe with it and squirt it into her mouth.

It's a messy job as they flick it everywhere so you wrap them up in a towel to keep them sort of at still as possible and squirt it in gradually a few times. It worked and she got back eating her normal food.

She's a bugger for not normally eating canned food and only eats dried stuff but I remember the vet saying the smellier the food the more cats will eat it. I think heating it a tad might help this. Alt look for really pungent food and if all else fails maybe try the syringe thing. Good luck!

Antares35

Lesalare wrote: »

My cat was extremely sick about 9 years ago in Aus and almost died. When she didn't - thankfully - and I had her back at home, she was very, very underweight and would not eat. This may sound extreme but I had to feed her via a syringe for a month every day. They told me if I didn't there was little chance of her eating again. The vets gave me smooth tinned food which I had to mix with water into a paste and fill the syringe with it and squirt it into her mouth.

It's a messy job as they flick it everywhere so you wrap them up in a towel to keep them sort of at still as possible and squirt it in gradually a few times. It worked and she got back eating her normal food.

She's a bugger for not normally eating canned food and only eats dried stuff but I remember the vet saying the smellier the food the more cats will eat it. I think heating it a tad might help this. Alt look for really pungent food and if all else fails maybe try the syringe thing. Good luck!

Thank you I had actually done this a few times with her, but I felt like a terrible bully I was looking at complete liquid diets for convalescent cats, and thought about syringing those in, or kitten milk. The problem is when I force her, she seems to just get turned off food completely. I think she has gained slightly now, though it's hard to keep her on the scales long enough to be sure! I got some Felix kitten food and she seems to like that as it's a tad softer than the adult stuff. Have her on a half pred 5mg every evening too, to try to boost the appetite a little (vet said this was ok). Just need her to keep going in the right direction so fingers crossed.

My cat never refused some steamed cod fillet, or shredded chicken breast.

Good luck with the treatment, its a tricky one. It was hyperthyroidism that lead to my cat's death, she didn't respond to treatment.

Antares35

[Deleted User] wrote: »

My cat never refused some steamed cod fillet, or shredded chicken breast.

Good luck with the treatment, its a tricky one. It was hyperthyroidism that lead to my cat's death, she didn't respond to treatment.

I'm really sorry to hear that..did they say why it didn't work? They told me it was a 95percent success rate.

If I'm honest, I think she was too far gone - she was 18 when diagnosed and the medication did not seem to agree with her at all, if anything she got a lot worse and declined very fast. I don't want to worry you, so I'll say no more about that, but after a very bad time trying different things, we decided to let her go to sleep, it was kinder to her.

sunbeam

Deleted User wrote: »

If I'm honest, I think she was too far gone - she was 18 when diagnosed and the medication did not seem to agree with her at all, if anything she got a lot worse and declined very fast. I don't want to worry you, so I'll say no more about that, but after a very bad time trying different things, we decided to let her go to sleep, it was kinder to her.

Sorry to hear that Loueze two of my elderly cats declined very quickly with different issues in the past year. It's heartbreaking.

My 15 year old cat has just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and has started on medication. No obvious side effects so far and she seems a bit happier and less agitated. She has other health issues so medication is probably her best option (have done my own research and discussed in detail with my vet).

She has gone from eating all around her back to her former super-fussy self. I'm buying her Gourmet Perle and Sheba because I know she will at least lick the gravy up and get her various meds into her. OP, I would definitely agree with heating food and perhaps squashing it up a bit if the chunks are too big.

Antares35

sunbeam wrote: »

Sorry to hear that Loueze two of my elderly cats declined very quickly with different issues in the past year. It's heartbreaking.

My 15 year old cat has just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and has started on medication. No obvious side effects so far and she seems a bit happier and less agitated. She has other health issues so medication is probably her best option (have done my own research and discussed in detail with my vet).

She has gone from eating all around her back to her former super-fussy self. I'm buying her Gourmet Perle and Sheba because I know she will at least lick the gravy up and get her various meds into her. OP, I would definitely agree with heating food and perhaps squashing it up a bit if the chunks are too big.

I was reading your post and was about to suggest squashing up the chunks too

Our one is a bit like that with the gravy, and I find if I get her the food in jellly, she eats the jelly too. It seems to be a fairly common condition. They used to call it the wasting house cat disease before there was a name for it. Our lad who passed away a few weeks ago, when I think about it now, I suspect he had it too and we didn't treat it. I'm wracked with guilt thinking about it, and the fact that the medication was here in the house for the other cat all along... It's a cruel irony. Anyway that's a different story. Like that he was circa 17 years. I think it can often go unnoticed early on because a lot of the signs are not red flags. I remember looking at him thinking god he's eating a lot, he's a great appetite these days. And marvelling at how kitten like he was during his mad skittish half hour each night. And the nighttime yowling I just put down to personality and becoming senile! In hindsight, the signs were all there but it's only when I research it now that it's clear to me

Mollyb60

Antares if you have trouble getting the kitty to sit still long enough to weigh him/her, and if it's a cat that tolerates being held in your arms, you can try the weigh yourself then weigh again whilst holding the cat trick. Subtract the two numbers and the difference is your cats weight.

I had to do the syringe feeding for my little cat too before and it's not easy at all and can be pretty stressful for the cat too. So I'd try everything else possible before going that route if I were you!

Could you get some low sodium chicken/beef stock maybe and add it to the food to make it smellier/more enticing?

Antares35

Managed to get a cancellation in UCD Monday

Faith

SillyMangoX wrote: »

Check with your vets first in case any food changes would affect her medical condition, but generally kitten food is higher in calories than adult/senior food so it might be worth trying her on kitten food instead as a boost to her weight. You could also try adding in some chicken, or some tinned fish in spring water. If my cats are really fussy I get some of the liquid cream treats for them and top their food with it which also really helps them to get going! I wouldn’t worry too much about quality of the food at this stage, ie. cheap supermarket stuff vs high end pet shop stuff, whatever she’ll eat happiest and regularly to get the weight up would be a bonus!

What are the liquid cream treats you mention? I’ve been looking for a liquid or paste treat to hide medication in for my cat.

Meathcat

Maybe try the snack route - I have two 18 month old cats and occasionally, all I can get them to eat is Dreamies. They are hunter cats so sometimes, they won't eat the pouch food I put down. This might go on for a day or two but I know when I put out some Dreamies in a bowl, they will eat them.

SillyMangoX

Faith wrote: »

What are the liquid cream treats you mention? I’ve been looking for a liquid or paste treat to hide medication in for my cat.

These are the ones I get, my cats love it. One of my guys has to take medicine every day for epilepsy so I crush the tablet and stir it in through this and it goes down perfectly every day https://zooplus.page.link/qQLL

Antares35

Faith wrote: »

What are the liquid cream treats you mention? I’ve been looking for a liquid or paste treat to hide medication in for my cat.

We use the vitakraft chicken or salmon flavour, or as a second best the maxi zoo own brand snack cream. It's called multifit.

ebbsy

Cats don't each much anyway.

I found that out from overfeeding mine.

Antares35

Just back from UCD with her. Unfortunately she isn't a candidate for the radioactive iodine treatment. She has a cyst inside the growth itself, which would significantly reduce the uptake of iodine and therefore success couldn't be guaranteed. Also because she is still picky about eating, they are anxious about the 2-4 week isolation period after as intervention e.g. feeding tube or IV would not be possible. It could be like signing her death warrant

However on the bright side, she's a candidate for thyroidectomy, and the surgeon assessed her and is happy to go ahead. Since the majority of the tumour is on one side, we will opt for single side treatment rather than double. Apparently removal of gland from both sides can risk damage to the parathyroid, which can upset calcium levels and cause problems with heart, seizures etc. Given that the smaller side is apparently lentil sized compared with 4.5 cm on the other, for now we will just opt for removal of the larger piece.

They are concerned that there is something underlying that is causing eating issues and they want to test first for this, but I've opted to have the surgery first and cross the bridge of further testing if and when needed. The vet agreed with me, that primary concern at this point is the lump. Delaying this looking for a diagnosis of something else doesn't strike me as wise. Especially because any diagnosis would likely not preclude her from surgery and won't get worse because of surgery. It's so hard to know whether we are making the right call. I'm concerned about the risk of surgery at her age but they seem confident and appear to have a very good clinical team.

They've tested her for blood clotting ability in case of issues during procedure, and pending this we will get her in next week for it so fingers crossed

ebbsy

Best of luck to your cat.

Mollyb60

That all sounds hopeful anyway Antares. Everything crossed for kitty's speedy recovery. I'd always trust the professionals and it sounds like they're considering all the bases which can give you some confidence.

Antares35

Mollyb60 wrote: »

That all sounds hopeful anyway Antares. Everything crossed for kitty's speedy recovery. I'd always trust the professionals and it sounds like they're considering all the bases which can give you some confidence.

They are definitely very thorough and I feel confident with her in their hands. At least she has options so let's we how we go. Although teh surgery is a risk, at least she will be home after and doesn't need to be isolated for a month. How could I explain that one to her

ebbsy

I remember one time I gave the moggie cat dessert for Christmas, and then it took me weeks to wean him off it !!! He expected it every day....

MDub13

Hi Antares, sorry to hear about your cat. How did the procedure go? They have recommended the same procedure to my cat and I am a bit worried. Thank you

pottokblue

My cat loves to have his tummy rubbed or tickled ears when eating its the bee knees, But if I go near tummy/ears when no food then its WATCHOUT ninja claws...