Make cat food smell more appetising?

[simon+delilah]

Hello!

I have had my cat Delilah for about 6 months, she is incredibly fussy when it comes to food, it has been a real struggle to get her to eat anything. Supermarket food, posh food she would turn her nose up at anything... then all of a sudden she kind of starts eating whiskas, so i try her on some ASDA stuff that is on special offer, to my surprise she liked it, so i put in a rather large order on ASDA!!

Now a few days in she is getting fussy on me! Click the link to image below to see the scale of my problem!

My question is.............. Can anyone recommend anything I could make or buy that I could put on her cat food to make it smell a bit more pungent and appealing? because if she has a sniff and it is not to her satisfaction she will turn her nose up at it, even if it is tasty! I should add that she maybe has cat flu, is often a bit bunged up and sniffy / sneezy which may not be helping.

many thanks


http://i.imgur.com/mzmtt0u.jpg

[greenkitty]

You could try warming it up, a few seconds in the microwave or adding some warm water to it. The vets sell something called Bisolvon which is a powder you add to food to help break down the mucus making it easier for them to breath, might be worth speaking to your vet about that. I used it for a long term cat flu sufferer and it does help. You could also try adding some water from tuna to the food.

[Kay]

My Tosker is permanently bunged up because of damage to his sinuses when young - l use Bisolven daily and Olbas Oil overnight, and find he manages dry food better than wet, because I think he already has enough secretions without adding gravy or jelly

Perhaps this is true of your girl?

[Janey]

I also used Bisolvon with my snuffly cat, he was permanently like that but the powder thinned out the mucus nicely. I also used a tiny drop of Olbas oil on a tissue behind a cushion where he was laid (as recommended by my vet) but I would check that’s ok with your vet. Another tip was to use a raised food and water bowl which helps when they are stuffed up, also when they get older with arthritic problems. I have some of the Asda food you’ve bought, as going by the review it was popular. I didn’t buy as much as you, thankfully, as they liked it a bit at first and now not so sure. I’ve just given my ferals some actually but I also gave them a little bit of ham (a treat) and some biscuits so that is another option. You could mix it with some food they like a lot. Best of luck!

[simon+delilah]

Thanks for the replies.. Bisolven daily and Olbas Oil sounds good, that is something i shall have to bring up with the vet on friday.

I wish I could buy the water from cans of tuna to sprinkle on her food! Tuna is her favourite thing in the world (apart from her lovely owner of course!) if it was not for the whole mercury thing i would LOVE TO give her tuna every evening and biscuits through the day. Tuna is the only food she will eat every time without fail!

[greenkitty]

You could take the tuna water from one can, water it down by adding more water to it and freeze it in a ice cube tray..

[Antonio]

You could take the tuna water from one can, water it down by adding more water to it and freeze it in a ice cube tray..

Am I the only one who thinks that ice cubes have a nasty taste even after they have melt down to water again?
Wouldn't iced tuna water change its taste when added to daily wet food?

[willowdragon]

Do you switch between dry and wet? I find that mine get bored of the texture, so I switch it up, sometimes I even mix the dry into the wet. I feed raw, but I also get my fur babies turning their nose up in fussiness; with mine I've found that sticking a couple of their favourite treats in every now and then encourages them to think it's different food. I put a few cubes of chedder in, or sprinkle a little cheese on top, and if I have fish for dinner I keep the offcuts and boil them into stock, freeze the stock in an ice cube tray, then when I put their food out I melt a fish stock cube over it: that way they're enthralled by the fishy smell, and they get a healthy dose of water too.

[vanilla]

Like willowdragon suggests, try mixing some high meat/fish content dry food with the wet food. Mine is a bit fussy about eating Butchers best but will happily eat all of it if I mix some James Wellbeloved dry cat food with it!

[LittlePenBigHeart]

When you say 'posh food', what food is it?

Cats should really be on a higher meat diet than any of the supermarket brands offer. They're carnivores yet ALL (without exception as far as I've seen) supermarket brands, from Whiskas and KiteKat, Felix and Gourmet, Sheba and own-brands, contain merely 4% animal and meat DERIVATIVES. That means it's not even real meat. It's the stuff that's taken FROM the meat. It's basically like McDonalds for cats but they make it sound in adverts and on packaging as though it's great, healthy, brilliant stuff for cats. Well, many cats are happy living on McDonalds, the way many people are happy living on it. But an increasing number of cats, so it seems, are refusing the low meat content foods.

Your best bet is to find a product that contains a higher meat content. In many cases, it actually works out cheaper because you don't need to feed them so much when they're getting the nutrition they need from a smaller portion. So what are the better brands? Cheshire Cat, Applaws, Canagan, More, Symply, Hi-Life (not as good as the others but still better). They're all great foods, with feeding guides on the side. Canagan is particularly transparent on their ingredients list and along with Cheshire Cat is the best one out there.

Definitely worth a try!

[Trish_Kitty]

Oh dear, how much food have you bought

I stumbled upon this article on Pinterest recently with an infographic about ideas to improve cats diet. Since I like to save my links, here it is:
https://www.felineliving.net/improving-cat-diet/ although they don't talk about making food taste better, they do have some great ideas to improve the food quality for health needs.

Maybe some of those ideas will also attract your cat to the food as well. Like adding fish or steamed meat to the food. You could do it in small doses so that you don't spoil your cat and get left with 50lb of food

I will check out on Pinterest if there are any other articles like this for you and If I find them I will let you know. Let's find a way for your cat to swallow those food boxes