kitten will not eat enough on his own?

Question

my kitten is otherwise healthy & active, but is eating less and less recenly. he has only ever eaten dry food that I toss at him one piece at a time so that he can play with it and bat it around. i cannot afford to feed him all wet food.

also, when i feed him his mix of wet and dry food, he eats a few bites and goes away, but never comes back. He will let it sit there all day until I dump it out and get him a new bowl. He is really easily distracted from his food, and if he hears a noise, he just walks away and the whole bowl is wasted.

I go back to school next week and I am afraid he will not eat all day when I am not here to make him fresh food and toss dry food at him. Sometimes I have 10-12 hour days at school, which is too long for him not to eat. He didn't eat anything when we were gone all day for Christmas. What can I do to get him eating on his own? He just seems to be getting worse, eating less and requiring more and more effort to get him to eat.

kitten is 3-4 months old, has been eating solid food exclusively since we found him in a parking lot at about 7 weeks old.

i didn't say i had 12 hour days every day, just that they happen on occasion, maybe once a week. some days are two hour days, it varies. but he shouldn't ever go 12 hours without eating.

and taking our kitten into our home was a heck of a lot better than leaving him in the parking lot we found him in.

He has an appointment to get fixed next month!
We can afford the cat, but the wet food says 1can per pound per day and the cans cost 75 cents, b/c I do not buy him cheap stuff. I buy good cat food. I buy some wet and some dry. But on all wet food, that comes out to $80/month at 4 lbs. he will get bigger! plus litter, treats, toys, etc and the $160 I have spent at the vet getting him shots in the past month, plus the neutering and next round of shots coming up.
I am not unable to care for this cat and I do not feed him cow's milk or people food and I am home more than most people that work (I just am occassionally gone for 12 hours at a time. That is not animal abuse!) and it stinks that people try and turn my concern for my cat into a litany of ways in which I am irresponsible for adopting a stray that was sick and feral and probably would never have gotten adopted out of a shelter.

Answer 1

What ever you do, do not feed him anything other than cat food. Cats require very specific nutients, and they can not get that from human food.
Honestly, your kitten sounds pretty healthy. He plays, he is active, he is not vomiting. This could be normal for him. Not all cats are big eaters. Alot of cats are nibblers. This is why alot of cats need to have food out all the time. He should be eating kitten food.
I would just keep a eye out for vomiting, lethargy, hiding, agitation-all could be signs of an underlying problems. If he has not yet had a wellness exam with your vet, get one soon. Let your vet check him out, and see what he thinks. Force feeding him may not be necessary, and feeding him human food is NEVER a good idea.

As long as he is not losing weight, there might not be a problem. He is at that age though, when his body shape will be changing (he will enter into his long, slim phase) and that could easily be confused with weight loss. Rub him, feel his spine, pelvic bones and ribs. That is the best way to tell.
Remember-it is NOT in a healthy animals nature to starve, even if he doesn't like his food, he will eat it before starving.
But encouraging him to eat with better tasting, better texture food will not hurt.


***KUDOS to you...you obviously care about this kitten and you are right, your house is better than the parking lot you found him in. (I have "parking lot" kitty as well:-)

Answer 2

If he looks healthy, plays and isn't vomitting don't worry too much. Don't stress about feeding him all wet food. Put down dry food and fresh water in the morning and leave him be. Give him wet food at night time. He's 4 months old so 1/4 tin will be fine. Once he's eaten what he wants, take the wet food away. He still has his dry food there.

Does he get variety in the food you give him? My cats run on 2 varieties of dry food, I alternate each day. Buy some kitten milk as a treat in the morning. Just a little bit for brekky.

Don't underestimate his abilty to pick up on your anxiety about this either. You need to relax a little. Try and create a routine for him in the morning with the milk and then again at night time with the wet food. Give it a few days. And I know this might sound silly, but get excited when you're going to feed him. You know, it's dinner time, yum! Works with my cats.

Good luck.

Answer 3

I commend you for taking the kitten home with you. He will have a much happier life with you than he would be living on the street.

First and foremost - do not give him pasteurized cows milk. It can give him diarrhea which can lead to dehydration.

I have a question for you. Is your kitten chewing on things more than he was? Are his gums red or swollen with some of his teeth missing or look like they are only half way in? Since you say this is recent that he has started eating less, and all other activities are normal, I am wondering if he is teething. Kittens teeth between 4 and 7 months. He would eat less during this time. If this is what is going on with him, I would recommend feeding him soft cat food, since his gums will be sore from teething. Since I understand your not being able to feed him canned food all the time, I recommend buying Purina kitten chow. You can wet it down with lukewarm water (or replacement mothers milk available at the pet store) and the food will absorb the water and become soft.

You will also want to monitor his weight gain with a scale. Kittens grow so much during this time that it is sometimes hard to gauge weight gain/loss visually.

Your best bet is to contact your vet and have a check up done to make sure this is what is going on. Since he was a stray for a bit, he could have contracted diseases while living outside or from mom.

Here are a few web pages to check out in the meantime.

http://www.best-cat-tips.com/CatFood.htm
http://www.catvet.homestead.com/Raising_Healthy_Kittens_2004.pdf

Good luck with your new baby!

Answer 4

It may depend on the food you're giving him. When it comes to pet food, it pays to go expensive. Higher cost foods generally have more, better nutrients that pets need.

It's possible your cat just doesn't like the taste of the food you're giving him. Try changing it up to see if he eats the new stuff. Your local pet supply store should carry sample packs of different foods - pick those up and see which your cat likes most.

Last, if that doesn't work, your kitten may have health problems. My cat (17 years old) wasn't eating much about 7 months ago so I took him into the vet. Turns out he was in renal failure and needed special food. I had to start giving him fluid injections every couple of days along with the special food, but now he's eating more than he ever has. If it becomes a big concern, see your vet soon.

Answer 5

The simple answer is that the cat didn't think that particular kitten would or should survive. In eating it, she is following instinct, and also recycling the protein. She now has more milk for the two surviving kittens. She left the head because she was physically unable to eat it, unlike the rest of the carcass. This seems awful to us but happens a lot in the wild (and cats, whether we like it or not, are wild animals) Your cousin's handling of the kittens had nothing to do with it. The cat is not "bad" for doing this. She should not be punished or disliked for doing what she did. (when cats miscarry they usually eat the aborted embryos.)

Answer 6

This kitten needs to be seen by a vet.

Yes, you are right. Taking it home with you is much better than leaving it in a parking lot but you will need to consider if you are going to be able to keep it and be a responsible owner. If you are honest with yourself and don't think you can, please look for a new home now while it is still a kitten and easier to home than an adult cat is. If you can't afford cat food how are you going to afford to get it spayed/neutered? What are you going to do at a time like this when it needs health care? I don't mean to scold you. What you did is really commendable but it is so frustrating for animal lovers like myself to see this happen. This is the reason we need to have our pets spayed or neutered. Obviously whoever owned it before, or owned its mother didn't think so. Then a kind person like you comes along and wants to help but really isn't in a position to do so.

The one thing I would be concerned with right now is that there is something serious which it may have contracted before you got it or it may be having problems with its teeth. It should be getting some wet food because it needs the moisture. Do not feed it milk but make sure there is a bowl of water on the floor for it at all times.

Answer 7

For one, if you are gone that much I'm not sure why you took on the responsibility of a pet. Have you tried changing it's food? It may not like what you are feeding it. Also, not sure how old your cat is, but the food may be too hard for it to eat. I don't recommend wet catfood, but try some of the softer solid food. It is usually more desirable. A cat will eat almost anything if it's hungry enough, but I have two cats and when they don't like their food they can go a while without eating it.

Answer 8

If he seems healthy and active, maybe he is just full. Try leaving a little dish of dry food out for him. That way he can choose when he wants to eat and you won't have to worry about it spoiling. My cats only eat dry.......they like to eat small amounts throughout the day.

Answer 9

Try to get some Nutri-cal from the Petstore or Vet. I nursed many a sickly skinny annorexic pet back to health on that stuff. Cats love it too. It will get your kitty fat in no time!

Answer 10

well.. im not so good at cats. i do dogs. but my dog has had the same problem. try adding milk to the dry food. my dog loved it.. not so sure if a cat would.. but you could try. and also, give him less food as not to waste. good luck ;]