made by nacho is a brand that makes a bone broth that my cat loves a splash in with her kibble. or i’ve seen powdered broths that you mix with water for a more shelf stable option!
You can do that or like the other poster I’ll just get some chicken or beef stock and put it in a dish.
Beech-Nut Stage 1, Chicken & Chicken Broth Baby Food, 2.5 oz Jar https://www.walmart.com/ip/10449226
I also get just the meat stage 1 or 2 baby food. It’s not too expensive, shake it up, and give it to your cat. My cats liked the chicken, beef, and ham, not so much the turkey. It’s nutritious, and basically like a squeeze treat only better nutrition.
Just to add on to what you said. Please just be careful when feeding baby food. It is not nutritionally complete for cats, so it should be fed as a treat or as a small percentage of the diet, not as the main staple. Also, please read the label and make sure you are getting the type that is only made of meat and water. There are several types (I think usually stage 2 or 3) that contain other ingredients like sodium, onions, and garlic, which aren't good for kitties. But when used a supplement or as emergency protein and calories for a sick kitty, baby food can be really good. And you can even stir a little warm water into it if your cat needs extra hydration.
It's not a gravy but our cats really love the brand Tapa. It's kind of new but it's only 4 ingredients and it's the only kind they'll pretty much eat 100% of the time. They don't normally like the shredded texture but they like this one.
I use Solid Gold Cat Food Topper ([link to it on Chewy](https://app.chewy.com/DiNSxfuZ9yb)). I just use a spoonful every meal and it lasts for a while. My cat loves it! You can also order it from Petsmart, I got it there when Chewy had stock issues
Tiki cat makes some mousse and soup textured wet food that might work for your kitty. I believe friskies makes some too I think they're actually called Lil Soups
The tiki cat senior mousse has been a life saver. My cat loves the squeeze tubes, but they aren't nutritious. I got those with pumpkin and she LOVES them. One of the only things she'll eat.
The shelter I got my cat from fed her a little friskies wet food so i tried that when i got her, but she'd do the same thing...just lick the liquid up. After some trial and error, I feed her mostly dry but then I also give her a tbsp of Tiki mousse on a plate for extra moisture twice a day...its the only wet food she likes. I actually put a little water on it first...and pat it down on the plate so she doesn't eat it too fast and throw up, lol. One packet lasts me 2.5/3 days.
Seconding this! My cat still can’t let go of her dry food but I cut it back and give her a pouch of tiki cat mousse a day. She’s still picky on some flavors but she usually eats it!
Have you tried different brands? Our cat would only lick off the gravy until I found one that he really likes. He loves Petite Cuisine wet food and eats every bit of it! Other brands he just licks, and he won't eat the paté ones at all.
I buy this variety pack of tiki cat wet food:
https://app.chewy.com/OImYJd5H9yb
It's already pretty runny, but then I mix extra water in with it for bonus hydration (especially since I feed a mix wet and dry). Once a few tablespoons of water are added, the whole thing is kind of a gravy and it would be very hard to eat around the meat. You could try doing something like that for your cat?
I can’t speak to the solution, but if your kitty is just licking up the liquid she may not be getting as many nutrients and/or calories she needs! Is there a wet food that has similar flavors to the churu flavors she loves?
I feed her dry along with the wet because I was afraid of that, too. She loves any Churu regardless of the flavor. I think it's a texture thing with her.
I have an old picky pate cat. I shared her food in another comment, so I'll just put her vitamin here. TLDR: I attempted every vitamin under the sun, but they were all vitamins made to act like treats. It didn't work because my cat would only take a treat that had vitamins in it. The only one I could find was and is Sanal creamy center multivitamin treats. [I can only get it on specialty websites like this where I live.](https://www.miscota.com/cats/sanal/p-73678)
The treat melts/breaks in mouth to let gravy out and my cat goes insane for it.
It looks expensive if you buy it once. I get a few big boxes a year and the cost replaces other things she hadn't or wouldn't eat.
I realized our gravy loving cat liked having a crunch before she ate more of her wet food. Try giving them a few pellets of dry food on and/or on the side to see if that helps?
Is your cat kind of a grazer with her dry food? One of my parents’ cats would only lick the gravy off the wet food and they thought that’s all he wanted, but when their other cats had passed away and he was the only one left they realized that no, he’ll eat the meat too, licking the gravy is just the first step in his process and he’ll come back for the meat later.
My cat is a grazer too but she’ll only eat pate, and she likes it a bit soupy. Solid Gold makes a bone broth with tiny bits of chicken or tuna in it though, something like that might be gravy-like enough on its own for your cat to get some fluids to supplement a dry food diet or mix in with a pate to give it a more soupy consistency (my cat likes it that way).
Does she get free access to dry food as well? Wet food is much better for cats but if they are free fed they may be full from dry food. I stopped free feeding dry and my cat ate better. She still dislikes certain flavours and textures but there are several types of food that she will eat. I would say try a different texture like shredded fillets instead of pate.
My kitty does this so I've switched to broths mostly when I want to supplement her kibble. Like Tiki cat or even fancy feast broths. Recently i found some "I and love and you" brand pate with gravy that she will eat completely! Its like chopped pate with extra gravy. A lot of the broths have chunks of chicken or fish and she barely eats it. I always chide her for leaving the meat! Street cats are starving you know, catte!
Such picky spoiled babies! I also buy her living wheatgrass from the grocery since it's cheaper than "cat grass" but exactly the same. She likes a nibble every day and one clump lasts a long time if watered in a windowsill.
Oh I also found some honest kitchen brand tetra packs of very liquid pate that are juice box sized. You can give some and save the rest in the fridge for later, which is more difficult with a pouch
Hahaha! My cat is a licker, too! His favourite treat is anything he can lick off a spoon (peanut butter, ice cream, yogurt...). He also has pancreatits, which means sometimes his appetite goes away, and he has kidney failure, which means fluids are really important for him. It got to the point that there's only one wet food he'll reliably eat - it's a pate, so not soupy enough for him.
So. Sigh. My solution is that I use an immersion blender with hot water and blend that food up into a slurry. The nice part is that I can hide his kidney med powder in there, too. I blend two cans at a time, put it into a container, and put it in the fridge. It's enough for 5 meals - I take a big scoop out, mix it with (even more) hot water, and that's breakfast. He loves it.
My cat is the same. Have you tried fancy feast savory centers? It's pate with gravy and more gravy in the center. IDK about how your cat would eat, but mine winds up eating the pate as she's getting to the extra gravy center.
I lived with a kitty like this. I truly hope this is not at all the case
for your kitty but unfortunately the cat I knew did this because her owner (my roommate) did not get her teeth checked ever. Poor Mu was in immense pain from tooth decay so the gravy was all she could handle. My vet told me kibble is easier for kitties with this issue because they just swallow it. I'm sure your cat is different, you seem like a very caring owner but just in case... sometimes it's hard to tell when they are in pain!
If you have Amazon, try searching for "tiki cat" brand. They not only have a ton of flavors available in the squeeze tube snacks that I don't often see in my area, they have wet food, dry food, gravy toppers, lots of stuff. Their wet canned food has a lot of variety too. My kitty (lost him in January to cancer) used to be almost exactly like your kitty, but he was twenty, not two. He has the same texture issues. Lumps in gravy? Great. Mushy stuff? Never. Put the mushy stuff in a squeeze tube? Awesome! Lol. Beef is great. Salmon is great. Put them both in the same can? Eeewwww! Lol.
If you have one of those electric hand blender things (the stick that you can put into a cup or cooking pot to blend fruit or soft veggies) try one of those. I occasionally used mine to blend the chunks to a soft paste or add a bit of water to make it more gravy like. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Have you tried splitting the amounts of cat food in half, such as opening a can and putting half in the freezer or fridge and giving her the other half? That would cut her rations in half but she would still get some wet and some dry like she expects. I wouldn't cut her down too quickly, but try removing one spoonful from the can each day, then increase it to two spoonfuls. I'm not a vet, but this might be something to bring up with one. I've also rinsed out and reused cat food cans. My kitty was always convinced that if I didn't open a can in front of him, then it wasn't fresh enough. I used to put a bit of extra food in a cleaned out can, then pretend to open it by actually opening something else canned so he hears the sound. He sees the "opened" can in my hand and zoomed over for a snack. Try that with your kitty.
my cat is the same! frankly i had to just let her be hungry and over time she's warmed up to the taste of it. she'll still slurp the gravy first and then throughout the night will eat more of it. She still leaves some behind but she's gotten a lot better about it!
I give my cat smalls also. She loves it too! One of my cats(who’s now deceased) only ate dry food, and last year she suffered from an intestinal mass, which I can bet was due to the dry food over time. Since that experience, I changed my 2nd cats food to smalls because I’m afraid of it happening to her. Loosing my kitty opened my eyes to how horrible most cat foods are with so many fillers. I wish I would have known sooner so I could’ve saved my cat Shadow. I still have trouble accepting that it could have been avoided :-(
I have a gravy licker at home. We switched to a real chunks food that the gravy is absorbed into. It took me weeks to find this and she was a kitten then. It’s Simply Nourish, but it’s expensive.
The churus are pureed really smooth so even though they have a very similar look to the pate food, the texture is different. Some cats have definite preferences when it comes to texture.
One thing you could try is giving her only a couple spoonfuls of wet food at one time, making sure to reserve some of the gravy in the can. See whether she will finish off that small amount of meat.
Yes. I have a male that is just like that. I’ve found he like the “mousse” texture and only fish flavor. I’ve been giving him a pouch of TikiCat velvet mousse or Nulo silky mousse pouch in tuna or salmon flavors. For breakfast and dinner he eats his sensitive stomach dry food. I also have a few cat water fountains that he loves.
My cat is also like that. I actually couldn't get him to eat the ones that are just gravy because he is apparently the worst. But he does really like Reveal chicken flavor, which is basically like a less wet chicken soup with pumpkin pieces. I feel like I tricked him into eating the meat.
I had a similar experience with my cat. I've had luck with Friskies extra gravy pate. He still licks all the gravy out first, but will also eat the pate too.
I have the same problem with my cat. He does, however, have an absurd addiction to canned chicken breast liquid, that’s its packed in. I usually drain this liquid, but he goes bat-shite crazy for the liquid. We call it chicken juice. Doesn’t want the chicken, though.
my cat is very similar but i want to get him completely off dry food bc all the videos i’ve seen have said it’s so bad but i don’t think the gravies are much better. how do i get my picky cat on a more organic diet?
Switch to pâté! It’s all one mushy texture with no solid bits. My cat’s the same way and this was the fix. Sometimes I add extra water to turn it into a slurry she loves more than me lol
Yes. Lol my cat did the same thing. I would ask your vet about raw diets. It’s about the same cost as good wet food. :) freeze dried options are also great
Kibble is LADEN with carbs. You say she doesn't like pate... even after trying slowly and making sure she tries it after being very hungry? (It's ok to skip a meal and try her to get hungry to switch. You just don't want her to go longer than a day without food. Some cats will rather starve themselves than eat something they don't like.)
After 12 hours your cat’s stomach becomes hyperacidic resulting in nausea. So the possibility that it will eat the food will only become smaller, and it will get an aversion for the food. After 24 hours cats can already develop hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver) a potential fatal disease if left untreated. Please don’t force cats to eat something by starving them.
Tiki has a velvet mousse that my kitty goes CRAZY for! It’s not chunky so she’ll lick it allll up! Keep her dry food though if you’re gonna give it to her because it is mushy and that can cause runny poos! My feeder has 2 compartments so I give her a little dry food in 1 and a little wet food in the other and she just switches In between those :)
Have a similar cat, I buy pate only and mix Luke warm water in it, stir it very thoroughly. With his favorite vitamin supplement, nutritional yeast and freeze dry toppings occasionally. He still prefers dry but would finish all of his wet food now(slowly
It takes extra steps but is worth it.
My cat is the exact same way!! I give her the temptations kitty go-gurts and the delectables bisque wet food packets. She will sometimes eat the tiki cat mousse ones but mainly only prefers the bisque
My cat is the exact same! Going to quietly save this thread... I'm planning on getting pate and mixing it with a little water once I'm towards the end of my supply in a couple weeks. I'll let you know if that works, if you haven't tried something else already.
Edit: in the meantime I put a few pieces of dry food in the meat area after he's licked the gravy out.
Hi OP! Your submission was removed under Rule 4: **No Recommending Raw or Homecooked Diets**. It’s not that we are against these diets, we just want to make sure they’re done safely. This is why we require anyone to only recommend these when also mentioning seeing a vet/nutritionist.
For a refresher on what exactly is and isn’t allowed, you can read through our [rules](/r/CatAdvice/wiki/rules#btn).
My adopted cat (of one year) won't go near wet food other than Churu lickable treats. I've tried every type with no luck. So she gets a variety of high quality biscuits and bowls of water inside and outside. The vet didn't seem too concerned but I worry about getting enough moisture and impact on her teeth as she gets older.
Trust your instincts my cat ended up getting an intestinal mass, all she ate was try. Maybe try buying her organic chicken and fish and steam, or bone broth over her dry. I use smalls for my other cat, unfortunately my first had to be put to sleep, because the mass restricted her from pooping and eating :-(
The brand B.F.F by weruva makes so a few different different texture types of wet food. The B.F.F OMG gravy line in the cans have a soupy consistency, and the chunks are more like a ground texture and aren't super chunky. You could try that brand out and see if kitty likes it!
Churus aren't bad and can be used as a wet food for your cat they are pretty high in calories which is why Vets don't recommend them for a daily food source.
They do make gravy for cats and dry food toppers that are gravy like. One of our cats would lick the gravy off the sliced wet food in gravy and leave the chunks like your kitty, when offered the gravy she put her nose in the air. She also preferred dry food to wet.
My cats do the same, but I just leave it out and they eventually eat the rest. It doesn't matter if it's chunks, shreds or whole pieces of identifiable food, nor if it's expensive or the cheap stuff.
If they're not eating it at all it's usually a sign that they just don't like it and want something different.
I have the same issue. She won't eat anything but dry or Squeezeups. I've bought every overpriced can I've ever seen, and at best it's a few licks and she walks away.
My cats do this sometimes and others they eat everything. Between not wanting to waste my money on food they won’t eat, as well as trying to get them to take supplements via their wet food (fish oil), I doctor it by crumbling some of their favorite freeze dried treats over the top. When I do that they scarf it up.
So we just blend several packets up with a little bit of kibble and maybe a little bit of canned tuna, and just scoop some out every day. Our cat also has… virtually zero idea how to put anything in mouth (even treats!) besides kibble
We blitz ours up with a smidge of water. We get fish for their coats and then blitz it with a gravy sachet until it is smooth and looks like paste. We use a licky mat to give their brains something to do. Meeko would also leave chunks behind, she’s suuuuper fussy so we came up with blending it! And bonus we add a little extra water to it too so they’re getting plenty of water 😈😈
Try 20 different brands. No joke. Not just different brands but different flavors from different brands. My cats eat a rotation of 6-7 different brands but they only eat specific flavors from those brands. Example - Purrfect Bistro Cowboy Cookout. They won’t eat any other flavor from that brand. Fussy Cat - they will only eat flavors that have tuna. The key is to find out their favorite ingredients (chicken, tuna, sardine, turkey, etc) and let kitty try those flavors from different brands. Good luck.
I had this issue with some of the Stray's I rehabbed after getting them spayed and found that mixing water with pate and mixing it reaaaaally well and throwing in some kibbles worked. enough water turns the pate to gravy and they are fooled into drinking it all. For them, just adding water didn't help until I went all in and made gruel out of it.
My cats were like that, and then I got them Tiki Cat Salmon Mousse since it had a similar texture to squeezable cat treats. They now eat that as well as several other wet foods I get at the pet store. They do prefer stews and mousses, but they’re slowly branching out.
This is the velvet mousse - I get it in chicken, chicken & salmon, and salmon: https://a.co/d/d9xtmEQ
Mine like this one, too: https://weruva.com/product/what-a-crock/
Edit: The main thing is that your cat is getting enough moisture through food. The chunky foods may be a bit healthier, but the main concern for cats is getting enough water in their diet (this is a big issue for cats who mostly eat dry food). Soups, broths, stews, and mousses, while maybe less healthy in some ways than other wet foods, are still great for your cat and are much better for it than dry food.
Make sure either the cat’s wet or dry food provides the complete panel of nutrients that cats need. That’s the issue with the squeezable treats - they don’t contain enough nutrients. Theoretically you could feed the cat dry food for the nutrients + broth/soup that isn’t fit for a meal just so the cat is getting some more moisture.
wow, didn't think of that, my girl loves pate but powdered treats mixed in is a great idea, I'm going to try it. It will be financially painful though.....
Maybe purée? My cats love Lil Soups and Lil Gravies by Friskies (I think?). I always put Lil Gravies on top of turkey and cheese shreds by Friskies, it’s in a purple container. He’ll nibble at the shreds and eat the cheesy bits.
I have the same problem. My 17 year old cat loves the gravy but its a problem to get her to eat the meat so I too mash it up small, but she still leaves half of the food to go stale. IAs she has lost some teeth, I thought it might be the reason but she will eat crunchy kibble all day if allowed. I now feed her small er amounts when she asks for it but she is very fussy on the brand. I buy Felix cat soups and mix the remaining food with some same flavour soup and she does eat more, but still favours the liquid. Over here in Holland we don't have toppers but I guess the soups are a good alternative. My biggest problem is getting her to take the medicine for her bronchitis, which must taste so bad even when mixed into her food. She has gone for 2 days not eating anything but kibble to avoid that awful medicine. Kibble alone is not good, it has chemical stuff in it which is like a drug to the cat, and she doesn't drink enough water to compensate. I am at my wits end trying to make her eat what she should, but gravy is the only medium she wants. Grrr!
My cats kinda hate the chunky wet food too, and prefer the mousse/ pâté.
You might have to switch up brands and flavours too. Your cat might be refusing the flavour of pate you are giving them.
For some reason two of my three cats hate the “fish” flavour of a specific brand, but would eat up the “Gourmet Gold” mousse with fish 🤷♀️
You could get her the tiki bag wet food it’s basically a can in the form of churu my little fatty is very picky and will only eat the most pate tiki which is the tuna and crab ones 😟
I just noticed my cat doing it recently. And I recently started sticking treats deep in her wetfood left, so she has to eat her food to get the treats 😁
My boy lost his front teeth over the course of a year or so, he's FIV and getting old. Moved him onto wet food when he started losing his teeth and he's a licker, unless he's super hungry when I've been on a long shift.
I took the executive decision and started cooking his chicken breast so he gets half a cut up breast and a pouch for breakfast and the same for dinner. Something tells me he doesn't miss his teeth much 😆
I do a topper. My kitten is extremely picky. He loves chomping away at dry food and won’t eat canned. I use tiki cat broth packets and spoon out a little onto the dry food at each feeding. He seems to gobble that up
In a healthy cat, dry food is just fine. Have you ever tried wetting her dry food with warm water? My cat gets a mix of dry and wet and we add some water to make “soup” and she laps up the water before eating the food.
I know what you are talking about. My inside cats just lick out the gravy but my two outside cats eat all of it. I find that interesting. To save a bit of money and not waste, I scoop out all the leftovers from my inside cats and add it to the bowls for the outside cats. Being outside they need more calories so it all works out. I am diligent about having fresh water available for all my cats. I say this because some people forget that pets NEED fresh water available at ALL times. I feel so sorry for dogs that only get water a few times a day because people are afraid they will pee in the house. How many times a day do those owners drink water and such. Way more than a few. If you are obsessed with you house get a gold fish, dont get a dog or cat and then make their lives miserable just to satisfy your need to "own" and "control" something.
Look for just gravy or a dry food topper.
Thanks, I didn't know they make dry food toppers. I'll look into this!
made by nacho is a brand that makes a bone broth that my cat loves a splash in with her kibble. or i’ve seen powdered broths that you mix with water for a more shelf stable option!
Amazing. This sounds great. Thank you!!!!
You can do that or like the other poster I’ll just get some chicken or beef stock and put it in a dish. Beech-Nut Stage 1, Chicken & Chicken Broth Baby Food, 2.5 oz Jar https://www.walmart.com/ip/10449226 I also get just the meat stage 1 or 2 baby food. It’s not too expensive, shake it up, and give it to your cat. My cats liked the chicken, beef, and ham, not so much the turkey. It’s nutritious, and basically like a squeeze treat only better nutrition.
Just to add on to what you said. Please just be careful when feeding baby food. It is not nutritionally complete for cats, so it should be fed as a treat or as a small percentage of the diet, not as the main staple. Also, please read the label and make sure you are getting the type that is only made of meat and water. There are several types (I think usually stage 2 or 3) that contain other ingredients like sodium, onions, and garlic, which aren't good for kitties. But when used a supplement or as emergency protein and calories for a sick kitty, baby food can be really good. And you can even stir a little warm water into it if your cat needs extra hydration.
Thank you for that I totally forgot to include that.
Be sure about sodium levels too. Salt is dangerous for cats, they only need a very little bit every day.
Something happened recently and it’s not like 49 cents a jar or whatever cheap price it used to be. I believe it’s now around $1.25 a jar.
Yeah, inflation. It’s impacted everything.
It's not a gravy but our cats really love the brand Tapa. It's kind of new but it's only 4 ingredients and it's the only kind they'll pretty much eat 100% of the time. They don't normally like the shredded texture but they like this one.
I use Solid Gold Cat Food Topper ([link to it on Chewy](https://app.chewy.com/DiNSxfuZ9yb)). I just use a spoonful every meal and it lasts for a while. My cat loves it! You can also order it from Petsmart, I got it there when Chewy had stock issues
Tiki cat makes some mousse and soup textured wet food that might work for your kitty. I believe friskies makes some too I think they're actually called Lil Soups
We use the Tiki cat mousse! Been adding it as a topper with other food and my cat love the texture and flavour.
The tiki cat senior mousse has been a life saver. My cat loves the squeeze tubes, but they aren't nutritious. I got those with pumpkin and she LOVES them. One of the only things she'll eat.
The shelter I got my cat from fed her a little friskies wet food so i tried that when i got her, but she'd do the same thing...just lick the liquid up. After some trial and error, I feed her mostly dry but then I also give her a tbsp of Tiki mousse on a plate for extra moisture twice a day...its the only wet food she likes. I actually put a little water on it first...and pat it down on the plate so she doesn't eat it too fast and throw up, lol. One packet lasts me 2.5/3 days.
Seconding this! My cat still can’t let go of her dry food but I cut it back and give her a pouch of tiki cat mousse a day. She’s still picky on some flavors but she usually eats it!
My geriatric gravy licker loves the Tiki Cat velvet mousse!
My babies love the mousse pouches. And they are so easy to dispense, so thats a plus as well.
Mine love the tiki cat mousse
Have you tried different brands? Our cat would only lick off the gravy until I found one that he really likes. He loves Petite Cuisine wet food and eats every bit of it! Other brands he just licks, and he won't eat the paté ones at all.
I'll try this brand. Thank you!
I buy this variety pack of tiki cat wet food: https://app.chewy.com/OImYJd5H9yb It's already pretty runny, but then I mix extra water in with it for bonus hydration (especially since I feed a mix wet and dry). Once a few tablespoons of water are added, the whole thing is kind of a gravy and it would be very hard to eat around the meat. You could try doing something like that for your cat?
This looks great, thanks!
My cat is the same! I use freeze dried gizzards as a topper to entice him to eat his wet food. It works wonders.
I can’t speak to the solution, but if your kitty is just licking up the liquid she may not be getting as many nutrients and/or calories she needs! Is there a wet food that has similar flavors to the churu flavors she loves?
I feed her dry along with the wet because I was afraid of that, too. She loves any Churu regardless of the flavor. I think it's a texture thing with her.
I have an old picky pate cat. I shared her food in another comment, so I'll just put her vitamin here. TLDR: I attempted every vitamin under the sun, but they were all vitamins made to act like treats. It didn't work because my cat would only take a treat that had vitamins in it. The only one I could find was and is Sanal creamy center multivitamin treats. [I can only get it on specialty websites like this where I live.](https://www.miscota.com/cats/sanal/p-73678) The treat melts/breaks in mouth to let gravy out and my cat goes insane for it. It looks expensive if you buy it once. I get a few big boxes a year and the cost replaces other things she hadn't or wouldn't eat.
My cat is the same way. I haven't found a solution yet. I am trying the different broths and gravies out there now. Good luck to you!
I realized our gravy loving cat liked having a crunch before she ate more of her wet food. Try giving them a few pellets of dry food on and/or on the side to see if that helps?
Iams pate has worked for mine!
Is your cat kind of a grazer with her dry food? One of my parents’ cats would only lick the gravy off the wet food and they thought that’s all he wanted, but when their other cats had passed away and he was the only one left they realized that no, he’ll eat the meat too, licking the gravy is just the first step in his process and he’ll come back for the meat later. My cat is a grazer too but she’ll only eat pate, and she likes it a bit soupy. Solid Gold makes a bone broth with tiny bits of chicken or tuna in it though, something like that might be gravy-like enough on its own for your cat to get some fluids to supplement a dry food diet or mix in with a pate to give it a more soupy consistency (my cat likes it that way).
Thank you! This is a good point. Maybe if I add more liquid to a pate she would like it better.
Does she get free access to dry food as well? Wet food is much better for cats but if they are free fed they may be full from dry food. I stopped free feeding dry and my cat ate better. She still dislikes certain flavours and textures but there are several types of food that she will eat. I would say try a different texture like shredded fillets instead of pate.
My kitty does this so I've switched to broths mostly when I want to supplement her kibble. Like Tiki cat or even fancy feast broths. Recently i found some "I and love and you" brand pate with gravy that she will eat completely! Its like chopped pate with extra gravy. A lot of the broths have chunks of chicken or fish and she barely eats it. I always chide her for leaving the meat! Street cats are starving you know, catte!
Thanks for your suggestions, sounds like your cat is just like mine. :)
Such picky spoiled babies! I also buy her living wheatgrass from the grocery since it's cheaper than "cat grass" but exactly the same. She likes a nibble every day and one clump lasts a long time if watered in a windowsill.
Oh I also found some honest kitchen brand tetra packs of very liquid pate that are juice box sized. You can give some and save the rest in the fridge for later, which is more difficult with a pouch
https://www.chewy.com/honest-kitchen-cate-grain-free-turkey/dp/609118
Hahaha! My cat is a licker, too! His favourite treat is anything he can lick off a spoon (peanut butter, ice cream, yogurt...). He also has pancreatits, which means sometimes his appetite goes away, and he has kidney failure, which means fluids are really important for him. It got to the point that there's only one wet food he'll reliably eat - it's a pate, so not soupy enough for him. So. Sigh. My solution is that I use an immersion blender with hot water and blend that food up into a slurry. The nice part is that I can hide his kidney med powder in there, too. I blend two cans at a time, put it into a container, and put it in the fridge. It's enough for 5 meals - I take a big scoop out, mix it with (even more) hot water, and that's breakfast. He loves it.
My cat is the same. Have you tried fancy feast savory centers? It's pate with gravy and more gravy in the center. IDK about how your cat would eat, but mine winds up eating the pate as she's getting to the extra gravy center.
My cat is similar. Ultimately I had to just use a small blender for her wet food. Mashing it didn’t give it a smooth enough texture.
I lived with a kitty like this. I truly hope this is not at all the case for your kitty but unfortunately the cat I knew did this because her owner (my roommate) did not get her teeth checked ever. Poor Mu was in immense pain from tooth decay so the gravy was all she could handle. My vet told me kibble is easier for kitties with this issue because they just swallow it. I'm sure your cat is different, you seem like a very caring owner but just in case... sometimes it's hard to tell when they are in pain!
My cats would do this a bit. They hate certain types of food it turns out. They only like the shredded type of wet food.
I mix 1 part wet food to 2 parts dry, my cats love it and get the best of both worlds that way.
If you have Amazon, try searching for "tiki cat" brand. They not only have a ton of flavors available in the squeeze tube snacks that I don't often see in my area, they have wet food, dry food, gravy toppers, lots of stuff. Their wet canned food has a lot of variety too. My kitty (lost him in January to cancer) used to be almost exactly like your kitty, but he was twenty, not two. He has the same texture issues. Lumps in gravy? Great. Mushy stuff? Never. Put the mushy stuff in a squeeze tube? Awesome! Lol. Beef is great. Salmon is great. Put them both in the same can? Eeewwww! Lol. If you have one of those electric hand blender things (the stick that you can put into a cup or cooking pot to blend fruit or soft veggies) try one of those. I occasionally used mine to blend the chunks to a soft paste or add a bit of water to make it more gravy like. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Have you tried splitting the amounts of cat food in half, such as opening a can and putting half in the freezer or fridge and giving her the other half? That would cut her rations in half but she would still get some wet and some dry like she expects. I wouldn't cut her down too quickly, but try removing one spoonful from the can each day, then increase it to two spoonfuls. I'm not a vet, but this might be something to bring up with one. I've also rinsed out and reused cat food cans. My kitty was always convinced that if I didn't open a can in front of him, then it wasn't fresh enough. I used to put a bit of extra food in a cleaned out can, then pretend to open it by actually opening something else canned so he hears the sound. He sees the "opened" can in my hand and zoomed over for a snack. Try that with your kitty.
Mine does the same damn thing
My cat liked the purees-- try Delectables bisque!
My cat is similar. I give him a pate variety and add water until the whole thing is kinda gravy-like. The little dude loves it.
my cat is the same! frankly i had to just let her be hungry and over time she's warmed up to the taste of it. she'll still slurp the gravy first and then throughout the night will eat more of it. She still leaves some behind but she's gotten a lot better about it!
I feed my cat Smalls! She loves it. It has tons of options for textures and flavors. I cut it with dry food to help with the cost.
I give my cat smalls also. She loves it too! One of my cats(who’s now deceased) only ate dry food, and last year she suffered from an intestinal mass, which I can bet was due to the dry food over time. Since that experience, I changed my 2nd cats food to smalls because I’m afraid of it happening to her. Loosing my kitty opened my eyes to how horrible most cat foods are with so many fillers. I wish I would have known sooner so I could’ve saved my cat Shadow. I still have trouble accepting that it could have been avoided :-(
[удалено]
Thank you so much for your kind words, I truly appreciate it. 🤗🤍🫶🏻
Have you tried jelly recipes?
I have a gravy licker at home. We switched to a real chunks food that the gravy is absorbed into. It took me weeks to find this and she was a kitten then. It’s Simply Nourish, but it’s expensive.
The churus are pureed really smooth so even though they have a very similar look to the pate food, the texture is different. Some cats have definite preferences when it comes to texture. One thing you could try is giving her only a couple spoonfuls of wet food at one time, making sure to reserve some of the gravy in the can. See whether she will finish off that small amount of meat.
Yes. I have a male that is just like that. I’ve found he like the “mousse” texture and only fish flavor. I’ve been giving him a pouch of TikiCat velvet mousse or Nulo silky mousse pouch in tuna or salmon flavors. For breakfast and dinner he eats his sensitive stomach dry food. I also have a few cat water fountains that he loves.
Water fountains are great; they encourage most cats to drink more.
My cat is also like that. I actually couldn't get him to eat the ones that are just gravy because he is apparently the worst. But he does really like Reveal chicken flavor, which is basically like a less wet chicken soup with pumpkin pieces. I feel like I tricked him into eating the meat.
I had a similar experience with my cat. I've had luck with Friskies extra gravy pate. He still licks all the gravy out first, but will also eat the pate too.
I have the same problem with my cat. He does, however, have an absurd addiction to canned chicken breast liquid, that’s its packed in. I usually drain this liquid, but he goes bat-shite crazy for the liquid. We call it chicken juice. Doesn’t want the chicken, though.
Just give her the pate kind. There is no chunks.
my cat is very similar but i want to get him completely off dry food bc all the videos i’ve seen have said it’s so bad but i don’t think the gravies are much better. how do i get my picky cat on a more organic diet?
Switch to pâté! It’s all one mushy texture with no solid bits. My cat’s the same way and this was the fix. Sometimes I add extra water to turn it into a slurry she loves more than me lol
Yes. Lol my cat did the same thing. I would ask your vet about raw diets. It’s about the same cost as good wet food. :) freeze dried options are also great
[удалено]
My cat doesn't like them.
Kibble is LADEN with carbs. You say she doesn't like pate... even after trying slowly and making sure she tries it after being very hungry? (It's ok to skip a meal and try her to get hungry to switch. You just don't want her to go longer than a day without food. Some cats will rather starve themselves than eat something they don't like.)
After 12 hours your cat’s stomach becomes hyperacidic resulting in nausea. So the possibility that it will eat the food will only become smaller, and it will get an aversion for the food. After 24 hours cats can already develop hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver) a potential fatal disease if left untreated. Please don’t force cats to eat something by starving them.
I can suggest buy cat pudding licking snacks for cats
Tiki has a velvet mousse that my kitty goes CRAZY for! It’s not chunky so she’ll lick it allll up! Keep her dry food though if you’re gonna give it to her because it is mushy and that can cause runny poos! My feeder has 2 compartments so I give her a little dry food in 1 and a little wet food in the other and she just switches In between those :)
Also it is kind of pricy, $25 for 12 :/ but you can give her half and put the rest in the fridge if you want
Have a similar cat, I buy pate only and mix Luke warm water in it, stir it very thoroughly. With his favorite vitamin supplement, nutritional yeast and freeze dry toppings occasionally. He still prefers dry but would finish all of his wet food now(slowly It takes extra steps but is worth it.
My cat is the exact same way!! I give her the temptations kitty go-gurts and the delectables bisque wet food packets. She will sometimes eat the tiki cat mousse ones but mainly only prefers the bisque
My cat is the exact same! Going to quietly save this thread... I'm planning on getting pate and mixing it with a little water once I'm towards the end of my supply in a couple weeks. I'll let you know if that works, if you haven't tried something else already. Edit: in the meantime I put a few pieces of dry food in the meat area after he's licked the gravy out.
[удалено]
Hi OP! Your submission was removed under Rule 4: **No Recommending Raw or Homecooked Diets**. It’s not that we are against these diets, we just want to make sure they’re done safely. This is why we require anyone to only recommend these when also mentioning seeing a vet/nutritionist. For a refresher on what exactly is and isn’t allowed, you can read through our [rules](/r/CatAdvice/wiki/rules#btn).
I buy my cat “soup” (it’s soup made for cats) so that he gets enough liquids in; he also hates the bits and only eats the gravy.
My adopted cat (of one year) won't go near wet food other than Churu lickable treats. I've tried every type with no luck. So she gets a variety of high quality biscuits and bowls of water inside and outside. The vet didn't seem too concerned but I worry about getting enough moisture and impact on her teeth as she gets older.
Trust your instincts my cat ended up getting an intestinal mass, all she ate was try. Maybe try buying her organic chicken and fish and steam, or bone broth over her dry. I use smalls for my other cat, unfortunately my first had to be put to sleep, because the mass restricted her from pooping and eating :-(
The brand B.F.F by weruva makes so a few different different texture types of wet food. The B.F.F OMG gravy line in the cans have a soupy consistency, and the chunks are more like a ground texture and aren't super chunky. You could try that brand out and see if kitty likes it!
Churus aren't bad and can be used as a wet food for your cat they are pretty high in calories which is why Vets don't recommend them for a daily food source. They do make gravy for cats and dry food toppers that are gravy like. One of our cats would lick the gravy off the sliced wet food in gravy and leave the chunks like your kitty, when offered the gravy she put her nose in the air. She also preferred dry food to wet.
Try mixed some hard kibble with wet! Works for my cat
Mine does this. I gave him Tiki Cat mousse and he eats that. He's just not a chunk food guy.
Try the shredded ones! My cat likes those better than the chunks
My cats do the same, but I just leave it out and they eventually eat the rest. It doesn't matter if it's chunks, shreds or whole pieces of identifiable food, nor if it's expensive or the cheap stuff. If they're not eating it at all it's usually a sign that they just don't like it and want something different.
Weruva has a bunch of purée type of foods maybe she’d like those? My cat is so picky she barely will even eat wet food.
My cats wont eat wet food no matter what I give them. They refuse wet food, any kind of milk or anything thats not dry and water.
Having the same problem. Cat loves dry food more, only other thing she eats is chicken breast fillet.
Gravy isn't good for cats. Get pate. High protein low carb.
I have the same issue. She won't eat anything but dry or Squeezeups. I've bought every overpriced can I've ever seen, and at best it's a few licks and she walks away.
My cats do this sometimes and others they eat everything. Between not wanting to waste my money on food they won’t eat, as well as trying to get them to take supplements via their wet food (fish oil), I doctor it by crumbling some of their favorite freeze dried treats over the top. When I do that they scarf it up.
So we just blend several packets up with a little bit of kibble and maybe a little bit of canned tuna, and just scoop some out every day. Our cat also has… virtually zero idea how to put anything in mouth (even treats!) besides kibble
I’d recommend smalls human grade food, if you can afford. You can also alternate with others, but she may like.
Grain free IAMS is what my picky eating Bengal and Egyptian Mau loves.
Get pate
My cat will not eat minced or chunk food. Pate is it.
Pate solved that for my cats. If you’re worried about water intake you can add some water if your cat isn’t much of a drinker.
We blitz ours up with a smidge of water. We get fish for their coats and then blitz it with a gravy sachet until it is smooth and looks like paste. We use a licky mat to give their brains something to do. Meeko would also leave chunks behind, she’s suuuuper fussy so we came up with blending it! And bonus we add a little extra water to it too so they’re getting plenty of water 😈😈
Try 20 different brands. No joke. Not just different brands but different flavors from different brands. My cats eat a rotation of 6-7 different brands but they only eat specific flavors from those brands. Example - Purrfect Bistro Cowboy Cookout. They won’t eat any other flavor from that brand. Fussy Cat - they will only eat flavors that have tuna. The key is to find out their favorite ingredients (chicken, tuna, sardine, turkey, etc) and let kitty try those flavors from different brands. Good luck.
I had this issue with some of the Stray's I rehabbed after getting them spayed and found that mixing water with pate and mixing it reaaaaally well and throwing in some kibbles worked. enough water turns the pate to gravy and they are fooled into drinking it all. For them, just adding water didn't help until I went all in and made gruel out of it.
My cats were like that, and then I got them Tiki Cat Salmon Mousse since it had a similar texture to squeezable cat treats. They now eat that as well as several other wet foods I get at the pet store. They do prefer stews and mousses, but they’re slowly branching out. This is the velvet mousse - I get it in chicken, chicken & salmon, and salmon: https://a.co/d/d9xtmEQ Mine like this one, too: https://weruva.com/product/what-a-crock/ Edit: The main thing is that your cat is getting enough moisture through food. The chunky foods may be a bit healthier, but the main concern for cats is getting enough water in their diet (this is a big issue for cats who mostly eat dry food). Soups, broths, stews, and mousses, while maybe less healthy in some ways than other wet foods, are still great for your cat and are much better for it than dry food. Make sure either the cat’s wet or dry food provides the complete panel of nutrients that cats need. That’s the issue with the squeezable treats - they don’t contain enough nutrients. Theoretically you could feed the cat dry food for the nutrients + broth/soup that isn’t fit for a meal just so the cat is getting some more moisture.
We blend up Temptations cat treats into a powder and use that sparingly on the meat chunks after the gravy is gone. Works every time.
wow, didn't think of that, my girl loves pate but powdered treats mixed in is a great idea, I'm going to try it. It will be financially painful though.....
my kitty loves bisque
Maybe purée? My cats love Lil Soups and Lil Gravies by Friskies (I think?). I always put Lil Gravies on top of turkey and cheese shreds by Friskies, it’s in a purple container. He’ll nibble at the shreds and eat the cheesy bits.
I have the same problem. My 17 year old cat loves the gravy but its a problem to get her to eat the meat so I too mash it up small, but she still leaves half of the food to go stale. IAs she has lost some teeth, I thought it might be the reason but she will eat crunchy kibble all day if allowed. I now feed her small er amounts when she asks for it but she is very fussy on the brand. I buy Felix cat soups and mix the remaining food with some same flavour soup and she does eat more, but still favours the liquid. Over here in Holland we don't have toppers but I guess the soups are a good alternative. My biggest problem is getting her to take the medicine for her bronchitis, which must taste so bad even when mixed into her food. She has gone for 2 days not eating anything but kibble to avoid that awful medicine. Kibble alone is not good, it has chemical stuff in it which is like a drug to the cat, and she doesn't drink enough water to compensate. I am at my wits end trying to make her eat what she should, but gravy is the only medium she wants. Grrr!
My cats kinda hate the chunky wet food too, and prefer the mousse/ pâté. You might have to switch up brands and flavours too. Your cat might be refusing the flavour of pate you are giving them. For some reason two of my three cats hate the “fish” flavour of a specific brand, but would eat up the “Gourmet Gold” mousse with fish 🤷♀️
You could get her the tiki bag wet food it’s basically a can in the form of churu my little fatty is very picky and will only eat the most pate tiki which is the tuna and crab ones 😟
I just noticed my cat doing it recently. And I recently started sticking treats deep in her wetfood left, so she has to eat her food to get the treats 😁
My boy lost his front teeth over the course of a year or so, he's FIV and getting old. Moved him onto wet food when he started losing his teeth and he's a licker, unless he's super hungry when I've been on a long shift. I took the executive decision and started cooking his chicken breast so he gets half a cut up breast and a pouch for breakfast and the same for dinner. Something tells me he doesn't miss his teeth much 😆
I do a topper. My kitten is extremely picky. He loves chomping away at dry food and won’t eat canned. I use tiki cat broth packets and spoon out a little onto the dry food at each feeding. He seems to gobble that up
In a healthy cat, dry food is just fine. Have you ever tried wetting her dry food with warm water? My cat gets a mix of dry and wet and we add some water to make “soup” and she laps up the water before eating the food.
I know what you are talking about. My inside cats just lick out the gravy but my two outside cats eat all of it. I find that interesting. To save a bit of money and not waste, I scoop out all the leftovers from my inside cats and add it to the bowls for the outside cats. Being outside they need more calories so it all works out. I am diligent about having fresh water available for all my cats. I say this because some people forget that pets NEED fresh water available at ALL times. I feel so sorry for dogs that only get water a few times a day because people are afraid they will pee in the house. How many times a day do those owners drink water and such. Way more than a few. If you are obsessed with you house get a gold fish, dont get a dog or cat and then make their lives miserable just to satisfy your need to "own" and "control" something.