Hand Feeding

I feed my babies Science Diet since my vet reccomended it. Anyone know if this
is healthy stuff? Also, they've been on dry food only. Had no idea they
needed a balance of dry & moist. They hate moist. Don't know what to do here.


Another question ... made the mistake months ago of feeding them by hand. Now,
they absolutely refuse to eat on their own. You can't imagine how exhausting
it is, particularly w/Lola who's a nibbler. Friends say the way to break them
is to just stop. I say they won't eat. They say, even if my girls go for days
they'll eventually get hungry enough to head over to their bowls. Anyone else
here have this problem w/cats who demand hand-feeding? Also, if its true that
moist food is required in their diet, how the heck am I going to hand feed them
that???

Tracy

And I thought the Evil 3 were spoiled.......

"Allegra640" wrote in message
...
: I feed my babies Science Diet since my vet reccomended it. Anyone know if
this
: is healthy stuff? Also, they've been on dry food only. Had no idea they
: needed a balance of dry & moist. They hate moist. Don't know what to do
here.
:
:
: Another question ... made the mistake months ago of feeding them by hand.
Now,
: they absolutely refuse to eat on their own. You can't imagine how
exhausting
: it is, particularly w/Lola who's a nibbler. Friends say the way to break
them
: is to just stop. I say they won't eat. They say, even if my girls go for
days
: they'll eventually get hungry enough to head over to their bowls. Anyone
else
: here have this problem w/cats who demand hand-feeding? Also, if its true
that
: moist food is required in their diet, how the heck am I going to hand feed
them
: that???
:
: Tracy

"Allegra640" wrote
I feed my babies Science Diet since my vet reccomended it. Anyone know if
this
is healthy stuff? Also, they've been on dry food only. Had no idea they
needed a balance of dry & moist. They hate moist. Don't know what to do
here.


Another question ... made the mistake months ago of feeding them by hand.
Now,
they absolutely refuse to eat on their own. You can't imagine how
exhausting
it is, particularly w/Lola who's a nibbler. Friends say the way to break
them
is to just stop. I say they won't eat. They say, even if my girls go for
days
they'll eventually get hungry enough to head over to their bowls. Anyone
else
here have this problem w/cats who demand hand-feeding? Also, if its true
that
moist food is required in their diet, how the heck am I going to hand feed
them
that???

I'm not going to comment on the dry food. Re getting the cats to eat on
their own, I suspect it is a matter of out-stubborning them, which is very
hard to do, but OTOH, I just don't believe a cat will really starve itself
with bowls full of food in front of its nose. ;o) It might take a few days
of refusal and tugging at your heart-strings, but you've just got to stay
firm. Hard, I know.

After you have made them eat by themselves, maybe you could start mixing a
little wet food in the dry? Just a few morsels to start with, and then
gradually increase the amount of wet while cutting back on the dry. This
will probably take weeks, or even months.

Purrs for a successful "weaning". You can do it, in spite of those pitiful
meows and looks!

--
Marina, Frank and Nikki

Allegra640 skrev i meddelandet
...
snip
Anyone else
here have this problem w/cats who demand hand-feeding? Also, if its true
that
moist food is required in their diet, how the heck am I going to hand feed
them
that???

Tracy

Oh, Tracy dear, you spoon-feed them of course!
Elisabet

Allegra640 wrote:
I feed my babies Science Diet since my vet reccomended it. Anyone know if this
is healthy stuff? Also, they've been on dry food only. Had no idea they
needed a balance of dry & moist. They hate moist. Don't know what to do here.

Science Diet is ok, there are better foods out there that cost about the
same. Check out these pages to learn mo
http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm

Wet food is better than dry. You can try different brands and textures to
see which ones they like. Our cats despise food that is a paste, it has to
be chunky otherwise they won't eat it.

they'll eventually get hungry enough to head over to their bowls. Anyone else
here have this problem w/cats who demand hand-feeding? Also, if its true that

Nope.

moist food is required in their diet, how the heck am I going to hand feed them
that???

You don't. You need to re-train them to eat from bowls.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

(Victor M. Martinez) had some very interesting
things to say about Hand Feeding:

Science Diet is ok, there are better foods out there that cost about the
same. Check out these pages to learn mo
http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm

I can't get Felix to eat any other type of dry food. In fact, I can't
even get him to eat an SD variety other than Light Maintenance. :-)

Wet food is better than dry. You can try different brands and textures to
see which ones they like. Our cats despise food that is a paste, it has to
be chunky otherwise they won't eat it.

OTOH, when we got Felix a chunky-style canned food, he licked the
sauce off the chunks and left the solid pieces. The more blended
style, he eats quite readily. Leave it to *my* cat to be the oddball.
:-)

--
Seanette Blaylock
"You attribute perfect rationality to the whole of humanity, which has
to be one of the most misguided assumptions ever." - Alan Krueger in NANAE
[make obvious correction to address to send e-mail]

On Sat, 06 Sep 2003 12:14:12 -0700, Seanette Blaylock
wrote:

(Victor M. Martinez) had some very interesting
things to say about Hand Feeding:

Science Diet is ok, there are better foods out there that cost about the
same. Check out these pages to learn mo
http://www.maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm

I can't get Felix to eat any other type of dry food. In fact, I can't
even get him to eat an SD variety other than Light Maintenance. :-)

Wet food is better than dry. You can try different brands and textures to
see which ones they like. Our cats despise food that is a paste, it has to
be chunky otherwise they won't eat it.

OTOH, when we got Felix a chunky-style canned food, he licked the
sauce off the chunks and left the solid pieces. The more blended
style, he eats quite readily. Leave it to *my* cat to be the oddball.
:-)

Of my three, only Rocky will eat the chunks in gravy style of food.
The girls, like yours, just lick off the gravy and leave the chunks.

Allegra640 wrote:

I feed my babies Science Diet since my vet reccomended it. Anyone know if this
is healthy stuff? Also, they've been on dry food only. Had no idea they
needed a balance of dry & moist. They hate moist. Don't know what to do here.


Another question ... made the mistake months ago of feeding them by hand. Now,
they absolutely refuse to eat on their own. You can't imagine how exhausting
it is, particularly w/Lola who's a nibbler. Friends say the way to break them
is to just stop. I say they won't eat. They say, even if my girls go for days
they'll eventually get hungry enough to head over to their bowls.

I'd say your friend is right - it just depends upon whether you can
"out-stubborn" your cats until they give in. (I've never known a cat to
let itself actually starve when there was food available - it just
depends upon how easy it is to blackmail you into thinking they will.)
As to dry vs moist, that depends upon the cat, and I've never had any
luck persuading them one or the other is better for them. (If they had
their "druthers" they'd most likely only eat either as a last resort,
when "game" was scarce.)