Fussy Eater

[lynda ghent]

Hi, I have 3 Maine Coons now, Arnie a red hes 16 weeks, Bruce a cream and hes 16 weeks and Crystal a Silver tabby and shes 17 months now, and not forgetting 2 moggies! a ginger called Ziggy and a ginger called Frankie. My moggies go out but the Maine Coons dont wander, they have a garden run, Crystal is my worry, shes always been a fussy eater and they have a hard food of fairly good quality down at all times, and I feed chicken and pouches as well, but Crystal will only eat the hard food and wont touch anything else and I worry shes not getting enough, maybe its because the boys are growing so fast and shes not the biggest Maine Coon, but shes still a fairly good large Moggie size! Any advice on the best stuff to feed a Maine Coon would be much appreciated, am I doing the right thing feeding them pouches and chicken as well as the hard stuff or should I just feed the hard food? Help! Thanks Lyn

[harrymc]

Hi Lynda and welcome to the forum. There are varying opinions on what is best to feed your coonie, personally I would say whatever suits you. Going by what you have said you leave a dry biscuit down for the cats to graze on and supplement this with pouches or chicken etc. This is pretty much how I do it. Harry eats Royal Canin Maine Coon mix which is available 24/7 and I supplement with the occasional pouch or cooked chicken or tinned tuna. When he was younger he ate an awful lot more of the pouches than he does now, but recently, over the past 3/4 months seems quite content to stick to the Maine Coon mix.

What type of dry food are you leaving down, is it a specialist mix ? I have also found with the dry food that Harry likes it fresh from the bag and if it has been down for a while won't eat it but if you put fresh down he tucks in again !

Hope this helps !
Alison

[lynda ghent]

Hi Thanks for that, maybe I could try putting it down fresh, I have iams cat in one place in the house and a Costco Maintaince cat in another, it seems quite a good one compared to say wiskas etc, it has 32 % meat, As I have 5 now I wanted them to be able to get some peace if they want to!

[harrymc]

Hi Lynda, I haven't ever tried Harry on any other brands of dry foods as this is what the breeder fed him when we had him and I figured it was best to keep him on it. He has done well on it and is just over a year old now and weighs 17lbs at the last weigh in, with not an ounce of fat on him. Maybe it would be worth trying some different more specialist dry mix to see whether the cats prefer that ?

[lynda ghent]

Thank you, ill have a look around tom.

[Antonia]

Hi Lynda, and welcome to the forum.
I agree with harrymc... feed them whatever suits them and you best. Some kitties will eat anything (like our little Minnie), and some are much more fussy (like our other two Coonies Tatja and Monty). So if you give them choice, you probably won't have to worry.

Having said this, I do think you should take care with a kitty that will only eat dry food. I found this out the hard way. I used to be a big dry food fan, until poor Monty developed cystitis. I learned that cats who are on an almost 100% dry diet get way to little fluid. Even if you think they are drinking plenty of water, it's not enough, and this can cause bladder problems.

There are enough nutrients in good-quality dry food, but what's lacking is fluid. So you'll have to make up for this one way or the other. Kitty milk, the water from canned fish, cooking water from chicken, etc. Or try to find some kind of wet food she will eat. Anything with a high fluid content will do, such is my opinion.