The house cats normally eat Chicken Soup For the Cat Lover's Soul (lite adult) food. Please don't laugh. This used to be Diamond Brand cat food, which is a premium food, and still is, but now has this cheesy franchise name. Nonetheless, it's a good meat-as-primary-content food, with no dyes. Our house cats love it.
Until this last bag.
Money has been tight, so I had been feeding the house cats my cat-facility food (low-cost semi-donated Science Diet, normally $30 a large bag but costs me far less due to certain generous individuals). But when the Science Diet option got tight (I was only able to get 3 bags last month, and I need 15 bags a month), I reserved the Science Diet for the facility cats, and started buying the house cats $20 a bag CSFTCLS food again via the house bank account (i.e. the money Mark and I set aside for house bills, versus my own remaining money I use for cat rescue).
But they wouldn't eat it.
I assumed they were just being temporarily finicky. They have always LOVED this food.
But a week went by and they were merely picking at the food. Weight was melting off them. They were not going to eat that food.
Now, I'm one of those "Paranoid people create picky cats" people. I roll my eyes at family members who say their "cats won't eat that" food. I've had hundreds of cats go through my hands and they eat what I give them, you know? From Dads to Science Diet--depending on my economic status over the last 20 years, they've eaten it. There are rare cats who would die rather than eat a food, but truly finicking cats really are rare.
But when ten cats agree "We aren't eating that crap you are giving us?" Something is up.
Today, we took it back, and our WONDERFUL pet food store, Ithaca Feed and Pet Supply (no web page?) gave us a new free bag of Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul (non-lite) food, and this is what our cats told us:
The rest of the ten cats in the house were waiting in line.
Something was up with that old food.
Once this is gone, we'll buy a small bag of the lite diet out of a new lot. If they eat that, I'll get another big bag and we'll try again because it's great food. The fat cats keep a nice normal weight, and the lightweight cats don't get too thin on it.
2 comments:
What I would do is to call CSFTCLS and complain (politely), 'cos (1) they need to know in case they had a bad lot, and (2) they may feel guilty and give you a free bag, or coupons, or something. :-) But seriously, they really may have had a bad lot of food, which only illustrates how they need taste-testers--offer to send them a few! ;-)
Don't be surprised if cats don't eat certain types of food. About a year ago thousands of cats died because of a chemical that was been added to it that wrecked their kidneys.
Even now, many brands will literally make their stomachs noisy and they will vomit constantly while still seemingly being attracted the foods that are harming them.
It seems some pet companies will do anything to sell food, include putting things in it to make them vomit and thereby remain constantly hungry, and then being addicted to it as well.
Worse yet, most brands are made by the same three or four companies. The only food I have been successful with is Iam's dry cat food, although she much prefers the wet foods that make her vomit constantly.
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