Cat will not eat beef anymore

Hi guys,

My cat, an adorable 3.5-year old neutered male exot, is now refusing to eat red meat when it used to be his favorite food. We're at a loss at explaining why this has changed.

In his early months, we fed him, as then recommended, a mix of cooked chicken meat, cooked chicken hearts and boiled carrots. He ate without much enthusiasm (I can understand!) so, again as recommended, we started alternating meals with portions of raw beef that we run under boiling water to kill off germs. This quickly became his favorite and he started refusing eating anything else, even going on a 3-day hunger strike (or so it looks like) before we caved in and started feeding him only beef.

A year ago, we were recommended to reduce his red meat portion and also feed him some Hill's t/d dry food to balance his nutriment intake and take care of tartar on his teeth. He quickly took a liking to the dry food, but he kept eating his red meat. Gradually he started eating less and less meat, but kept wolfing down his dry food. It has now gotten to the point where he refuses to eat his red meat - instead he heads to the living room and starts licking on plastic bags until we give him dry food. He's even developed a habit of asking for food whenever we leave the bathroom, even though he just ate minutes ago.

Does anybody have an idea why he stopped eating meat? Would it be better if we fed him only dry food? And why oh why lick plastic?

Thank you!

Raw food is much better than any kibble you can feed your cat as long as you are feeding a proper bone to meat ratio. There is an amino acid in raw meat that is essential for cat's health which is killed when it is cooked. That tells me that cats should be eating raw meat. It is humans that supplement the taurine in cat food.

The best way to keep your kitty's teeth clean besides brushing them yourself is for your cat to eat chicken bones.

Cat food companies will do just about anything to get cats to eat their food, even spray on fat to entice them. Hills is not the greatest food out there, I give my kitties raw (chicken backs and beef) and supplement them with Nature's Variety Instinct, canned and Grainfree Wellness to ensure they are getting all their needed vitamins.

Here is a link that you may enjoy reading:

http://www.catinfo.org/

And the cat food that I feed my cats:

http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_wellness_can_beef_chicken.html

http://www.naturesvariety.com/instinct_cat_can


This one has a video that is interesting to watch.

http://www.barfworld.com/

Yep, the reason why he loves the kibble now is because it's enhanced to make them WANT to eat it .. tons of cats are addicted to kibble, and it can be tough to switch them to wet or raw..

Even though your vet probably recommended the Hills, please note that it's a terrible food, and vets are not typically all that informed when it comes to cat nutrition..

Hopefully you can take a look at the links Love4Himmies supplied and switch your guy back to the good stuff. :fingerscr

Hills = Bad. Sorry. :sorry:

Raw is WAYYY better than cooked! Do you see the wild cats of Africa sitting around camp fires cooking their mice? nooo... lol

Kibble is "enhanced" with fats and other bad stuff to make it taste better!

I'm an animal spoiler myself, and I know this may be hard to hear, but if you take the kibble away, and ONLY feed the raw, once he gets hungry enough he'll eat it.

Raw chicken necks and backs are great...

Yup, no need to feed Hill's, there are way better commercial foods out there. And if you can get your cat eating a balanced raw diet, that is the ultimate. I'm concerned though, about the meat diet you have been feeding your cat so far. Unless you are including a calcium supplement in the correct amount to balance the excessive phosphorus in meat, you are doing your cat more harm than good. How long was he eating just meat?

Also, many cats like variety in the meat they do eat, so he's likely tired of beef. Try chicken, duck, venison, quail, rabbit etc. to mix things up a bit. But like I said, please do more research on how to provide a balanced diet, or else just feed a commercial product because it's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.