The most important thing to add to baby food meat is taurine, which you can buy in powdered form from various online sources (or perhaps at a health food store). It also wouldn't hurt to mix in a good vitamin/mineral supplement like Missing Link, along with a few drops of fish oil.

It's also altogether likely that his taste will shift to other foods over time. CRF cats often reject one food this week or this month, only to decide they want to eat it later on. Don't toss out those other foods. They may be exactly what he decides he wants to eat down the road.

Laurie

For the last few years of her life, my CRF kitty would not eat much of anything but a few varieties of Fancy Feast... and baby food... and human grade tuna. Not ideal, but we came to a point where having her eat was more important than what she ate- this was something our vet felt strongly and emphasized to us. I think that would be a good idea to supplement with vitamins and have him eat whatever you can get into him- within reason.

We had luck getting our cat to eat what was essentially homemade chicken baby food. We'd boil up a boneless, skinless chicken breast in just a little bit of water, then puree it in the food processor with enough broth to make it the right consistency. It didn't take long to make so we'd just make a new batch each day, but you could freeze it too. She seemed to prefer that to baby food and we had a lot of luck getting her to eat larger quantities this way (not to mention it was cheaper by far).

Best of luck.

Thanks so much for the feedback! So I'm not crazy. quasifish--I could totally see making my own food at the cost of those little bottles we buy. I do think this is probably related to his teeth, which are really bad, and the vet has been trying to get me to have several of them removed (I am afraid he can't take it). may flowers--my cat makes that wierd grinding sound also! I will look into the taurine supplement, right now he is getting Pet-tinnic, but I see there is no taurine in that.

For the last 2.5 years of her life, my Maggie (who I had to have ut to sleep on 8/1/12 at age 16) would ony eat gound up chicken and baby food. She was taking 5 meds twice a day. I mixed the meds (liquid and uncapsuled) with baby food, added vitamins and taurine in the baby food and she ate it twice a day like a champ. I'd prepare the chicken 12 breasts at a time (or whatever was in the "family pack"and freeze, and prepared the baby food/meds in single batches and freeze them in and ice cbe tray. I'd zap the meds in the microwave before serving them to her. I checked with my wonderful vet beforehand to make sure freezing wouldn't decrease the potency of the meds.

Re his teeth: does the vet say your cat is in pain from his bad teeth? My 15 year old had his teeth cleaned last Monday (2/11) and had a tooth (lower right canine) extracted. He didn't eat much at all until yesterday. He also required another pain shot on Thursday. He is almost back to normal now, eating his cat food albeit more slowly.

It's difficult to weigh the plusses and minuses in these situations. I worried about Owen having his teeth cleaned because of his age, but I worried more about him being in pain, since cats hide pain so well.

Best wishes to you and your kitty.

Well, I don't think your crazy... but that might only be because I did it for so long that I have to think it's OK! :)

My girl had a major dental done in 2008, two years after she was diagnosed with all her problems and almost 4 years before she left us. Our vet had wanted to do the dental much earlier, but DH and I were very hesitant because we worried about the anesthesia risks to a CRF cat, as well as wondering how well she would be able to eat afterwards. We knew her teeth were bad, but she was still chomping down her beloved dry food.

When her blood work had been somewhat stable for a while, I approached the vet with a load of questions about the possibility of doing it. I educated myself and they were very accomidating- we did extra fluids for the week before and after (she was on fluids as needed, which wasn't every day at that time), and we also did a course of antibiotics which started beforehand- in part to reduce her existing bacteria load.

She lost just about all her teeth during her dental and it was pretty harsh. The first week after was difficult, at one point I ended up force feeding her for a day or two to get her over a hump. A friend of mine just had a similar experience with her cat post dental, even though he only lost 2 teeth- 4 days out he stopped eating and ended up at the vet again.

Before we did it, we did a lot of thinking and decided that it was worth the risk for our cat, given her current condition (blood work stable, teeth awful). I have always said I am glad it was not something we went into lightly, because otherwise I would not have been prepared for the difficult week that followed, BUT after she was back on her feet fully, she obviously felt better. She never was able to eat quite as well, but the ups and downs of her illness came much less frequently. In the end, we were very glad we chose to do it for her, but it is an individual thing that you shouldn't take lightly, you know your cat better than anyone.

I will say that at that point we decided to go ahead, I accepted that this might be the last thing we did for her, but her mouth looked so bad that we felt we had to take the chance, and that felt like the right time.

It's a tough call, I wish you the best in figuring out what is in your kitty's best interest.

Yes im going through the same thing with my 7 months old kitten I rescued him when he was only 3 weeks old the moms cat quite feeding him and abandoned him so I bottle feed him for a bit and now he drinks water and milk from a bowl and he first started to only eat human food started with sour cream on my finger and then chicken and now he's 7 months old and I finally got him to at least eat the meow mix with real salmon and crab meat in sauce but he won't eat no other kind of cat food soft or hard and he just started to eat a little tuna and juice mixed with mayonnaise and sweet relish and a little hard cat food tonight but not much at all but he goes to it more frequently now but I don't know what to do from here to get him to eat more cat food and less human food and I don't know how to get him to quit being so picky

Yes! my boy has has gastro issues since ge was a kid (now 7 years old) he only eats Gerber Chicken and gravy babyfood. his doctor has chrcked his timmy throughly and i even took him to an internal medicine specialist to make sure he is okay. he just wants high grade food that is easier to digest. i think its safe as long as its not pork

So you and your Vet "think" your cat is receiving all required nutrients? lol