Baker Animal Clinic

Transitioning your Cat to Canned Food

This can be a very difficult process, especially for an adult cat that has not been fed canned food in the past. Cats develop a preference for food taste/texture/crunch as kittens and if not fed canned food from an early age, do not recognize a canned diet as actual food. Cats tend to enjoy dry food due to their different shapes and crunch, as well as the fact that each kibble is sprayed with fat, which is the most enticing flavour for cats when they choose their food. Our cats therefore are quite resistant to changing their diets away from dry foods for the above reasons.

It is important to make the switch VERY SLOWLY. Drastic changes to a cat’s diet can result in the cat refusing to eat, and therefore rapid weight loss. This may result in serious health implications.

TIPS:

Get your cat used to meal feeding. This means putting the food out a set number of times daily (generally 2-3 times), for a set amount of time.
- Start this process by measuring leaving a pre-measured amount of dry food out twice daily for ~4 hours, then take the food away after the 4 hours is up
- Then slowly decrease the time that the food is let out (e.g. by 1hr every few days) until your cat is used to having the food available for 30-60 minutes 2-3 times daily.
Once your cat is used to meal feeding, start slowly start introducing canned food and decreasing the amount of dry food fed. Most cats need to eat ~4-6 ounces of canned food daily divided into 2-3 meals. The staff at Baker Animal Clinic can help you to determine the correct amount to feed your cat.
It should take ~2-3 weeks to completely transition your cat onto a totally canned food diet.
It may not be possible to “convince” the mature cat to eat only canned food. The goal is to maximize the amount of canned food your cat will eat and supplement with a smaller amount of dry food.
If your cat is overweight, he/she will likely start losing weight when on an all/mostly canned food diet. It is very important that a cat never lose more than 1-2% of their body weight weekly.
Cat treat balls and placing food bowls in different areas of the house are another great way to feed cats dry food – provides environmental enrichment – the cat must “hunt for food”, thereby encouraging exercise.

This can be a very frustrating process, especially with adult cats but has long term positive health benefits! Please contact the staff at Baker Animal Clinic with any questions.

TRANSITIONING YOUR CAT TO CANNED FOOD