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I live and work in China and rescued a stray kitten last year. I found him in the street -- he was scrawny, dirty, and only about 8 weeks old. After a bath and pigging out, he recovered beautifully and developed into a wonderful companion over the past 15 months.
However, recently he stopped eating and has lost a lot of weight. It's puzzling , worrisome, and stressful for me and I hope I can get some help solving the problem...
He was raised entirely on dry cat food -- a single generic brand that is the only option available, being in a developing part of China. He has never eaten anything else, even if I give him some chicken or fish, he refuses. He seemed quite happy with his kibbles until about a few weeks ago. Since he stopped eating, I've tried giving him this and that but he doesn't seem interested in it. He is still quite energetic and I haven't noticed any behavioral changes, but the weight loss is really starting to be noticeable.
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Answers
Sometimes cats are fussy and will just decide they don't like their food any more. Since he seems healthy otherwise this may be the problem.
Did you get a new bag of food when he decided to stop eating? Maybe the food was bad or spoiled in some way. It's worth trying a new bag of the food and get it from a different place if possible to make sure you don't get more of the same batch.
Until you can find cat food he likes you'll have to try different foods to keep him eating enough to survive. I'm not sure which of these are available where you live but these are foods that my cats have liked that you could try - chicken liver, beef, meat baby food (make sure it has no onions or garlic in it), canned tuna. Try the meat raw and cooked as he may only like it one way.
Can you get food by mail order? It would be more expensive but may work for you.
If he still won't eat is it possible to visit a vet in whatever large city is nearest to you?
I really think you should take your cat to another vet. There must be more than one animal clinic in your city. It sounds to me like this goes beyond just simply being finicky over his food. it sounds like he's ill.
It could be one of 2 things One the food that you feed him, sometimes this food blocks the urinary track we have that with iams over here this will stop him eating It sometimes causes crystals to form in the urine and they block the area where they pass water The other thing which is a possibility especially where you are in the world, is FIP probably not even heard about out there. There are some animal sanctuarys out there who have a vetetarian attached to them, I know that wispa does a lot of work in china.Perhaps you could contact the rspca or a large animal charity they could tell you where you can access good vetinary care. I hope that this is not fip because it is untreatable, and if he has that you need to find out fast and have him put to sleep, before the pain starts. I wish you luck.
Guest 887709
answered 2 weeks, 6 days ago.
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