Picky unpredictable eater

[Moggieslegacy]

Moggie's interest in the Orijen kibble seems to have returned and with no encouragement from me he is regularly eating this today, which is a great relief. He had barely nibbled it a couple days before we went to the vet. I began this thread complaining that was all he usually wanted to eat, now I am just glad he is eating something I can offer him. Even if he eats stuff he hunts if he is loosing weight he obviously needs more... I am now really hopeful the Profender has solved the problem!

Also, as what I typed was already so long, I did not mention that I did try to keep him in 24 hours before we went to the vet as I wanted to see how much he ate if he couldn't hunt. I moved my bed and mosquito net into the house so he would not be alone. He got increasingly agitated deeply meowing, complaining, and repeatedly pushing aside the barrier I put in front of the locked cat door. I kept replacing this, but he got more and more frantic until he hit it with the force of a tornado and removed the stuff blocking it, the door from the hinges and the plywood blocking it from the outside before I could stop him. For the future, in case I ever need it, I plan on improving my barricades, so they are impossible for even a hysterical cat to remove, but there is a point I am scared he will injure himself with his determination to try absolutely anything to get out.

 

[Rafiki]

Could he have been teething recently?

 

[Moggieslegacy]

Moggie has been getting his adult teeth... his canines first emerged about 3 -4 weeks ago. I was expecting his adult canines to come in around 5 months and was surprised they didn't emerge beside his baby canines until he was 6 months. I aked the vet to look in his mouth as his conflicted attitude towards food might be that something in his mouth was hurting.
But also I was thinking if his gums were hurting he would probably prefer soft canned food over dry and he doesn't.
The vet said his adult teeth are all in, but I thought they were not yet fully emerged...? Are these teeth still coming in?
A picture I took tonight ...

 

[Rafiki]

The canines are definitely fully in place. It looks like the small tooth directly behind the upper canine has come out but not completely. I am wondering about the back molars as they generally come in last. Some cats run a fever when they come in and that can cause a lack of appetite. Others want to chew on everything imaginable. Just thinking that maybe when they were emerging it caused a lack of appetite but now they have broken thru the gums he might be wanting something hard like kibble to munch on until they are completely in place. Just a thought.....

 

[Moggieslegacy]

Thanks, that information is really appreciated! I do think he may still be teething. And interesting about this maybe causing a slight fever and loss of appetite! Looking at pictures of adult cat mouths it looks like the wide bottom base of his molars is still yet to fully emerge. I am having a hard time getting a picture but his gums around his upper back molars look a bit red and sore, and the teeth are not as emerged as the bottom molars.

Poor guy...since the trip to the vet he has been a clingy snuggle bug and planted himself in my lap every time I sit down. But he has eaten better today which is a relief. I am really attached to this little guy and do not want him to fade away!

 

[Moggieslegacy]

Just a quick update and then hopefully I will not have any further reason to post about this until I can report a substantial weight gain. Moggie's appetite is back with a vengeance! He has eaten a can of food in the past 12 hours plus a bunch of kibble and whatever he has been hunting, and he loudly insisted I get up and sit with him while he ate twice last night. Which for now is fine. I am just glad to see him enthusiastic about food again! And he is now working on a second can! His gaunt empty tummy is all back to being filled out though his thighs and hips need some time to recover. He is sleeping in my lap and feels heavy, not like the feather weight kitten of a couple days ago. So I am thinking his problem was almost certainly an untreated parasite that the Profender will be able to control.

 

[Moggieslegacy]

So me and Moggie have just emerged from a bit of an ordeal the past week. At one point I was pretty sure he was going to die of some obscure disease I could never afford to treat. Instead it appears to have been a common and preventable problem. And my experience may help someone else avoid the same thing...

After the Profender treatment a month ago Moggies appetite returned and for 2 weeks he ate ravenously and he re-gained the pound he had lost. Bringing him back to the weight he was at about 6.5 months, which was 2 months ago. His returned appetite was a bit odd because where he had previously been extremely reluctant to eat anything but the dry chicken Orijen, he began to refuse this, and his preference shifted to the Orijen red meat. And then he began refusing all dry Orijen and only eating canned food. (Which he had previously been really reluctant to eat more than a nibble of) And then, slowly, he began to get weird about eating everything again. At first I thought maybe he had healed and was no longer ravenous so he was starting to have more particular food preferences.

But about a week ago I began to think something was seriously wrong. He was loosing weight again, and appeared to be wanting to do nothing but sleep in the warmest spot he could find. Which had not happened before. So I decided to keep him in for 24 hours (now 72 he is still too weak to complain) to see how much he was eating with most of his access to hunting removed, and realized he was barely eating at all. I had called the vet I had been seeing, and asked the receptionist if maybe he needed to be wormed again and was told he would only need this every 3 months (as the vet told me also) but then as he sounded sick I was told I should bring him in and have a lot of expensive tests done looking for some rare conditions. But they could not tell me what illness with these symptoms the tests would be looking for, and if one of these illnesses was found, what the treatment options and costs would be. Which, combined with some other stuff just made me uncomfortable. So I made an appointment with another vet who lives quite a bit further away, who I trust and went to decades ago. I always liked them because they clearly explain what they are doing and why, they treat the obvious most likely stuff first and will say when further treatment or testing is a lost cause or only leading to a conclusion that will be impractically expensive to do anything about. They also have a farm and a crew of healthy friendly farm cats, so they have a lot of experience taking care of outdoor cats who hunt.

At this point Moggie had not eaten anything more than a spoonful a day for about 3 days, he was not drinking on his own, his poops were tiny and soft and he had a fever of 105. (why he was seeming so sensitive to being chilly - as it turns to fall here I was wondering if SV cats needed more heat than most cats)

His stool sample showed he had roundworms, not tapeworms, and the vet I am now seeing told me these can make a cat feel too nauseous to eat, they are sometimes not eliminated by monthly spot on treatments and to really get rid of them there should be a follow up treatment in 10 days and then in another 10 days. (previous vet never mentioned this at all) I suggested Moggie was maybe just getting them again by eating rodents, but he said roundworms are not usually transmitted by rodents in this area, and it is much more likely he got them from his Mom, and was never properly treated for them so they have been a reoccurring problem. At this point they have damaged his intestines causing inflammation and infection causing his fever. I just really hope he can make a full recovery.

So Moggie has been given another worm treatment which will have proper follow up this time, but because it took so long to get him the help he needed, he now needs antibiotics & something to bring down his fever, & an anti-inflammatory. The good news is, he seems to be on the mend, and is once again eating with a normal appetite. And his fever appears to be coming down too. But this whole thing has been super stressful and could probably have been easily prevented.

Conclusion, people should know that cats who are extremely picky eaters may have a simple parasite problem that is not being completely taken care of by monthly spot on de-worming treatments.

 

[Patti]

Wow, what an ordeal! I'm glad to hear you've finally gotten to the bottom of Moggie's appetite issues!

 

[meghan123]

So me and Moggie have just emerged from a bit of an ordeal the past week. At one point I was pretty sure he was going to die of some obscure disease I could never afford to treat. Instead it appears to have been a common and preventable problem. And my experience may help someone else avoid the same thing...

After the Profender treatment a month ago Moggies appetite returned and for 2 weeks he ate ravenously and he re-gained the pound he had lost. Bringing him back to the weight he was at about 6.5 months, which was 2 months ago. His returned appetite was a bit odd because where he had previously been extremely reluctant to eat anything but the dry chicken Orijen, he began to refuse this, and his preference shifted to the Orijen red meat. And then he began refusing all dry Orijen and only eating canned food. (Which he had previously been really reluctant to eat more than a nibble of) And then, slowly, he began to get weird about eating everything again. At first I thought maybe he had healed and was no longer ravenous so he was starting to have more particular food preferences.

But about a week ago I began to think something was seriously wrong. He was loosing weight again, and appeared to be wanting to do nothing but sleep in the warmest spot he could find. Which had not happened before. So I decided to keep him in for 24 hours (now 72 he is still too weak to complain) to see how much he was eating with most of his access to hunting removed, and realized he was barely eating at all. I had called the vet I had been seeing, and asked the receptionist if maybe he needed to be wormed again and was told he would only need this every 3 months (as the vet told me also) but then as he sounded sick I was told I should bring him in and have a lot of expensive tests done looking for some rare conditions. But they could not tell me what illness with these symptoms the tests would be looking for, and if one of these illnesses was found, what the treatment options and costs would be. Which, combined with some other stuff just made me uncomfortable. So I made an appointment with another vet who lives quite a bit further away, who I trust and went to decades ago. I always liked them because they clearly explain what they are doing and why, they treat the obvious most likely stuff first and will say when further treatment or testing is a lost cause or only leading to a conclusion that will be impractically expensive to do anything about. They also have a farm and a crew of healthy friendly farm cats, so they have a lot of experience taking care of outdoor cats who hunt.

At this point Moggie had not eaten anything more than a spoonful a day for about 3 days, he was not drinking on his own, his poops were tiny and soft and he had a fever of 105. (why he was seeming so sensitive to being chilly - as it turns to fall here I was wondering if SV cats needed more heat than most cats)

His stool sample showed he had roundworms, not tapeworms, and the vet I am now seeing told me these can make a cat feel too nauseous to eat, they are sometimes not eliminated by monthly spot on treatments and to really get rid of them there should be a follow up treatment in 10 days and then in another 10 days. (previous vet never mentioned this at all) I suggested Moggie was maybe just getting them again by eating rodents, but he said roundworms are not usually transmitted by rodents in this area, and it is much more likely he got them from his Mom, and was never properly treated for them so they have been a reoccurring problem. At this point they have damaged his intestines causing inflammation and infection causing his fever. I just really hope he can make a full recovery.

So Moggie has been given another worm treatment which will have proper follow up this time, but because it took so long to get him the help he needed, he now needs antibiotics & something to bring down his fever, & an anti-inflammatory. The good news is, he seems to be on the mend, and is once again eating with a normal appetite. And his fever appears to be coming down too. But this whole thing has been super stressful and could probably have been easily prevented.

Conclusion, people should know that cats who are extremely picky eaters may have a simple parasite problem that is not being completely taken care of by monthly spot on de-worming treatments.

Hi

before I start I'm so pleased to hear Moggie is on the mend!

I've just been reading through your thread as I'm currently having problems myself with our savannah who is a picky eater! he will go mad for one thing, get bored of it, so we will move onto something, he will eat, get bored of it etc it just one big circle!

He's been suffering with sickness and diarrhea, with a fever reading at 38 so has been diagnosed for suspected gastreonitis, no tests were carried out though, just antibiotic shot given and anti sickness tablets.

we wormed him ourselves on Monday as the breeder gave us some worming treatment to use, which was spot on stronghold. Is it worth getting two more and doing two more treatments of this as you have mentioned? Should I get this checked by a vet first or just carry the treatment out? or does he need to be tested for roundworms first?

Thanks

 

[Moggieslegacy]

I am sorry to hear you have been having similar problems ... There is something so satisfying being able to make a cat happy by feeding it. And it is so frustrating to be unable to achieve that!

One thing that has helped me is I managed to get some Fortiflora from my new vet. Moggie is much more likely to eat food sprinkled with that and often will be enough to get him started. Once he realizes food is good he often continues eating.

Worms are a very common problem in kittens, and from what I have read kittens should have several deworming treatments, and depending on the product these need to be initially repeated anywhere from once a day to once every couple weeks. Some products are not suitable for this as they can only be used once a month. But there is probably lots of things that might cause the symptoms you have described. So seeing a vet may be really important. Also, different deworming products target different types of worms, some more common than others, so getting your cats stool examined for eggs would seem a sensible route. (If you just dewormed the egg laying adult roundworms are presumably gone, but maturing larva are probably still present)

https://www.revivalanimal.com/pet-health/active-ingredients-in-wormers/learning-center

There is also some discussion of different worming methods here
http://www.savannahcatchat.com/threads/de-wormer-of-choice.5103/

Moggie’s appetite returned after his last de-worming treatment, but it it has now been 2 weeks since he was given a Drontral pill, and 1 week since he was given a follow up dosage of Strongoid T, and it is getting hard to get him to eat again. He still has a moderate fever, has a lot of inflamation in his colon which has been helped by the antibiotics but not solved, and between this and his sporadic food intake he has hardly pooped in 2 weeks. The past week I have been documenting every tiny poop and photographed it to send to the vet. But so far this seems to be getting worse not better, and I can’t see how he can get better if he can’t poop properly. The other day when he pooped there was a long hair like thing that was sticking up where the poop last exited his bum, and taking a series of photographs it seemed to be very very slowly moving and in a direction contrary to gravity. The only thing I could find in google images that looked like this was whip worms. These are rare in cats, the sporadic eggs are often missed in fecal flotation tests, and whipworms are not treated by most of the standard cat deworming products. And they cause colitis and inflammation of the colon. I am still waiting to hear if whipworms might be why Moggie’s inflammation has been so intractable...

He is hanging in there, but still has a ways to go to regain his health. We are both getting worn down at this point, and if a solution isn’t found soon I am not sure he will make it. For a while I was thinking it might be dry FIP, but the vet doesn’t think so. But worms are not the only thing that can cause these problems...

I really hope you find a simple solution!