Why Do Cats Sometimes Refuse To Eat?

Why Do Cats Sometimes Refuse To Eat?
Why Do Cats Sometimes Refuse To Eat?

Video: Why Do Cats Sometimes Refuse To Eat?

Video: Why Do Cats Sometimes Refuse To Eat?
Video: 3 Reasons Why Your Cat is Not Eating and What to Do About It 2024, March
Anonim

Any cat owner can recall a case when a cat approached a bowl of food prepared for him and, having sniffed it, went home without eating a crumb. This does not happen often, but if it happens, it looks mysterious. Why does a cat refuse food that it usually eats with great pleasure. Perhaps she is sick? But this also happens when the cat is completely healthy.

Perhaps the food is of poor quality. But this cannot always serve as an explanation, because the same product was given to the cat during the previous feeding and was eaten willingly. Some cat owners have noticed that two portions of the same food given to an animal at different times of the same day are sometimes treated differently: the first portion is eaten, the second is rejected.

If the cat is healthy and the food is edible, then we are dealing with the intricacies of the feline character, and any of many factors can be the reason for rejection.

The cat meows, demands to be fed, photo photo feeding cats
The cat meows, demands to be fed, photo photo feeding cats

The first explanation is that the cat may prefer to eat often but little by little, not infrequently but in large quantities. This is not surprising when you remember the size of their natural prey - small mice and birds.

Unfortunately for domestic cats, their owners rarely have enough time to serve them mouse-sized portions - they prefer to pile full bowls of cat food. If you compare a regular mouse to the amount of meat you put in your pet's bowl, you will see that the average serving is equivalent to about 5 mice. This is convenient for busy owners, but too much for a one-time consumption of a cat, if she is not extremely hungry - and this rarely happens with beloved pets.

Usually, the murka eats a piece the size of a mouse, walks around to digest, and later comes back for another portion, and so on, until the bowl runs out of food. Based on this observation, it can be assumed that if the bowl is empty and the next portion is rejected, then the cat is not ready for the next hunt.

Usually cats have the ability to accurately regulate the amount of food they eat. Fat cats are much less common than obese dogs or humans. And if the cat is brought to a little overeating, it is likely to leave the next bowl of food intact.

But even this explanation is not entirely satisfactory, because the owners sometimes notice that their animal eats different amounts of food on different days. There are days when a cat suddenly decides to eat much less than usual. From what? The first explanation: the animal is about to show a sexual instinct. If you have a female and her estrus is approaching, she may well forget about food. Another reason could be the weather - if there is a sudden warming or humidity increase (or both), cats can immediately restrict food intake.

Another explanation is that your cat is eating somewhere on the side and you are not aware of it. Maybe a friendly neighbor treats your walking cat with tidbits and she returns home full. There may still be a sudden and unexpected increase in the local population of mice, and domestic cats, until now ate only at home, may begin to hunt rodents. At the same time, their appetite suddenly disappears, and the bewildered owner can only scrape the untouched dried cat food into the trash can.

There is another, less likely reason - the cat does not like the place where they usually put a bowl of food for it. Murki do not like to eat in bright light, strong noise and busy traffic. They prefer to eat in a quiet, twilight cozy corner away from the hustle and bustle of home.

Allocating an unsuitable place to feed your cat can make her appetite unstable. If she is annoyed or anxious, she may be painful about the noise and resentful to stand aside instead of sitting by the bowl and enjoying a delicious meal. Whether the cat will eat in such a situation depends on the quality of the food as much as on the changeable mood of the animal.

Finally, even if all of these factors do not affect the cat's appetite, the animal may still refuse to eat the next portion. This happens when the innate "food diversity mechanism" is turned on. This phenomenon was first discovered in seed-eating birds. From time to time, birds switch from one type of seed to another, despite their equal nutritional value. If you give them the same food, they will eat it without any whims and harm to health. An unchanged menu won't hurt them. However, if given the opportunity to choose, they will have sudden changes in addictions, even if the different seeds are the same. In nature, the purpose of this mechanism is to prevent birds from becoming completely dependent on a particular type of feed. If this type of food disappears, it will not harm the birds. In feral cats, this mechanism also prevents them from being completely dependent on this type of prey. In domestic moons, this mechanism is manifested in thethat from time to time an old tried and tested menu suddenly becomes unattractive. The animal needs at least a short change of food.

The cat is standing by the bowl, photo photograph
The cat is standing by the bowl, photo photograph

From the point of view of some owners, such changes in the taste of cats are nothing more than an annoying nuisance. But if suddenly, for any reason, a cat is left without owners, it must be well adapted to life, so the animal should be taught to quickly switch from one diet to another, in case changed circumstances require it.

There is another subtlety in cat nutrition that may seem contradictory. If one cat is given the same (but nutritious) food all the time - the same canned food, for example - then the animal will eventually refuse to accept any other food, no matter how tasty it may be. If another cat is provided with a more varied menu, then, paradoxically, it may from time to time refuse any old favorite dish. At first glance, this is illogical. The explanation is that when an animal is fed the same product for a long period of time, the "food diversity mechanism" is suppressed and eventually stops working altogether. The so-called neophobia - “fear of the new” - develops. Unfamiliar tastes and smells are a threat - unfamiliar food is rejected. Such cats become a real problem if their well-established daily menu is violated - say,in the event of the death of an elderly owner.

In the case of cats that are given more varied food, this mechanism operates in full force throughout its life, and the animal becomes more and more demanding and picky about food. In other words, cats deprived of choice will not want variety, and those with a varied diet require more and more.

Source: H. Nepomniacht "Cat maintenance"

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