How to make a patient with a cat or cat after an illness than feed the animal if it does not want to eat anything?

Taking care of a sick cat or cat can be difficult, particularly if the cat won’t eat. While it’s normal for pets to lose their appetite while recovering, it’s crucial to find ways to feed them so they can build back their strength.

The first step is to figure out why your cat might not want to eat. It might be the result of stress, medication side effects, or the illness itself. Providing nutrient-dense, easy-to-digest food can have a significant impact on their healing process.

There are a number of ways to get your pet to eat, such as attempting specially prepared recovery diets or giving tiny servings of their favorite foods. You can speed up your cat’s recovery by being patient and attending to their needs.

Reasons for the refusal of food

There are two categories of factors that can cause someone to lose interest in food: physiological and pathological. In contrast to the second scenario, the issue in the first one is transient and doesn’t call for extra action.

There’s no need to worry if your pet is underweight or refuses to eat and shows no signs of sickness. When a tail-wagging pet is obviously ill and refuses food, extra care must be given.

Physiological (heat, fatigue, overeating, etc.)

Cats’ physiological reasons for refusing food include:

• Heat. In hot weather, animals, like people, experience a decrease in appetite, which normalizes itself as soon as the cat"s body adapts to the new conditions.
• Fatigue. After playing and running around, the pet may refuse to eat, t. k. he simply does not have the strength to absorb and digest it. After resting, the cat will immediately demand a portion of food.
• Overeating. Having overeaten, the animal may starve until it has completely digested the food.
• Unpalatable food. Sometimes cats do not stop eating, but simply refuse a specific food because they do not like it. You should not force the animal to eat food that it does not like, or wait until it adapts to a new food or product. It is necessary to adjust its diet, excluding from the cat"s menu the product it does not like or changing the brand of food.

• Dirty or bad-smelling bowl. Many clean cats do not like to eat from a dirty or plastic bowl that emits a strong smell of food residue. Dried or rotten food not only negatively affects the appetite of a tailed friend, but can also cause serious illnesses.
• Preparation for childbirth or postpartum rest. Many pregnant cats have no appetite on the eve of childbirth. This is normal. The same can happen after the birth of kittens. Many pets that have given birth do not approach the bowl of food in the first day after the birth of their kittens because they are afraid to leave them alone, experience postpartum stress, or are recovering from childbirth.

Pathological (diseases, recovery period)

A kitten or adult cat may not have any appetite at all for the following reasons:

• Dental problems (incompetence, caries, tartar, periodontitis, stomatitis, etc.). Refusal of food is due to pain in the mouth that the pet experiences when chewing it. If, along with the loss of appetite, drooling abundantly flows, it smells unpleasantly from his mouth, he tries to get something out of it, with a high degree of probability we can talk about the presence of inflammation in it.
• Poisoning with poor-quality food, medicines, household chemicals or plant-based poisons, accompanied by vomiting, weakness, hypersalivation.
• Infection of viral or bacterial etiology. Typical symptoms: increased body temperature, lethargy, decreased motor activity. Sneezing and discharge from the nasal passages and eyes are also possible.
• Disruption of the digestive system, which is most often caused by intestinal parasites (roundworms and tapeworms, flukes).

• Injury to the esophagus with a sharp object, such as a bone. This is an extremely dangerous phenomenon that can lead to perforation of the digestive system and profuse bleeding. If the pet does not eat or drink anything, has an elevated body temperature and drools profusely, is anxious, stretches its neck, it must be urgently taken to a veterinary clinic.
• Diseases of internal organs, tumors (violation of the liver, kidneys, organs of the genitourinary system, malignant neoplasms). In addition to losing interest in food, a sick cat may experience lethargy, physical inactivity, and increased urination. There may also be blood in the urine.
• Severe emotional shock. Stress affects cats differently. It does not affect the condition of some cats, others become lethargic, stop eating, suffer from diarrhea, others become overexcited, eat a lot, and show aggression.
• Foreign body (swallowed part of a child"s toy, bezoar) in one of the sections of the gastrointestinal tract, leading to partial or complete intestinal obstruction, which is manifested by refusal to eat, vomiting, hypersalivation, lethargy, plaintive meowing.

See also: A guide to selecting dry, wet, liquid, and canned super premium food for your cherished kitten

Should you feed a cat if it is starving for physiological reasons?

You shouldn’t force-feed an animal if it is starving naturally, such as because of heat exhaustion or other factors. The cat can handle this transient phenomenon on its own once its body heals or adjusts to the new environment. It’s best to leave food in the bowl when you leave the house in case your pet becomes lonely and hungry.

In what cases is it necessary to feed a pet that does not eat on its own?

You shouldn’t always wait for the animal’s appetite to return to normal on its own. A wait-and-see approach can occasionally be detrimental to the tail pet’s health.

If the animal goes more than two or three days without eating on its own, you will need to force-feed it. A prolonged fasting cat runs the risk of becoming weaker and experiencing major internal organ damage.

How to increase a cat"s appetite?

A four-legged pet can be made to eat more in a number of ways:

• Cook favorite dishes. If the cat loves meat, when preparing food, you should focus on this product. Animals whose favorite delicacy is eggs can be interested in boiled yolk.
• Offer your cat a new dish that the tailed picky eater hasn"t eaten yet. Perhaps, curiosity will flare up in the cat, and it will try the treat.
• Prepare liquid aromatic food. Smell plays an important role in forming appetite.

• Soak dry granules if the cat eats ready-made food, or offer it delicious pieces in sauce or jelly.
• Put some catnip in the bowl.
• Buy cat grass at a pet store. You shouldn"t waste time sprouting the grains yourself, because. . the problem requires an urgent solution.
• Give your pet vitamins to stimulate appetite, agreed upon with the veterinarian, containing seaweed, mint, yeast and other components.

See also: Ingredients in "Friskies" cat food; Product attributes for adults, kittens, and sterilized animals

How to force-feed an animal?

It is not acceptable to force food into a pet’s mouth through coercive physical and psychological techniques. The animal needs to be coaxed into eating. You can use one of the following techniques to accomplish this:

• Put a small piece of fragrant food on the root of the tongue, and then close her mouth. To stimulate swallowing, you should carefully stroke its throat with your finger.
• Pour in a liquid nutrient mixture by the cheek of a pitye from a syringe without a needle.

Sometimes a four-legged patient receives nutrients by pouring them into a vein with a dropper or by inserting a probe straight into the stomach. These methods are used in cases of damage to the mouth or esophagus, and they are not feasible for the animal to feed itself.

When administering therapeutic food to an animal, the following guidelines need to be followed:

• give it in a dosage, t. To. Therapeutic products are characterized by increased calorie content;
• Do not leave food in a bowl, hoping that the cat will eat it later;
• Heat the food to the body temperature of the tail pardon.

Patience and close observation of a cat’s eating habits are essential to assisting its recuperation from a sickness. If your pet won’t eat, try giving them tiny servings of simple-to-digest foods like broth, boiled chicken, or a special healing diet that your veterinarian has prescribed. Additionally, you can hand-feed the cat to encourage eating or slightly reheat the food to make it look more appetizing. If your pet doesn’t seem hungry after a while, pay special attention to their hydration and speak with your veterinarian. They may recommend further supplements or therapies.

How to make a kitten eat?

A kitten can be encouraged to eat by using any of the following techniques:

• Put a finger with a little food on it to the kitten"s face. Perhaps this will awaken the desire to eat in it.
• Holding the baby by the head, slowly inject liquid food into its cheek from a small syringe, pipette or baby bottle.
• Pour slightly warmed milk into a bowl, bring the baby to it and wet its nose with it.

It can be difficult to assist a recovering cat, particularly if they are refusing food. To help them regain their strength, it’s critical to be patient and provide them with gentle support.

Start with light, soft foods with mild flavors that are simple to digest. You could also try serving tiny portions by hand or slightly reheating the food to make it look more appetizing.

Try wet food, baby food (without dangerous ingredients like onion or garlic), or even a special recovery diet that your veterinarian has recommended if the cat is still not interested in eating.

Above all, keep an eye on their progress and see a veterinarian if things don’t get better because a protracted refusal to eat could be a sign of more serious issues.

Video on the topic

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