Cat Forum banner

Won't eat liver

9K views 19 replies 7 participants last post by  Sabrina767 
#1 ·
My Charli won't eat liver. She's raw fed. Even when ground with the other parts of the chicken, she does her best to eat around it. She would not eat liver, hearts, gizzards nor kidney by themselves initially at ALL, so I went to ground which is whole chicken ground including bone, meat and offal, and mix in chunks for her to chew. She is being picky about it still. I do give her Alnutrin with her food so she gets all her nutrients, and if I chop her larger chunks a little smaller and mix with the ground, she is getting some in her but not really by choice. Does anyone have any suggestions? When I started her with raw, I started with chicken thigh chunks mixed in with her grain free wet food. She loved it so much she would leave the wet food and just pick out the chicken. So I added Alnutrin for raw without the bone, and you are supposed to mix it with the chicken meat and liver (certain amount liver per/lb of meat) so in any event, she seemed okay with it for a little while, then I started noticing the little pieces of liver were the only thing left in her plate. So I put the chicken through the grinder, with the correct amount of liver, and mixed that with some chunks, and she was eating all of that okay, but still kind of trying to make her way around anything remotely resembling a piece of liver. Now, the past week or so, she wants nothing to do with any of that and only wants her chicken chunks, so I tried cutting them up small and mixing it with the ground mix that has the liver in it, and she's still over at her dish spending a whole lot of time weeding her way through all of this stuff...lol She's driving me a little batty. Anyone have any suggestions? This is all chicken, by the way. I went to whole foods today to see if I could find some beef liver or something, but they have a whole lotta nothin' like that. Any suggestions? She just turned 7 months. She eats a LOT, but this picking through trying to weed out the stuff that she really needs is making me crazy. I want to be sure she's getting everything she needs. Also, she seems to get excited about the smell of the liver, so I'll put a piece in a dish and put it down and she'll get all excited until she realizes, oh, it's THAT stuff and she walks.
Thanks so much for any suggestions.
 
See less See more
#5 ·
LOL! My first husband never knew the labor of love, it was for me, to fix his favorite liver&onions dinner!! I hate everything about liver, it's nasty slimy texture, its smell...Ewwwww!!:eek::D
 
#6 ·
Okay, so I guess the answer is we all hate liver and I shouldn't expect my beautiful baby to like it either, huh? Lol.
Let's go at this another way, can I supplement her with something in place of the liver? Her alnutrin per 1g supplies her the following:
calcium, 140 mg min
Calcium 155 mg max
Potassium min 42mg
Sodium min 32mg
Chloride 90 mg min
Iron 1.5 mg min
Copper 0.07 mg min
Manganese 0.22mg min
Zinc 1.0 min
Iodine0.01mg min
Vitamin D 15 IU min
Vitamin E 3.5 IU min
Thiamine0.15 mg min
Vitamin B12 0.25 mcg min
Taurine 115 mg min
 
#7 · (Edited)
Sabrina,

I know you've tried Whole Foods for beef liver, but how about your local butcher? Also, depending where you are, some local (vs. national chain) grocery stores may have livers from other animals if your kitty isn't fond of chicken liver. Sometimes I add freeze dried beef or lamb livers from my local independent pet store and use that as a topper to ground meat or you can use them as a treat.

The alnutrin seems great but I think liver has a high vitamin A (and D?) which your alnutrin lacks if that listing is correct, so you may need to supplement it with 40,000 IU vitamin A and probably more vitamin D (1600 IU instead of the 15 IU) that you've got in there, along with some kind of meat/bones.

Here's a link that I found: Recipes - Cat Nutrition

Not sure why this link says they don't like beef liver, though. And FYI, my two cats absolutely looooove freeze dried livers! I buy lamb livers mostly, but do have a pkg of beef that I occasionally give for variety. And just wondering...do your cats eat other types of raw meat other than chicken? Maybe adding some variety of different protein would make feeding time much more exciting for your kitty? I'd avoid feeding chicken exclusively just because feeding it all the time has the potential to cause intolerence or even allergies later in life. Rotation even in raw food is important!

Good luck!
 
#8 ·
WOW! TabbCatt,
That much vitamin A, every day? Seems like a lot to me...since vitamin A, isn't water soluble and builds up...
and I believe, can lead to toxicity??
Just wondering...
Sharon
 
#9 ·
TabbCatt, Since I missed my edit window...by a country mile!
You're talking that much vitamin A...per Batch of food...right??
Not a single serving per day!?:what:
 
#13 ·
Yes Sharon, it's per batch of food, you're correct. I'm sorry I wasn't very clear in my inital post. The link I provided makes 2 kg or 4.4 lbs, but it would provide correct ratios instead of "guestimating" how much to liver or Vitamin A to feed your kitty. Like librarychick, I also prefer to use real liver in their food vs. supplemental powders, so I buy the real thing, whether it's raw from the butcher/grocery stores or freeze dried.

OP--I think you can also find livers in Asian grocery stores if you have one in your area. Just want to check on it's sourcing if you can, though, just to be safe. I'd be leery of products imported from China, for example.
 
#10 ·
TabbCat, I think that's why Alnutrin says you must add liver when they give you the recipe for making food with their product. That's why I'm concerned about her trying to avoid it. Ridiculous as this sounds, there are no more butchers around here.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I've had similar issues in the past, my solution was to feed some meals ground and some meals chunked.

Torri refuses to eat bones the vast majority of the time. The boys won't eat chunks of liver, and Jitzu will wolf down a lot of things and then get sick *sigh*. Lol, so, I feed them their organ mix meals ground. The mix is 50% meat with bone and 50% organs (liver, kidney, spleen mostly). I buy it locally in 1 lb bags, then mix it 1:1 with plain regular ground meat (usually from the same company). That makes it less rich so Jitzu doesn't bring it back up, gets the bone in for Torri, and because it's mixed in well enough that they can't pick it out the boys will eat it.

I'd start with that. You can use a food processor to grind the livers up, mix them in with some ground beef, and see if that does the trick. Feeding ground all the times isn't ideal, but I'd always rather give them actual organs than supplement mixes.

Also, having a rotation of protein types is actually MORE important with raw than with any other diet. The reason being that different kinds of meat have different nutrients and vitamins in different amounts. So a diet of only chicken just isn't balanced. In an average week my four get turkey, duck, salmon (yay! new product :) ), beef, pork, and something special like llama, alpaca, bison, buffalo, moose, ect. They need that sort of rotation for their health, not just for their enjoyment.

When you're first starting out it is good to start with one meat, but within a month (assuming no digestive troubles) you should work on adding other kinds of meats into the rotation.
 
#14 ·
Charli had some wild caught salmon today and loved it. I know big fish should not be a large part of her diet, but it sure was a nice treat for her today, she was a happy kitten with that salmon!!
 
#15 ·
Liver issue solved by putting it in the vitamix with some chicken thigh and mix til smooth, then mixing it with her dinner. I tried the freeze dried, and she nibbled a bit then wouldn't touch it, so on a whim I tried the vitamix thing and it worked. Phew.
 
#16 ·
My cats must be weirdos because they love livers/organ meats, it seems. I'm sorry the freeze dried stuff didn't work out! I know it's not cheap buying it!

But I sure am glad that blending it in worked out and that she is eating it, however sneaky way you can manage to do it! :)
 
#17 ·
My feral cat loves the organ mix too.....I sure wish Charli would eat it the way he does. You're lucky your cats like it. No problem on the freeze dried. I stuck it in the freezer and I'm going to see if maybe my sons cat might like it...or who knows, in a week Charli might like it too! Lol
 
#18 ·
TabbCat, Charli has decided she loves the freeze dried stuff (good thing I saved it in the freezer), which is great because that liver slurry was pretty disgusting. Anyhow, how much of the freeze dried should I be giving her? I cut it up into tiny squares, and she munches it as a treat...suddenly she's loving it. Silly kitty. I'm just not sure how much to give her this way. Thank you. Sabrina
 
#19 ·
Sabrina,
Your cats would normally consume 10% of organs in the wild, so I wouldn't give too much. You'll know if it's too much if Charli starts to have softer than normal stools. I use the freeze dried as treats or sometimes as toppers (crumble them up) on top of chicken wings, or other meats as you like. Perferably, whenever you feed meats with bone, you want to give some organs too, since too much bone consumption can have a constipating effect and stools will look whiter.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top