[Alicat42]

This is Lunas first christmas, and I've been watching her health very closely. I've noticed though, that the past month or so she's eating very little.
Normally she would eat about half a table spoon of kibble at night, and snack on the other half durring the day. But the past month she's only been eating 4-6 kibbles in the evening. Not even enough to make a dent in her food dish.
I took her out today to make sure she wasn't going to hybernate and her heater was still working. She was warm and active while I was handling her, and when I put her back in her cage. She played for about 7-10 minutes, had a drink of water, used her litter box, ate 5 kibbles and went back to sleep.
I'm still filling her food dish with fresh kibbles every night but she hardly eats any of it.
I've also offered her a comercail hedgehog food, seperate to her high quality cat food, and mixed. She seemed interested in it, and did taste it but didnt actually eat eat either foods.
The brand of kitten food I have her on is the same food her breeder feeds. She wont eat anything else to my knowledge thus far.
I'm quite worried, she isn't using her wheel and she isn't eating a heck of a lot.

*I do give her treats daily, one worm durring play time/little bit of wet cat food/little bit of baby food/boiled chicken-turky. I know not to use these instead of the food. I'm also wondering if I should be giving her treats if those are what she's relying on as a food source instead of her kibble - if thats the situation at all.
As well as that concern, she loooves pine apple. This is a really rare treat for her and I. I always save her a little chunk of the core, she loves chewing on it. However, I have that chunk in the fridge right now as I'm not totally sure I should be giving her something that acidic if she's not eating properly. Moms suggested other wise, her arguement being a) luna is just another grand-baby critter and does want to spoil her. and B) if she's having digestive issues the citric acid from the pineapple might help.
I can kind of see where that might apply, but I think I should figure out whats going on before jumping in to a pile of solutions that could further increase the problem.

 

[LizardGirl]

Are her teeth and mouth fine? Maybe one of her teeth is uncomfortable, and she doesn't want to chew hard food? You might try softening her food with warm water for her, and see if she eats it. You also might want to try a plain or berry yogurt to get her gut flora up, if that is the problem.

If she is kept nice and warm, and has no mouth or GI tract problems, I have no idea. I hope she does better.

 

[Nancy]

I agree with softening her food with a bit of water. Our Nemo was on softened food at a fairly young age because he started having difficulty crunching the hard kibble. As they age their jaws often aren't as strong and the kibble becomes harder to eat but Nemo was around 1.5 when he started to have problems.

I wouldn't give her pineapple. It is too acidic.

 

[Alicat42]

So I did the scruff hold (which she wasn't too pleased about) and I couldnt see any abnormalities, swollen or inflamed gums, chipped or absessed teeth, her teeth are all still very white. I did try softening her food. The first night I softened it in the afternoon and left it in her cage all night. She didnt eat any of it at all. The next night I tried softening it right before I went to bed. She still didnt eat any, what so ever.
She did, however catch a beetle the other day. We had a fire and dad brought a pile of wood in for it. So, I think the beetle came out of the wood pile and was crawling on the floor while Luna and I were having play time. She snatched it and wolfed it down no problem. I had a mealie from my (attempted) farm that was recently desceased this morning so I took it out and put it in her dish. She came out right away and ate it, but not her food. Though she still does have the same 5-8 kibbles each night, and roughly the same each day.
Is she trying to be a sneaky little munchkin and trying to hold out on eating her kibble so I'll give her treats?
The bugs seem to be about the only thing that she'll eat aside from those few kibbles. She wont eat any baby food, or pieces of chopped fruit/vegies or broiled meat. Just bugs.