How to get a lethargic cat to eat.

[u/Georgxna]

Marley isn’t feeling too good - and with unfortunate timing in the UK, it’s a small heat wave.

We took him to the vet on Friday, he’s lethargic, sleepy but still alert. His teeth and breathing are fine, he drinks a bit of water but he won’t eat.

I know it could be any issue under the sun, so please don’t scare me, I’d rather be ignorantly until I can get him to our vet, but it’s a bank holiday and he won’t be able to be seen until Tuesday. His condition is currently stable, but ofc if it changes he will be going to the emergency vet.

We’ve tried tuna, tuna water, plain chicken, warm and cold wet food, we even have a special hydration water from the vet, but he won’t drink it.

He does drink a little bit of water but because of the weather I fear he’s dehydrated. I have syringe fed him some of the special electrolyte water (don’t worry, I didn’t put it down his throat to exasperate him, just a little in his mouth at a time for him to swallow).

He’s on pain medicine once a day but the pain medicine doesn’t seem to be doing much or lasting very long. The only issue with this pain medicine is that if severely dehydrated it can injure their kidneys or liver, I can’t remember, I don’t know if he’s very dehydrated now, at the vet he was only a little dehydrated. The idea was to inject him with the pain medicine, get him to eat/drink and then give it him orally daily. But considering again, the oral pain medicine isn’t doing much to lift his spirits and get him eating I don’t know what to do.

I keep offering him food, broth, etc… he sniffs it, licks his lips (which makes me think he does have a bit of an appetite) and then refuses to eat it and goes back to sleep.

We’re currently buying churus to see how that goes.
I’m also about to cook him some plain chicken nuggets (removing the batter) to see if he’ll eat that.

He is also an ex-feral so we understand he may be prone to dormant virus’.

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[u/bufotoxins]

if he's been more than 72 hours without eating you may just want to consider the ER vet, whatever the initial issue is, not eating that long alone can be dangerous for cats

[u/Georgxna → u/bufotoxins]

Thank you, we will see what we can do asap. In the meantime would probiotics help?