remove all dry food away, leave only wet food

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As he is only 12 weeks leave him on the food the breeder had him on, changing foods at this time in his life will stress him out. I find that cats try to bury foods they really hate, so if you force him to eat it alone he will be reduce his intake and that is not good for a growing kitten.
Please just leave him on the food he is used to, he will come to no harm and will get past this vulnerable kitten stage with as little stress as possible.

I see this all the time here, new kitten owners forcing new "better" food onto their kittens, resulting often in vomiting, diarrhoea, refusal to eat, losing weight and sometimes even serious illness.
Royal Canin is an excellent all round food and is perfectly capable of producing healthy cats, why did you decide to change it?

As long as a food is complete it is better for a kitten to eat it, than for the kitten to get stressed over supposedly "better" food it will not eat. Being in a new home is incredibly stressful for a young kitten, so changing the only thing that is ongoing in their life ie their food makes no sense whatsoever to me.

- Stress in kittens is associated with FIP, it is therefore not a good idea to increase the stress in a young kitten.

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Elaine

Quasar acts like he is covering his food ALL the time. He will scratch like he is covering his bowl with dirt both before and after eating.

He does not hate his food. He is a great eater!

It looks like an instinctive behaviour, perhaps to hide the food so others can not find it?

I find it kind of quirky and cute.

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~ Kyenta

Indiya does that to her food as well after she ate most of it but there is some left behind. she then can come back to buried food and would finish it off .
I dont think it means she hates it - i think it her preserving it for later means she is full at that moment

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I am not saying that cats won't eat the food they bury, but having watched this for many years, I am convinced they do it to stuff they really do not want or like.
I have never seen it happen with foods they love and will eat quickly.

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Elaine

Mine will try to cover the food after eating some of it. It's harder for him to do with the Neater Feeder, but he used to tip the food bowl or spill the water -- a big mess. He goes back and finishes the food later. Just a quirk they have, I guess.

Alex does this too. The only stuff he does not try to bury is his biscuits. It makes me laugh.

One day I dropped a salt & vinegar chip on the floor in a high traffic cat area. Every single time Alex walked past he stopped to 'bury' it. It made me laugh each time, so funny

If he is only 12 weeks old he is still settling in to your home, this really isn't the time for changing his food as he is already going through a lot of changes. As Elaine said it is just more likely to end up in an upset tummy and a stressed kitten....

I think there is a lot of pressure lately to be feeding your cat the "right" food which leads to people swapping around their kittens food as soon as possible when often, what they were on with the breeder is perfectly fine and will not cause any issues.

In terms of burying the food, i have never seen this behaviour in Diego. But i do know that if it is a food he loves he would scoff it down as soon as possible, he certainly wouldn't leave it for later!

Totally normal nearly all cats do this, my British & Ragdolls are the worst at doing it, they start from young kittens (very cute to watch a 4week old kitten trying to cover the food!!) my bengals did it to! hen dig and dig at the floor until they finally knock the entire bowl of food over trying to 'cover it' when they then realise it isn't covered they re-eat it!

Then the British will bring blankets over to cover it up!!!

Just installed in them, once full cover for later, its not a big deal, unless it goes everywhere!

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OMG I hope I didnt do sumthg bad by changing his food ??? I only did it in a gradual manner it actually took me a month 2 change the Royal Canin dry 2 the WELLNESS kitten dry & then the Royal Canin Wet 2 the Wellness Wet but he seemed 2 not like the Wellness n started 2 cover it so I started experimenting with other wet foods n he seemed out of all the canned food he likes Royal Canin n Iams not the ALL NATURAL EXPENSIVE food. The man who works at Petco said that Iams n Royal Canin is not bad food but I read that it is not All Natural n can cause GI problems but he likes it. He still eat his ALL NATURAL DRY KITTEN FOOD but I give him WET food 3x a day. I was giving it to him 5 or 6 times a day since I got him so young but now he is 14 weeks n the feed said 3x a day of wet is plenty. I like the idea of moving the dry away from the wet. I keep a bowl of dry upstair n a bowl downstairssince my house is so big n he has water upstairs n a water fountain in the kitten. I just want whats hest 4 his GI tract. His poop is normal not loose . I have 4 litter boxes in my house in different areas !! Is it bad 2 give different flavors of cat food ?? Should he have the same flavor all the time ?? Is chunks or bits better than patte ???

Thank u 4 all the help. I wish I could share pics .. idk how ??

To owner of ALEX........what do u mean his biscuits ??? What is that ?? I mean I no what a biscuit is but what is a biscuit for cats ??? Never seen that ??

Biscuits refers to cat dry food... Often called biscuits, kibble etc....

Just to say that eating a food not classed as 'All natural' will not necessarily cause gut problems. If our kitty tolerates it then they are very unlikely to develop a gut problem from eating it.

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Lollo

Lollo. . Omg how did u do that picture collage at the bottom of your post?? Can u make me one plez ??? Its so pretty !!

O ok got it biscuits is dry food !! Lol ! I feel like an idiot

Lily does this with her wet food, dry food and sometimes her toys (she hides them, too)
I figured it was her natural instinct and it's not causing issues so left her to do so.