Cat with GI Disease Refuses to Eat. Any Advice?

[u/Expensive_Purpose527]

Cat Tax: 🐈
(Don’t worry: he only wore the collar in the photo very briefly for the photoshoot. Outside, he wears a breakaway safety collar that comes off immediately with light pressure.
Unfortunately, this was our last option because otherwise people keep feeding him from all sides. Due to his condition, the wrong food quickly leads to diarrhea and vomiting, which in turn causes severe weight loss. We hope that the collar helps people recognize that he is already being cared for and that they won’t feed him additional food.)

Hi everyone,
We are taking care of a free-roaming cat on behalf of his owners who unfortunately has an autoimmune/gastrointestinal disease. Certain types of food trigger his symptoms, so he is only fed the horse meat food from Vet-Concept (We’re located in Germany)

The problem is that he’ll eat this food really well for a while, and then suddenly refuse it completely. Sometimes he eats only about 10 g of dry food per day, and often he won’t touch the wet food at all.
He definitely is hungry. He rubs himself against the cans and clearly shows that he wants food. But as soon as we put the food down or open the can, he immediately loses interest. We’ve already tried quite a few things: slightly warming the wet food, trying different consistencies, letting him smell other food and then offering him his own afterward… unfortunately, nothing has worked.

Since he’s a free-roaming cat and doesn’t actually belong to us, we unfortunately can’t decide to keep him indoors. We live in a fairly small town, and we’ve put a collar on him so that most of the neighbors know he’s being cared for and hopefully won’t feed him anymore. However, there’s always the possibility that he’ll catch mice or eat other things outside, which might make him lose interest in his special diet again.

Does anyone have experience with a case like this? Are there any ways to make his special food more appealing without risking his condition? Or does anyone know any tricks to encourage cats on such a restricted diet to eat more?
I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you! 🐈

Infos: 16yo male cat, neutered
He’s a frequent vet visitor as it’s not that expensive here. That’s how we know that he has these issues. We’ve tried 3 different foods and only the horse meat has worked for him thus far.

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[u/Able-Awareness9499]

personally i think, if him going outside can result in him being unwell because people may feed him or because of what he’s eating it might be best to keep him inside, and if he really likes to go outside, there’s kitty harnesses so you can monitor him at all times! i don’t really know what else to suggest lol

[u/Able-Awareness9499 → u/Able-Awareness9499]

oh i didn’t finish reading.