Cat owner question

Changing brand may work, changing flavor as well. Some cats are very picky eaters.

my guess is the brand is not suitable for it. and please stop allowing the spider eating thing. if they are dead, they are not healty for it.

3 days is a bit long to go without food. I would switch brands. If you go to a pet store, you should be able to pick up several cans of different food. If she likes one, you can even try mixing the food you have in it. What brand were you given (dry food I assume)?

Yeah definitely try changing the brand. Try to find a kind with some more natural ingredients, or find some that are suitable for outside cats. It might take a little bit to find a kind she likes, so just stick to the smallest bag or can for now until you find the kind she will eat.

I agree with others, try giving it some other kind of cat food, see what she likes. Buy her some treats, too!
She might also refuse to eat as a reaction to a new home, I used to have pet rats and one of them, who was also fairly introverted, refused to eat the first few days too (then he got used to everything and all was fine).

My cat wasn't eating the best cat food I could find for her, but was very enthusiastic about the cheapest brand =\
So, yeah, it took some time to decide on something we both agree =)

Switch cat food brands, and once you find one the cat likes - stay with it.
Switching foods constantly is also bad for cats and can upset their stomach.

Took me several tries to find one that my cat liked, then he ate the same brand for 17 years. -_-

EDIT: Also, like Thirteen said, the lack of appetite or strange appetite can be due to the "shock" of a new environment. Cats take a lot longer (at least in my experience) than dogs to become accustomed to a new home.

I would ask your friends if the cat had any issues with the food while they had her. There might be something they didn't tell you right away. Also where exactly did you keep her food?

It may be a stress reaction to changing homes. Cats get very attached to places. She probably pounces on insects and spiders for entertainment, not to feed herself. Does she have any toys?
I agree with others about changing brands. Maybe try feeding her wet food if the previous one was dry? Oh, and she definitely shouldn't be eating insects after you used the insecticide, it may be very toxic for her.

If the problem persists, try asking a vet.

if you can get several free samples from different brands, it will help you test them instead of spending a lot of money.
you could also try feeding it with fresh food, like ham, cheese, different kinds of meat.

also be sure it has a lot of water everywhere, if your cat don't drink it will have a kidney failure for sure.

As everybody said, changing brands might work. I had to do the same a few times because my cat would stop eating the one he usually ate.
Also, does your cat like to drink water? If she does and she still won't eat the canned food, maybe mix it with a little warm water so it becomes some sort of thick soup. My cat had urinary stones/sand recently and my vet recommended me this to 1) get him to drink more and 2) get him to eat the diet canned food he didn't enjoy that much. It works pretty well.
My cat ate a spider recently too, this was right before I fed him. Maybe this indicates that your cat is hungry, but she doesn't like the food she gets. It may be stress because of the recent changes in her life, so trying out a new taste/a new flavor might just be winning her over.
Hope it gets better soon!

Make sure that her eating location doesn't ever change, and that she's totally safe there- no surprises of any sort. An alcove she can fit in while she eats is best.
Also, it's better to not be around when she eats- so don't make the location one you pass by often, or it'll take her longer to initially test the food.

Also note that if you've left dry food out for more than a day, it's old, and wet food, more than 2 hours. While there's generally little concern to the first, that stuff is designed to survive apocalypses, it may affect her desire to eat it. In fact, if you're saying you left the same food out for 3 days, that's certainly a factor. :X

Typically in a new environment you'd want to start her off on meat-heavy canned foods and slowly start adding dry food to her diet.

Avoid dairy, since a dominant majority of cats are lactose intolerant, so that's not going to help anything at this point.

If you're feeling really motivated, and you've got a clean floor, you can tie a piece of uncooked meet on a string, and try having her chase down her meal, and then slowly cook it more and more and make it less and less of a chase.

(Just make sure the cat never consumes any of the string, as string can get caught in their intestines and be severe enough an issue to be potentially fatal.)

You could also try the kitten diet- take the dry food, mix it in with slightly warmed milk, let it sit for a few minutes to get soggy. Not all cats like it, but it's easy on them if their digestion is doing poorly [though of course, the dairy component may end up aggravating that worse, but it's better than her not eating at all]. Likely better to try offering meats first, in this instance.

Whatever you do, don't push them to eat, that'll just stress them more. If you're really concerned, you can eyedropper feed them chicken broth or the like, but as I just said, that's just going to stress them more, so keep that on the backburner.

Rather than a vet, I'd suggest asking advice from your local shelter, they're often more familiar with the behavior of strays. And often, you can get the advice for free, so win/win. :P

PS: Owner?
I think you've some critical misconceptions on how living creatures interact with one another. :X

View attached image.

One thing I don't see mentioned here, which can be very obvious to catowners but newbies might not know:

this mostly goes for wet food, but most cats will refuse to eat their food cold. So keep it in a cupboard or something and not in the fridge.

Changing brand is a great idea, but also giving her some raw or lightly cooked chicken meat might help. If she was an outside cat, she got used to crunching some bones that are not present in wet food. Also, give her some water every so often (if the water is in a bowl for too long, she might refuse to drink it) and if she's not allergic, some milk. A lot of adult cats are allergic to milk though so try it only if she refuses to drink water. On the other hand, some cats simply love milk and will drink a bowl in one sitting :)

View attached image.

Changing brands could help, cats have their own preferences in taste just like people. Also, wet food is sometimes more liked than dry food but I've known cats who exclusively eat one but not the other. The eating problems definitely could be stress related. There is a product on the market called Feliway which is comes in sprays and diffusers (kind of like those things you plug in to make your house smell nice). Feliway is a synthetic formula of the pheromones that cats leave on everything by rubbing on them and the idea behind that is that the more familiar and nice something smells to a cat, the more comfortable they will become. Cats love vertical space (shelves and whatnot they can jump on) and having more vertical space available also can make them feel more comfortable.

Also, don't leave dry food out for over a day or two if you can help it. It does go stale and isn't very appetizing when it's left out. If you're buying dry food in a large bag, make sure you do your best to seal the bag and keep the air out.

If she doesn't keep eating the food you better eat the cat before it eats you when there is no more insects to eat

To what other said before I will add this - if she is used to hunting, she used to eat 100% meat. Most of mass-produced heavy marketed brands of cat food are mostly not meat at all, just filers. Wet cat food from the can is most of the time 30% or less meat, and dry food can even only have like 3-4% of meat in it. Try buying professional cat fod - wet with 90%+ meat and dry with 70-80%+. Our kitties were raised on fresh meat before we adopted them, then we kept buying full-mean food over the internet and they kept eating normally. But then one month we slacked with an order, went to local supermarket and just bought food so they would have something to eat for next 1-2 weeks before we order aqgain. They almost didn't eat at all for these 2 weeks until we simply bought normal meat and prepared it for them.

I see few people proposed giving her normal meat as well - it's great idea, generally well balanced meat diet (with extras in form of cereals and veggies mixed with usual food) is the best diet for your cat - but it has to be like I said balanced and not just giving your kitty the same piece of meat all the time. Plus it's more expensive than just buying cat food ;) Remember that you cannot give cat just any raw meat. There are several microorganisms that are harmless for humans and can hurt your kitty. Poultry you should never give raw to your cat - only boiled or parboiled. Beef/veal you can serve in any form - from raw to cooked, Same goes with lamb. Pork - only fully boiled/cooked, never even slightly raw. As for giblets - cats can eat them, but not too often. Liver and kidneys you should avoid or serve at most once a week (all toxins from food, antibiotics etc animal got served when it was raised are left over there), hearts and lungs are much better, but still - cat should eat normal meat at least twice more ofthen than these. Fish raw or cooked, but never smoked one. And not more than 1-2 times a week.

zelghadis has pretty much said everything. If you feel like it, try asking to your local butcher if you can have their scraps, or buy them for dirty cheap.

Like humans extreme stress can effect appitite of cats.change diet to canned food and later mix with dry food.

Canned wet food is the best for cats, but avoid the super fatty "treat" brands. The reason is because cats actually don't have a sense of thirst and cannot realize they are dehydrated. Having wet food keeps them hydrated and avoids liver/kidney problems that are common for cats who eat dry food all their life. Another downside to dry food is that it's typically high in fat which increases weight gain for indoor (read: inactive) cats, especially if they are neutered or spayed. The fat in dry food is also often rancid as it has been sitting in a warehouse for ages.

assuming you have the money to do so i would buy several small bags of different flavors and see if the cat prefers any, if not i would try wet food as they usually go pretty crazy for those, but those can also be a flavor problem, not usually though, if there is one the cat likes i would mix it with hard food, wet food = wet mess if you get my meaning ;)

I'm giving my cat raw meat, sliced in small pieces and milk from time to time, you should maybe try that. Especially if she was an outside cat. Outside cats tend to hunt and eat mice and other small animals. My cat is a semi outside cat and ahe brings back mice somewhat often, but doesn't eat them. She just enjoys playing with their dead bodies.

What I'm trying to say is that cats are hunters and they do enjoy meat. I give my cat pieces of meat whenever I'm cooking meat, because she comes and asks for it. Also I think that always feeding your cat with dry food is not ideal.