Starting over again frustrations

I had my cats started on switching from a dry diet to the wet.  They were successfully eating a can a day with their dry.  In the middle of testing different wet foods I also wanted the dry part of their diet to be healthier too.  I have successfully determined which dry foods they like.  Unfortunately,  the process of testing different dry foods got them excited about their kibble again.   I got worried because they didn't seem to be eating as much, and not even close to the recommended serving,  so I gave them a full serving of the old dry to make sure they weren't going too long with not enough calories.  I have to start all over again on the wet now.  

After serving only wet during the day so we could try raw, we tried The Honest Kitchen sample at night, 1 took 1 bite & acted like she was going to throw up & they walked away & didn't touch it again,  the other one didn't even touch it.  I gave them another can of food since they didn't want to eat the other.  

The stray/feral cats outside love me,  they are getting all the Tiki Cat,  Weruva, Wellness & everything else my brats won't eat.  I put a Sheba Pate out and one snifffed it and tried to bury it, I thought they would love Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken,  but they licked the juice at the edges & walked away.  I am going to go broke trying to figure out what wet food they will eat now.    And of course the boy cat who needs to be on the wet food the most is the one the most resistant to the change. 

I'm in a similar situation myself: I gave a 5 year old female who has a history with struvite crystals who is driving me mad with her fussiness about her canned food. Canned food is not at all her preference but became a medical necessity after an episode of bladder inflammation due to crystals. I'm trying really hard to balance the need for high protien/grain free, quality foods with something that she will actually eat. I then have to factor inthat I can't feed anything with fish (except as a treat) becuase fish is not great for kitties prone to crystals. I'm realizing that part of the problem is that I'm probably not giving her enough variety becuase once I find something she will eat, that's pretty much all I give her so I'm going to try to find three or four options so I can rotate and hopefully that will help the situation. But finding those options is turning out to be an exercise in frustration.
The strays in my neighborhood are pretty happy as well with this situation [emoji]128580[/emoji]

Mine are both incredibly fussy about wet. sadly all the foods I want them to eat, they refuse. And they can absolutely go without food for 18 hours out of stubborn-ness (too long). I have caved. They get decent dry and most of the wet is not what I would like them to eat but I have read that the worst canned is better than the best dry so I go with that for now. Sometimes I'll throw in a can of something I want them to eat and hope for the best (it rarely works) or keep putting a small spoonful of good wet next to their junk (fancy feast, dine *sigh*) and hope that one day they'll go "oh hey" and start eating the good stuff.

Fancy feast pate's aren't great but they're grain free. Maybe try them on that? It seems to be pretty popular (although mine will only eat the chunks in gravy, cereals and all).

My boy buries everything he doesn't like too

Tobilei said:

 
Fancy feast pate's aren't great but they're grain free. Maybe try them on that? It seems to be pretty popular (although mine will only eat the chunks in gravy, cereals and all).

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The ingredients might not be the best in Fancy Feast Classics (the pates), but they are actually both grain-free, low-carb, and high-protein... and there aren't any unnecessary veggies or fruits.  I would rather feed FF Classics than many "natural" or "organic" foods on the market.

Dr. Pierson (of catinfo.org) even goes as far to state the following:

Be aware that most of the grain-free/by-product-free/muscle meat choices such as Wellness, Nature's Variety, EVO 95%, etc., are high in fat and relatively low in protein in order to keep the profit margin high.

Given this fact, I can't help but wonder if Friskies, 9-Lives, etc. (all by-products, no muscle meat) may actually be better diets because many of these by-product foods are higher in protein and lower in fat than the more expensive diets that are free of by-products.

(http://www.catinfo.org/?link=cannedfoods)

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dorimon said:

 
The ingredients might not be the best in Fancy Feast Classics (the pates), but they are actually both grain-free, low-carb, and high-protein... and there aren't any unnecessary veggies or fruits.  I would rather feed FF Classics than many "natural" or "organic" foods on the market.

Dr. Pierson (of catinfo.org) even goes as far to state the following:

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Thanks for that information dorimon! Interesting! And yes, most of ours here are full of fruits and veg (except the super super expensive one's but my boy refuses to eat those). Now to get him to eat the classics intstead of the gravy with grains (boo!)

Everybody wants what they cant have today. The inside cats are boycotting all food until i give in and give them the dry food. The feral cats are ignoring their dry food and watching me through the door waiting for me to throw out the expensive wet food.