I’m surprise no one has yet linked to catinfo.org. It’s an incredibly comprehensive cat nutrition website by a vet.
Below is the link to the page on commercial cat foods and what to look for.
https://catinfo.org/commercial-cat-foods/
And to answer the question, mine gets Nulo Perfect Portions pate!
thanks for that link, irishchick. It looks like I am making ALL the mistakes ! keeping a full dish of dry food out at all times for starters.
I try to keep kibble out of my cats’ diets… but OMG how do y’all survive without it from an obnoxiousness standpoint?
The only reason I feed it is to prevent them from waking me up at 4am insisting they are starving. 
So they get a little bit of kibble in a dish to graze on at night or whenever they are likely to get under foot.
I’ve also been mystified why most experts recommend no fish yet the majority of brands rely on fish protein. It doesn’t seem like fish should be cheaper so what’s the deal?
Fish is cheap and cats like it, so owners expect it.
I’ve been super frustrated at the fish filler in Fancy Feast in particular. Their classic pate flavors never used to have fish ingredients 
Ideally there should be limited amount of fish due to excess levels of mercury.
I switched to an auto feeder for the 4 starving heathens, it dispenses up to 6x day and you can control the portion size. I have it timed to go off not around typically feeding times so everyone is still very enthusiastic about canned food which makes up the majority of their calories.
Welp. Yesterday was Day One of trying to get her off dry food.
Have I mentioned that this little kitty has a Celine Dion vocal range?
She would not touch the wet. and screamed in outrage most of the day.
So, I relented last night and mixed a bit of dry in with the wet.
Nope nope nope. And when I got up this morning I could see that she was breaking in to cupboards and counter surfing looking for her dry food (which I had hidden).
This morning I tried a different brand of wet - that she would not eat in the past, from my What Mitten Will Not Eat Collection - and unbelievably, she ATE it.
I will try to see this as just one small victory rather than a win in the battle.
House cats (8- yes I’m crazy) get Fancy Feast or Friskies pate and a small amount of Pro-Plan Sensitive Stomach
Barn cats (5 currently) get the same wet in small amounts and Pro-Plan.
For dry food I rotate between Fromm and Fussie Cat for them to snack on. Then they get either wet cans of Fussie Cat, Instinct or Ziwi Peak in different flavors every morning. I have 4, and they all like something different. They all seem to be in very good health and have beautiful, healthy looking coats!
Dry food is kitty crack. They love it but it’s really, really bad for for cats.
I feed Tiki Cat Chicken in Consomme and Dark Chicken. I guess it’s not available in all parts of the country, though.
Thank you, @Go_Fish. We were doing pretty well here in going cold turkey, with me steeling myself against the screams, and her finally (finally!) deigning to eat some wet food.
I thought we had won.
But this morning, after a stressful day yesterday, I caved, and gave her some dry. :(.
Two steps forward, one step back.
I will do better.
You might want to try some fortiflora sprinkled on top. Amazon carries it, and it lasts me about 90+ days since I don’t use a whole pack. But fortiflora definitely has those dry cat food crack vibes when it comes to getting them to eat wet food
It’s a great way to get cats to eat wet food. You can also use a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
Darn it, my barn cats did not get the memo that cats are supposed to think dry food is crack and not want wet food.
They get wet food 2x per day and always have dry food out.
I can tell you that they would prefer I feed them wet food any time I am visible.
They also get a fair amount of raw. Raw stuff that they kill and eat.
I believe @MunchingonHay mentioned catinfo.org higher up in this thread. But always happy to see it linked to more than once!! That link changed my life in 2009 - and arguably saved my cats from an early grave.
I feed mostly grain-free canned with Performatrin (which is a Canadian brand) Chicken and Turkey, and Blue Wilderness Duck. I supplement with salmon oil, some raw (Big Country Raw) and as a monthly very special treat I pick up some frozen feeder mice. OMG my boys go NUTS when the mice come out!! 
Their pupils dilate, the claws come out and they start LEAPING voraciously at the mice, i have to hold them by the tail above my head and drop them quickly into their feed bowls. And 5-6 seconds later they’re GONE.
It is SO fun to see the look on people’s faces when i tell them i’m buying feeder mice for my cats - they look shocked/horrified, and i’m like “Dude… did you not ever watch Tom & Jerry?” Like, how is it SO shocking that my cats… eat… MICE… 
That is AWESOME!!
When I switched my cat from kibble to freeze dried raw I would also add in raw meats, OMG, I nearly lost my fingers!! The little lion comes out when fresh meats are around.
Echoing catinfo.org. Totally changed my approach to cat nutrition! I’m also an apostle of catfooddb.com which has comprehensive reviews of most cat foods and their nutritional profiles (it’s not responsive to all changes by manufacturers, but the author is really good about keeping it updated.)
I feed a mix of Tiki Cat, Halo, and American Journey Landmark canned food. I try to prioritize poultry over fish. If I were rich, I’d feed only Tiki Cat, but my wallet can’t handle it (haha.)
For my older cat who isn’t picky, I usually add a tablespoon or two of water to the food to make more of a “soup.” I’m a little paranoid about urinary issues and dehydration.
I haven’t cut out kibble completely–every night I divvy about a tablespoon of Wellness Core dry food between three of these mouse feeders for my two cats to “hunt” overnight. I like to put them in high places and make the cats go looking for them. More something to fight boredom than an essential part of their diet; 90% of their calories still come from canned food.
Those mouse feeders are super cool! I might have to try them for my rowdy pair of teenage boys.
I used the mouse feeders for a very short while. Maybe this is my fault, because I hid them all over the house, but my cats very quickly figured out the “hunting” thing and proceeded to get into EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME. Whether or not it was mouse hunting time.
So we had to stop that 
Thank you DMK and Bogle, fortiflora is something I have never even heard of, but will have a look and at nutritional yeast.
It really is frustrating and discouraging to have this cat screaming her head off, I open a tiny can of some sort of wet food delicacy that she possibly ate once before, only to have her sniff and turn away.
I can’t find the post for some reason, but another poster mentioned her cats ate only Friskies turkey or chicken in gravy.
So, I bought that, And Mikey (er Mitten) LIKES IT!
Not only that she devours it.
Thank you!
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