I've discovered that if I feed my cat wet food exclusively, I'm supposed to feed her 1 can per 3 lbs. She weighed in at 13 lbs and could use to lose a pound. 4 cans! That's kind of expensive... but still less expensive than children. I'm settling on 3 cans and a little dry food.
To round out our food story, Kitty was born into a litter of 13 kittens. Her formative weeks were spent fighting for limited nipple space. She eats quickly and immediately moves on to the next cat's food. Her desire to consume resources is part of how we knew there was a problem the moment she skipped breakfast. Her adopted sibling is a Gentle Cat - she only had two gentle siblings and a gentle mother and it takes her at least 15 minutes to consume a single meal. She has no love of food - she doesn't like treats or most wet food. Once there was a Fancy Feast Mornings food that had eggs and cheese in it and she liked that, but it was discontinued - just another in a long list of betrayals like door bells, fire alarms, thunder storms, closed doors, and the fact that we adopted Kitty in the first place.
This is important because if Kitty doesn't like her new wet food, she will immediately turn and steal Gentle Cat's food, and Gentle Cat will give up on eating because of the drama.
We've tried:
Nature's Instinct Salmon:
101 kcals/can, 9.5% protein
3/5 stars - Kitty liked this, but was begging for food only two hours later. It was not filling. It also had one of the highest calorie counts per can.
Muse Purina Chicken and Tuna:
53 kcals, 16% protein
2/5 stars - I liked the look of this. Kitty needs to lose some weight and this food has the highest protein content per calorie. It also appealed because it looked like real food - I saw a little shrimp in there, there were recognizable bits of meat. Kitty licked the gravy off and then immediately stole Gentle Cat's breakfast. She revisited the chunks of food a few times, but every time she took a look, she ran away like that shrimp was going to leap off the plate at her. Later, my husband says he saw her chewing the chunks, but she seemed to be chewing/sucking the remaining gravy out and spitting out the rest. That shrimp remained whole.
Muse Purina Chicken and Salmon:
53 kcals, 16% protein
3/5 stars - This one fared slightly better than the Chicken and Tuna, in that she didn't run away from it (I assume because there wasn't any shrimp). But she still didn't seem keen.
Weruva - Cats in the Kitchen packets - Mack, Jack & Sam (60 kcal, 9% protein) and Pumpkin Jack Splash (53 kcal, 9% protein)
5/5 stars - Nutrition on these is a little weird. The packets don't tell me the kcal content and when I looked it up the protein content listed on their website is slightly higher than what is listed on the packet. It makes it hard to compare these apples-to-apples to other foods.
All of the Weruva products have been a clear winner so far. Kitty likes them, they seem to be filling. She always revisits her dish for her leftovers instead of stealing Gentle Cat's food. She ultimately licks the plate clean.
Weruva - BFF canned food - Tuna and Salmon (65 kcals, 12% protein)
5/5 stars - Kitty enjoyed this. Sometimes Gentle Cat likes water drained from tuna cans, and she seemed moderately interested in what I was serving up, so I offered her some. She ran away from it like the UPS man was trying to deliver it to her. Oh well.