Frustrations with Food

[Annieca2016]

So my girls (7 and 9, DSH, season allergies otherwise healthy) eat 2 meals of wet food a day and one of dry. I was getting sick of 120 cans a month in terms of rinsing them out, recycling, etc. Also, just expensive. I did the math and raw was going to come out cheaper and probably in the long run healthier for them.

Well, they are not fans. It's been two weeks of 1/4th a teaspoon mixed in with their regular wet food and they'll either not eat the wet or just eat enough until they reach the mixed in raw. So now I have like 9 lbs of raw chicken and turkey Darwin's in my freezer that I'm pretty sure I won't ever be able to get them to eat.

Normally nobody beats me in stubbornness, but they're always going to win when they wake me up meowing and poking me because "Mama, hungry!". I like my sleep too much. (It's why they're on some dry because the automatic feeder then goes off at 5am and they focus on it and not me!)

Their dry is Instinct Raw + Kibble and they do like the freeze-dried raw. But then a FB group told me 100% you have to rehydrate it and then they won't touch it. Plus, the Instinct freeze-dried is super expensive compared to like Darwin's. It looks like Stella & Chewy's might be cheaper so I might try that after a break.

I'm not even sure if I need advice or just to vent that my 12 and 13 lb cats are having (and winning) a stubborn off!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
Is that raw meat already mixed with an add-in/premix? If not, you could perhaps try something like EZComplete or Alnutrin, TCFeline, My Natural Cat, etc.
Here is information;
Premixes for homemade food

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

When I transitioned my cats to raw, I never mixed it with their wet food. What I did was made little teeny meatballs out of the raw and rolled them in crushed treats, something like freeze dried chicken, not something like Temptations. They very tentatively started to eat this and finally I could stop making meatballs and just put the raw in the bowl and sprinkle some of the crushed treats on top. Eventually I could skip the treats altogether.