Does anyone feed their cats separately?

[Guest]

We had one cat and when we got a second cat, we just put one bowl of food out for the both of them and they co-exist quite nicely. They eat dry food and they graze freely. The food that we feed them has been discontinued from stores. I can still get it from Amazon, but about two months ago, we didn't order it on time and had to run out and get some from the local pet store. She didn't take to it well, so we have a ton of this other food and because we mixed it with her good food, we really have a ton. Second cat does absolutely fine with any food, so we'd like to continue feeding him this plethora of food, but obviously not have the first cat eat it. So, does anyone feed dry food separately? Since we normally just leave a bowl out for them to graze, is it okay to give them a certain time to eat? Would they even do that? I'm thinking putting them in a separate room for feeding time. DH just hates to have wasted the money on all this food (it wasn't cheap) and then not have anyone eat it.

 

ETA: Oh, I guess my question was, if you've done this, how much do you give and how often? I realize I can adjust this, but I'm just looking for a starting point.

[Aiden]

We transitioned our cats from free feeding to scheduled feeding for weight management (we have one slightly fat cat and one extremely fat one, so we're trying to get them both to lose some weight and one to lose a lot). We still feed them together, though we keep saying we'll try separating them to make sure the obese one isn't eating too much of the overweight one's food, but we haven't done it yet.

 

Something you may want to consider--leave the plethora of food down all the time, since you've been free feeding, as long as there are no weight issues. The one who will eat it will continue free feeding. The other will either learn to eat it or will be fed the preferred food at set times. (Twice a day, as close to 12 hours apart as you can get it works well.) When you give the preferred food to the picky one, put the food and cat in a room without the other cat (to prevent "theft" of the preferred food), close the door, and leave them for however long you think reasonable, maybe 15-20 minutes. Either way, you'll use up the non-preferred food, and the picky cat will get the necessary nourishment ... though you may be subject to begging for a few days until the cat figures out the new routine.

[Aiden]

For how much to give--look at the packaging. The suggested amount per day is based on the weight of the cat, and sometimes on whether you need the cat to maintain or lose weight (or gain, usually in the case of kittens). You can feed the cat just once a day, but our formerly free-feeders do much better with twice a day, half the daily amount each time.

[Ellie]

We had one cat and when we got a second cat, we just put one bowl of food out for the both of them and they co-exist quite nicely. They eat dry food and they graze freely. The food that we feed them has been discontinued from stores. I can still get it from Amazon, but about two months ago, we didn't order it on time and had to run out and get some from the local pet store. She didn't take to it well, so we have a ton of this other food and because we mixed it with her good food, we really have a ton. Second cat does absolutely fine with any food, so we'd like to continue feeding him this plethora of food, but obviously not have the first cat eat it. So, does anyone feed dry food separately? Since we normally just leave a bowl out for them to graze, is it okay to give them a certain time to eat? Would they even do that? I'm thinking putting them in a separate room for feeding time. DH just hates to have wasted the money on all this food (it wasn't cheap) and then not have anyone eat it.

 

ETA: Oh, I guess my question was, if you've done this, how much do you give and how often? I realize I can adjust this, but I'm just looking for a starting point.

 

We did for awhile. One kitty was borderline overweight and her vet was concerned. I couldn't tell how much they were eating (three kitties at that time) because I just put the food out in one of those tower thingies :-) and they ate when they wanted. So I bought three little bowls, wrote each kitty's name on a bowl, and put a measured amount in each bowl (I think it was 1/2 cup daily...whatever the amount was that was recommended by the manufacturer). Mr. Ellie and I would put the bowls down in the morning and in the evening (not at specific times, just generally) and just stand around watching them until they wandered off, then we picked up the bowls until the next meal. (Turned out that they were not over-eating; we switched to Evo, Natura Pet's low-carb formula, and the kitty who was just a little tubby lost a couple of pounds; the other two maintained their weight.). They didn't seem to have any problems with not being able to graze.

[RebeccaS]

We had our first cat for some time before adding our second cat.  When the second one was big enough to start getting up to the self feeder (we had it on a shelf in the basement), the first cat started eating like mad in an attempt to eat it all so the second one wouldn't have any.  She got noticeably fat.  That's when we went to separate feeding.  We looked at the bag for the feeding recommendations and used that.  I have to put them in separate rooms, or else the second cat will wolf down her food and go eat the other cat's.  My kids are in charge of animals, so they feed them in the morning and evening.  They will disappear all day until that evening feeding, so they adapted quite well to feeding times.

[sunnyday]

There are a lot of good reasons for meal feeding instead of free feeding cats, so this could end up being a good change all around. http://www.catinfo.org/

 

I feed my cats twice per day. One in the laundry room, one in the pantry, one in the bathroom. The one who gets dry kibble gets a scant 1/4 cup of grain-free food twice daily, but this depends so much on your cat's size and activity level and your kibble's nutrient density that it's really not relevant info. :p

[Guest]

This is very helpful, thank you all! I am going to pull out the back and check what is recommended, but it is good to know that this is possible. As for the sensitive cat, I don't know if she would pick one food over another, it just really upsets her tummy. Wish me luck!

[Pawz4me]

Most bags of food way (WAY) overstate the amount that most sedentary house cats need to eat to achieve/maintain a healthy weight.  I'd start with about half, certainly no more than three-fourths, of what the bag recommends.

 

Cats are by nature grazers. So the more feedings you can divide their food into per day the better.  IMO two is a bare minimum.