Feeding 2 cats

[ladytimedramon]

Good morning.

I am having a bit of a conundrum feeding my 2 cats.

Cat 1 is Delilah, aka Ms. Chunkybutt. She is weighs close to 11 pounds and the vet said for her frame she should be under 9. I've had her almost 2 years.


Cat 2 is Fancy. When I adopted Fancy she was 4.5 pounds and you could feel every bone. She's up to 6.3 as of last week. Vet says her goal weight is about 8 pounds. I've had her about a month.



1 cat needs to lose, 1 cat needs to gain.

I've always had Delilah on a schedule and I've been getting Fancy on it as well. (Mind you it goes off a bit warm I'm on school breaks - I'm a teacher). The vet says to let Fancy free feed dry for a while on the side to put on some weight.

6:30 or so: wet
10:00 dry in a timed drop feeder
2:00 dry in a timed drop feeder.
6:00 or so: wet
10:00 or so: wet
2am: dry

I've read and been told that feeding wet only is better for them. I bought a couple of those clamshell style timed feeders for wet.

So.... the problem... how do I keep them out of each other's food when I'm not there?

Initially I thought putting pate in Fancy's bowl would do the trick (Delilah hates pate). Well, if she's hungry enough she WILL eat pate, which I discovered last night when I caught Delilah finishing off Fancy's plate. If she sees a bowl with kibble, its fair game.

I’ve also caught Fancy at Delilah's plate (I feed her in her cat tree) And right now Fancy eats just about anything. She's tried to get to Delilah's food. They're only together for a month so this leads to near fights.

So now what to do?

I was thinking about getting microchip feeders. I don't know how Fancy would do with it, BUT from experience Delilah will eat everything at one shot and then she'll be starving by the time I get home. I've looked and there is no timed type of wet microchip feeder. Like Surefeed. If it had a timer that allowed it to be set to open at a designated time that would be great

I could use the clamshell feeders, BUT once it opens there's no guarantee of who will eat what (and who will eat both).

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[maggie101]

One of my 3 cats eats everyone's food. I lock her in my bedroom. I would not free feed dry if one needs to loose weight

 

[ladytimedramon]

One of my 3 cats eats everyone's food. I lock her in my bedroom. I would not free feed dry if one needs to loose weight

I've been getting her off of that. It was more urgent that she always have food access when she was 4.5 pounds, and then she was isolated from Delilah. She's not that big on kibble anyways.

My biggest concerns are 2am, and when I'm at work.

Weird thing happened today. Delilah's timed feeder glitched and dropped food a second time, giving her a double serving. She ate 3/4 of it.

Since I've had Delilah I've wondered if I should give larger less frequent portions instead of the way I'm feeding now.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Delilah will not starve is she eats all of her food from a timed feeder at once and can't get more later. Many, many cats eat only two meals per day and don't seem unhappy about it.

I'm thinking the microchip feeders would be your best bet. As soon as the cat walks away, the lid closes and the other cat cannot access it. You could get away with just one feeder, for Fancy, I'm thinking. Plus, you CAN put wet food in them. Wet food is good for several hours once you open the can, especially if it's covered, which is would be in those feeders. But for your 2 a.m. feeding, you could continue to use kibble if you wanted.

For Delilah, I would opt for smaller, more frequent meals like you are doing now rather than less meals, simply because if you are giving her less calories, she WILL eventually notice and waiting less time for her next meal won't "hurt" so bad The higher protein food and less carby food you can give her the better too. Best for losing weight and better for cats all around.

 

[ladytimedramon]

Looks like I might have to bite the bullet and get a couple of microchip feeders. Delilah's being a real stinker. She had her food drop of kibble an hour ago, and Fancy didn't have any. She was hungry so I put a little kibble in her bowl. Delilah came over and I chased her off. While my back was turned Delilah snuck around and forced Fancy away from the bowl.

While I could probably get away with 1 microchip feeder, I've also caught Fancy licking up and remainders in Delilah's bowl. And while I'm at it I might splurge on the "upgrade" which allows monitoring on the cats' eating patterns, which is a necessity.

Do cats learn to "ration" their food?

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Do cats learn to "ration" their food?

Some cats do. It depends a lot on what happened to them when they were young. Ferals and strays often eat whenever they see food because they were used to never knowing when their next meal would be. Sometimes they never get used to the fact they now have a never ending supply of food. Others, like people, just always want to eat.

 

[ladytimedramon]

I don't think either girl was a stray. Delilah though had been in the shelter a few months and bullied by bigger cats. I don't know if Fancy was in a pet hoard or not but the parents gave up 3 cats when their son moved out, saying there were too many cats.

I wonder how many calories are in cat grass. My friend grew some for them and they went right at it.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I'm thinking cat grass is probably very low calorie. Just a guess though.