Feeding Question

[backyardzoo]

How do people handle feeding cats with two very different eating styles and diet needs? I have a kitten/teenage cat with no sensitivities that will inhale just about everything put in front of him. My older girl is a grazer with sensitives/allergies and is super picky. I have been trying to reduce/eliminate kibble and feed a raw, canned or combination of the two diet to both. I'm trying to work out how to make sure that my older girl is getting her fill when she does not eat much at a sitting. Currently I'm feeding 1 nugget of primal freeze dried to her twice a day and maybe 1/4 to 1/3 can(5.5oz) of instinct LID rabbit split into 3 servings with access to around maybe a tablespoon of the same kibble over the whole day. She rarely finishes all the raw/canned however even when she has had no kibble for hours. Should I worry that she is not wanting to eat more? As I'm more experienced with kibble feeding with canned as the supplemental how do people schedule the feedings? I can do 3 feedings during the week, but worry that the food will go off/or to waste because she is so slow at eating.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. The only thing I can think of is to get your older cat an automatic feeder, with a collar/harness chip, where by only she can activate it to open when she is interested in eating her dry food. That will keep the other cats from being able to get to her food. There are also similar feeders that can be used for wet/raw food so as not to spoil as easily.

You said you can do 3 feedings during the week - did you mean during each day? Or, that you only feed her raw 3 times a week? I wasn't sure.

Do you think she just likes dry better, or just doesn't want to eat that much at one time of anything? How long have you been giving her the raw?

I know when I first started feeding Feeby wet food, after years of her grazing a little bit of dry all day long, it was a struggle to get her to finish 1/3 of a can in less than 2 hours. I had to prod her to get it done, as I didn't want to leave canned food out too long. Now, after perhaps 2 years, she can eat 1/3 of a can in less than 1/2 hour - most of the time anyway!!

 

[backyardzoo]

I feed them 3 times a day during the week and usually 4 on weekends. Beacon gets 1 nugget morning and night with canned split between those two feedings and the after work one. Pippin gets thawed raw 3 times a day with canned twice and currently has access to a dish full of kibble(trying to get rid of what's left of the kibble she can't eat and he's a pig still). I will have to figure out his food needs once he stops eating like he is starving kitten (soon I'm hoping as the groceries he puts away is amazing lol)

It is a recent change to feeding more of a wet diet vs kibble(less than a month) as we just finished an elimination trial on the duck hypoallergenic vet food canned & kibble which did not help. So I've switched her to rabbit as her protein which is easier to find as well as a wet food vs kibble for me. I'm pretty sure that she prefers kibble more but she also prefers to puke on kibble hence me really trying to phase it out or really restrict it. Last time I weighed them she was 11.5 lbs and the 7 month old is 10.5 lbs so I will be tracking her weight to make sure she isn't going back.