Thread: Feeding Advice

We are dealing with related problem in trying to get our big boy Remy to lose a bit of weight when there is dry food down all the time. Our girl Bella eats mainly dry, and grazes, so it must be available at least most of the time for her, plus the other two also graze. Unfortunately, Remy has a tendency to go eat dry whenever bored or when anyone else eats it, and when his fast growth quit around two years old, this resulted in a bit of excess weight. We have done two things to reduce his dry food and thus calorie intake: (1) we removed the dry food dishes from downstairs so there is less availability of dry, and (2) we have been trying to feed him more canned food. Remy spends quite a bit of time downstairs, and we had dry in three places in the house, including downstairs. Saw that he was nibbling frequently downstairs during the day. Now he has to want food enough to go seek it out upstairs (plus a bit of exercise going up the stairs). Since the canned food is nearly 80% water, it seems like a good way to make cats feel full but not really get that many calories. So far this seems to be working, but the basic issue of having one cat that eats too much dry in a multiple-cat house is certainly a very tough problem.

I have sort of the reverse problem.

MC Elvis is a slow eater and is still pretty skinny for his age so I'm trying
to encourage him to eat more, while Coco at about 1/3 of his size is a complete
chow hound and is way too fat for her small stature.

Free feeding the dry stuff ( RC MC 31 ) is most probably the cause.

I'm probably not going to do it because it seems to be too involved, but our
vet suggested installing a radio collar operated kitty door somewhere and
putting the kibbles out for Elvis behind the door that only he can get through.

If she keeps gobbling the way she has been it might become necessary down the road...

Originally Posted by NCarver

So far this seems to be working, but the basic issue of having one cat that eats too much dry in a multiple-cat house is certainly a very tough problem.

Indeed. A tough problem I've not been able to solve to my satisfaction.