Do you free feed? Or Twice (or more) a day??

[jenluckenbach]

If Jack is free fed, how do you keep Ali out of his food?

[Lerah021399]

Originally posted by jenluckenbach
If Jack is free fed, how do you keep Ali out of his food?

She doesn't eat his food because it's dry. She's a picky eater.

[moosmom]

I feed my cats Science Diet Nature's Best. A 1/4 up each, 3 times a day (3/4 of a cup/day). In the morning and at night, I split 1 can between 7 cats. They only get about a teaspoonful each 2x a day as a treat. My cats are all within their normal weight range.

[emily_the_spoiled]

I free feed the dry cat food and give both of them an 1/8th of a can of wet cat food twice daily. Neither one of them over eats on the dry food (but wet food is a different story!!!), so right now I don't have a problem with them being over weight.

[Edwina's Secretary]

We free feed Edwina. She gets IAMS (dry) for the full figured. I fill up her bowl (less than a cup) each evening before I go to bed.

[catmandu]

With 13 Cats its hard to do anything but Free Feed , but it results in the Cats being bored with the food and 3 cats becoming furry tubs of lard! But I cant figure out how else to feed them , you cant lock up certain cats with certain food , as I have a some what small house.

[Kater]

I can say I free feed Juni (and my cats before), but I never give them too much. If she still has something, I wait until she finishes everything, then I give her more. I am not worried she will starve, she always ask if she wants more. When I used to feed her with dry food (I think you all know, I switched to natural food - for me and her), she never ate the amount that was written on the package, I never worried. As I said, if she's hungry, she KNOWS how to ask, yes she does!

Our feeding system for Nipo is similar to Vio&Juni's. She gets free fed in the sense that she asks for food when her bowl is empty and she is hungry. Sometimes she asks for food when there are a few "dingles" (my Dad's word) left in the bowl, and in this case she has to eat those before we give her more. This system works well except sometimes we get ant problems. Nipo isn't overweight, she's the perfect size or if anything a teeny bit chubby.

[Logan]

Thank goodness, I can free feed Mimi and Butter. It's hard enough to ration out the dogfood and make sure that they all get to eat twice a day.

Mimi and Butter are both pretty lean. Mimi is six pounds and not too active, and Butter weighs 10-11 pounds (it varies), but he eats plenty. Mimi does get wet food daily, in addition to her dry feeding station, and Butter doesn't. Since they have decided to live on different levels of the house, Butter doesn't try to get to Mimi's canned food.

[NoahsMommy]

Well, this morning didn't go as planned. I put Livvy in the bathroom with her Nutro Weight Management wet food, Micah in the bedroom with his Science Diet I/D and diareah meds and the other three got a packet of Nutro wet...

The only ones that even remotely ate well were Olivia and maybe Micah. Olivia ate almost the whole packet, Micah ate maybe half of his 1/3 can of wet I/D.

The other cats ignored the wet food, except for Noah who lapped up the juice. (ick) I think I may try again tomorrow with tuna...they love that.

When I let Micah out (he was crying) he RAN to the plates and wanted their food!

So, I had to leave the bowls out today...but I didn't fill them up. They have enough food so they wont starve, but they will be hungry tonight.

I'm a tiny bit worried about Micah. He isn't eating anywhere near as much as he did last week. Do you think he's just slowing down, now that he knows there will always be food when he's hungry??

[jenluckenbach]

Was Micah eating I/D last week? Not all cats like that stuff.

[ramanth]

I free feed Zam by giving her a little bit of crunchies before I leave for work.

Then in the evening when I feed Kia, Zam gets 1/4 to a 1/2 can of wet food.

At first I gave her tons of crunchies to fatten her up and now I've cut back since she plumped up in a hurry. LOL!

[ChrisH]

I only have the one cat and I`m at home all day so feeding is easy. Ebby has Royal Canin dry twice a day, morning and suppertime, and one pouch, or foil tray, of wet food afternoon/early evening. If there is any wet left come suppertime I scrape it out into my dog Bobs dish, he is always so hopeful when he sees me with her dish, but most days he ends up disappointed!

Chris

[RockyRoad]

We free-feed Sally, and she eats Deli-Cat. We always make sure her food dish is full, and she hasn't gotten obese in the eight years we have been doing it.

[NoahsMommy]

Originally posted by jenluckenbach
Was Micah eating I/D last week? Not all cats like that stuff.

Yes....he wolfed it down last week. Especially the wet food.

[jenluckenbach]

I think he may be realizing that he doesn't need to wolf it down. He is a small cat, so he might not need as much as a larger one. But keep track of his eating habits in case his appetite is a sign of something.