Quote Originally Posted by Anikaca77
No I appreciate your questions, please ask away.

My vet is a very country doctor and older ways. She did suggest that once my kitten reaches 1 year old to start feeding all of my guys weight management food.

My other cat though Hermes has a very sensitive stomach so I'm not sure if that will work for him or not.

I'm not free feeding anymore I use to. I have 6 cats so I have 6 cat food bowls and each cat gets a handful of food twice a day.

They don't get any treats only once in a blue moon....most of my cats don't care for treats so we limit them.

Also, she is one that hates people food so we don't share our food with her. There is really only our one cat in the house that really enjoy's people food.

My vet says she doesn't think it's her thyroid and that means I'll probably end up taking Claudia to a more modern vet so I can get her treated better so she doesn't have that bulge around her hips as you can see in the one picture I took of her sitting next to 2 of my other cats.
I tend to agree with your country vet that it's probably not the thryroid. It's not impossible but improbable in cats, in dogs it's more common. But I'd think that if you insisted on spending the extra $$ for peace of mind on the blood test that your vet would at least accomodate you.

Two handfulls of food a day is rather subjective, I have large hands so my handful could be ALOT of food for a cat. Try getting a cheap or old measuring cup and measure out your fat cats food for a week and see how much your 'handfuls' really are per day. Compare that with what your bag of food says to feed. Remember most food bags have a slightly elevated chart for feeding, so you'd want to shoot for just a bit less than it says.

If that doesn't get some weight off try feeding your fat cat a light or weight reducing formula. You've already said you feed the cats separately so it shouldn't be alot of extra work to feed one cat something different.

I feed 3 different lifestages of food for my 7 cats, and one has to have medicine in his food, so for me feeding different things to different cats at the same time seems normal. lol My cats get fed 3-4 times a day and the bowls are only down until they are empty (for the fat kitties) or when they walk away (for the kitties that know when to stop eating) then I pick up their bowls till the next feeding time.

Feeding twice a day is good. It usually makes cats less hungry on a diet than just feeding once a day, and is better for their metabolism to have it spread out at least twice a day.

Good luck.