Your older cat can learn to eat a portioned meal at scheduled times. She just has to get used to the new schedule. I used to free feed all of my cats (15 at the moment) but switched them all to scheduled, portioned meals. It took less than a week for them all to get used to eating according to the new schedule.

13 of my cats are fed twice a day. Another gets a third meal around lunchtime because he has a fast metabolism and is very active by nature. Another is very elderly with multiple health issues, so he gets fed whenever I can convince him to eat. I just stand guard while he eats so that none of the others bother him.

I recommend you start feeding your cats in separate rooms at scheduled times. Pick up any food they haven't eaten in 15 mins and add it to the next meal. Start with three meals a day. Once they get used to that schedule and start finishing their portion at each meal, you can reduce the meals to twice daily if you wish. You may find, though, that your skinny cat does better with three meals a day. Believe me, it won't take them long to give up the grazing mentality and start finishing their scheduled meals.

One major advantage I have found to switching to scheduled, portioned feeding is that I know at every meal if someone doesn't finish their meal so that I can address the problem immediately, if necessary. I catch illnesses and injuries much more quickly now. I also weigh all of my cats every two weeks and maintain a spreadsheet of their weights so that I can adjust food portions to achieve and maintain optimal weights. If someone starts dropping weight too quickly, I can get them right to the vet for bloodwork and evaluation.

This is an easy problem to fix, believe me. Give your grazer a few days to figure out the new feeding schedule, and everything will be fine.

Laurie

Thanks laurie - I have been doing this for just over a week, though - and she hasn't adjusted.

I will try to add in a third meal for her, but how long should I persist before I should be concerned?

Are you feeding the regular Innova or the Innova Evo? Dry or canned? How much are you feeding at each meal?

It sounds like perhaps you are feeding too much and your skinny girl is just getting full before she finishes her meals. Another possibility is that if you are feeding them in the same room, your skinny girl may just be too preoccupied with what the chunk is doing to concentrate on her own meal. I find that my cats eat better and faster if they are closed in separate rooms so that they don't have to worry about each other stealing their food.

If you're not feeding Evo, you might switch to that food. It is very calorie-dense, so your skinny girl won't have to eat much volume to get the calories and nutrition she needs. I feed Evo dry in the morning and a raw meat meal at night. Each of my cats only gets 1/8 c. of Evo for breakfast. It doesn't take much.

Laurie

We're feeding the regular dry Innova - I had tried Evo but it gave them the runs something fierce and it never improved, too rich for them, I guess!

My skinny one turns up her nose at any kind of wet food. I've tried them all, all styles, flavours, etc. She'll lick ones with gravy, but that's the extent of it for her.

Chunk gets 1/4 cup twice a day - and I give the skinny one 1/4 twice a day I don't expect her to eat all of it - but she is eating not even 1/4 cup a day since I've switched to feeding them twice a day. She literally takes two small bites and walks away - which is how she's always been, come back an hour or two later, take a few more, etc. She's not getting that she needs to eat it all at once.

I'll try feeding them in separate rooms and see if that helps. I noticed her nosing around for her food dish an hour or so after she ate - so I quietly took hers down, chunk didn't notice and she had a few bites. So worse case scenario I'll have to watch for her looking for food and let her eat a few more times than the other one!

Thanks again!

When you tried Evo, did you switch foods immediately, or did you gradually mix in a little Evo with their regular food? If you made the switch all at once, you could try it again with a much more gradual switch to see if their systems can adjust to the richer Evo.

Hopefully, skinny will start to eat more per meal once she is sequestered in a separate room with no distractions, but if you can get her successfully switched to Evo, she won't have to eat nearly as much for the same caloric intake.

1/2 c daily seems like a lot of food to be feeding chunk. You could tell pretty easily, though, if you start weighing her every two weeks. That'll tell you whether she's still gaining, maintaining, or losing weight. I am constantly adjusting my cats' food portions based on their bimonthly weigh-ins.

Laurie

My underweight cat also has vestibular disease issues so she eats slowly and ungracefully, and to get the caloric intake, we have to make sure to put her high calorie food in an area that she can take her time and get it all in, but my other cow, 'er, cat, won't get to nibble on it LOL

Right now the weather is warm enough, I just put thin kitty out on the sunroom and shut the door, and let her take her time. During winter, I just had to put her plate down when one of us could keep an eye and make sure the overweight cat didn't bother her or try to steal her food.

I switched them gradually - but, no dice. The lady who owns the pet boutique I buy all our food at, said a lot of people have found the Evo too rich, but do well on the regular, so we switched to the regular, and it worked.

1/2 cup is less than what chunk was eating before - I plan to gradually cut her down as they get used to this eating schedule. I'd say before she was eating nearly 3/4 of their combined 1 cup - and skinny was eating just over 1/4 probably.

Chunk LOVES people food. We never give it to her, or any of the animals - but drop something on the floor, and she's there in a nanosecond. There is nothing she won't eat - which I'm sure doesn't help. I've caught her pawing under the toaster for bread crumbs, even. We can't leave anything out ever, or she's into it the second we can't see her.

I do weigh my cats, it used to be once a month, but have decided to do so more frequently (atleast every two weeks) to make sure ones losing, and one isn't!

Oddly enough, we have two dogs - one who will get fat just looking at food - and one who never seems to eat enough. Chunky dog and chunky kitty are best of friends. They're probably in cahoots!

Update: Skinny got with the program and is now eating til she's full when I feed her, and not just taking a bite here and there anymore.

Chunk is doing well, she's not hoovering her food anymore.

Both have them have stopped sharking me constantly all day to feed them - infact that last two days I almost forgot to feed them their dinner, because they have stopped bugging me for food!

I didn't separate them in different rooms - however I put them in a quieter area to eat, where they can't see the dogs - and that seems to have done the trick!

Thanks again for all the advice, Elly.

Congratulations, Elly! I knew you could work this out and that they'd adjust to the new schedule. Now you should be able to put some weight on skinny and take some weight off of chunk.

Keep up the good catkeeping!

Laurie