New to feeding on schedule

Hi all!
I think I need to put Marishka on a food schedule, but not because of her own issues
My mom's jack russel is on a diet, and has discovered Mari's food as a 'snack' between meals and at night. She gained all the weight she had lost before we figured it out...lol.
Anyway, there's no place to put it where the dog doesn't have access that I can think of, and I figured it was as well a time to get her on a schedule since it might help make her eat wet food more readily. She gets free fed Evo dry with NB ultra mixed in (still weaning her off, just have been taking it very slowly), and gets a little over two ounces of wet Fromm food, which is the most she will eat of the wet every day. I ultimately would like her off of dry, but am not as worried since her diet is almost close to grain free.
Anyway, I have no idea what schedule and how much, or anything like that. I will be working full time days in only a few weeks, but until then am only gone for about 4 hours a day, so right now it can be pretty open.
My only concerns are that she was an underweight kitten at 6 months (she is 1.5 yrs now) so I have always been overly worried about her getting as much food as she wants. She has her annual check up in about a month.
Any advice woudl be much appreciated : )
Kelly

I have never thought that free feeding was a good idea, can cause an overweigh/fussy pet. My 7 1/2 m/o kitten gets 2 meals p/d. I would lock your kitty in laundry/bathroom when eating so Mom's JR can't get it. Let her out when she's finished.

I feed mine 3 times a day. I think little and often is best with cats so as many meals as fits comfortably into your lifestyle. Ideally I'd like to feed mine 4 times a day but that would mean setting up an auto feeder every day to give them a meal while I'm at work which would be a lot of hassle when they're ok on 3 meals.

Alternatively, if you want to continue providing her with food to free feed during the day could you set up an eating area with a cat door that only the cat can get through? Or put food high up where only the cat can get it?

I have been going through some trials with scheduled feedings as well.

I started maybe 3 weeks ago because my 1 yr old female kitty (Merlynn) was getting "tanky" according to my vet and the only way I could regulate was with 100% canned food feedings.

Both of my kitties have always been free fed dry food and they seem to regulate themselves pretty well. I guess all the carbs in the dry just made her a little portly.

I am having the same problem as you are Marishka. Merlynn will only eat about 2 oz of the canned food at a time, if that much. I feed them twice a day b/c I work all day. So they get canned in the a.m. at around 7am and canned in the p.m. around 7 pm.

Piccolino (8 mo - tall and slender) eats about 4 oz at one sitting and will usually clean up whatever Merlynn has left in her bowl - if I let him.

With Merlynn, I started to notice that she would eat her little bit and then about 20 minutes later want some more. So for a while I would separate them, but they wouldn't eat everything; they would wait by the door for eachother. And I noticed that Merlynn really liked just a little bit of wet and still liked her crunchies.

So now...I'm experimenting with giving her 2oz wet & 1/8c crunchies at each meal am and pm. Piccolino gets 4oz wet & 1/8c crunchies at each meal. He's still pretty thin and he plays all day long - attacking his tail or the wall for no apparent reason. They eat their wet and snack on the crunchies.

Thanks for starting this thread...I'm interested in responses as well. Good luck with the feedings.

Any advice on my feedings is welcome!

Originally Posted by Kalikat

I have never thought that free feeding was a good idea, can cause an overweigh/fussy pet.

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I think that the fact that she knew she could always go and get dry food is def. part of why she won't even try to enjoy the different wet food's she is getting to try...

Originally Posted by urbantigers

Alternatively, if you want to continue providing her with food to free feed during the day could you set up an eating area with a cat door that only the cat can get through? Or put food high up where only the cat can get it?

Click to expand...

I have thought about this, and am looking for a place right now. The only thing is that she still acts like a kitten most of the time, knocking things off of shelves and launching off of bookcases onto other furniture...lol. I just don't want to find her food everywhere when I get home...heh.

Originally Posted by merlynn's mom

With Merlynn, I started to notice that she would eat her little bit and then about 20 minutes later want some more.

Click to expand...

Marishka does the same thing, wants just a few bites at a time. I do think this is because she doesn't get hungry enough to warrant a full 'meal', ya know?

Thanks to everyone who replied. I'm on the fence about it, partly because the living arrangements with my parents are only temporary, and soon (hopefully!) we will be back to our own place. I actually just graduated from college two weeks ago, so we're at home until my job comes through fulltime, so I don't want to get her on a nice schedule, then revert back to free feeding (because it is just so darn easy, totally my own fault... )