Leaving food out for kittens that share a house with an overweight cat?

Hey folks,
It's been a while since my last post...school started back and teaching leaves no time for "fun"...

That said, my two kittens (frazier and niles) are now large enough to get the run of the house 24/7 (yay!). However, this has created an unforeseen problem... When they were confined to one room, I left their nutro kitten chow out all day and fed them wet once a day.

My other cat, toby, is on nutro weight maintinence and we've been putting a standard measure of food in his bowl and leaving it out for him.

So, should I leave out the kitten food all day (and watch toby go from over weight to obese)? Should I leave out the weight management food (and see my kittens not gain weight)? Should I get some general "adult" or "all lifestages" food to leave out? Or, should I just feed them seperately at specific times?

I hate to not free-feed the kittens, but I don't want to compromise anyone's health and I can't see any way around it. At the moment, I'm leaving out some artemis food (that I had been mixing in with everyone's food), which is an all age groups food... But that won't last long because I'm using some free samples I got of it and a couple of 1lb sample bags I bought online.

Thanks for your help, as always!
Art

kitten food may also help with wt loss depending on if the carbs are what is causingthe wt issue or not

If you can make a feeding station only big enough for the kitten s to get into and eat ...

I'd try blocking the door so that it's only open wide enough for the kittens to get through--I've found that a smallish dumbbell makes a good door stop.

I know how your feeling, our cat Tubee was skinny and Root was over weight and we couldn't find a way to feed them seperately. We ended up giving them a mutual food two times a day. We thought it would end up bad, but Tubee kept Root from eating the food until Tubee thought he was done so it worked out well. I hope you can find a way that works for you!

Manda

My Mutty is huge and gets two feedings of wet food per day at exaxt times.

Sophie is still only six months, so we got her used to eating up on the counter, which is too high for Mutty to jump up on, and leave her quality dry food up there 24/7 for when she wants to nibble.

I would like to add a cautionary note, if you don't mind.
With regards to leaving food out all day, are you not able to just feed them say 2x or 3x a day when you are at home? I made a thread just recently about my kitten Ryu who got food poisoning from dry food that was left out. When they graze, their saliva gets on the food and bacteria in their saliva multiplies in the heat thus, when the kittens/cats eat it again they are getting too much bacteria which makes them sick.
I had no idea a cat could get food poisoning let alone from dry food.

I like to caution everyone about this now, due to how much he was vomiting, then the vet bills etc.

I wish you all the best though for your 2 precious cats, and good luck with Toby's diet.

Thanks for your input and advice.

I had heard that you are supposed to free-feed kittens dry food so that they will grow better... If feeding them a couple of times a day is fine, then I'll switch to feeding them that way and seperating them.

About the normal (or kitten) vs. weight maintenence foods...I tried feeding Toby "Adult" nutro (instead of the weight control) for about a month and saw a weight increase, so apparently the increase in protien and fat didn't work for him.

I didn't know that about dry food causing sickness...Good to know.

Thanks again!
Art