Stopping kitten from eating cat's food?

greeneyes86

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Hi all, we seem to be progressing well in the introduction of Coco & Hallow, I bought a Feliway diffuser yesterday and Coco has calmed down considerably and now she and Hallow are amicable about being in the same room (they are actually both laying on the bed with me as I'm typing!).

The thing is, Hallow is absolutely enamored with his canned food, he scarfs it down in under 2 minutes and then cries for more. His food is in the office, along with his litterbox, and Coco's food is in the bedroom for now (easier to observe the behavior in question). Coco is a slow eater and is used to having the entire day to eat her canned food as she pleases, but lately Hallow has been swooping in and gobbling down her food in under a minute; by the time we catch him he's already finished it. She's even watched him do it and hasn't done anything to stop him.

Short of locking them each up in their rooms for who knows how long, teaching Coco to eat faster, or watching Hallow every second, can we do anything to keep him from eating her food? They eat the same type of wet food (Coco is the picky one). The last thing we want is for Hallow to get fat while Coco loses weight...
 

jack31

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I found out very quickly that going from one cat to two cats is a big deal when it comes to feeding. Honestly the only way to fix the issue is make the food unavailable to the kitten.

Depending upon how old the kitten is you could start scheduled feedings, just make the number of feedings for the kitten more than the number for the older cat. The older cat will have to learn to eat more quickly.

Jack was the resident cat here and was free fed, he was used to be able to pick at his food all day long. When Harley came into the house I couldn't allow it for one reason--I needed to be able to keep track of who was consuming what because Harley was a food hog. He'd lived on the streets and took every obligation to stuff his little face. Jack didn't stand a chance to eat and Harley was going to turn into a blimp. They have both adapted very well to scheduled feedings.

Leslie
 
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