Young cat Too fat, Old Cat too thin!

Help! my 4 year old cat is much too fat, the vet wants her to loose a few lbs.
However, my 15 year old cat is much too skinny and has been free fed her entire life and is not used to having set meal times. I tried keeping them separate for meal times. This helped my young fat cat, but my old skinny one lost a pound in the process.
I've started just leaving the food out, but the younger cat is eating all of it and has started to vomit nightly because she is eating too much!!

Now, I've started putting the food away at night, but this is no good for my older cat!

Help! What do I do?

Several things come to mind..on a practical note...if your vet doesn't have a reason for you to not do this, try adding wet food as a supplement to your older cats diet and feed her the wet food in a room away from the younger kitty. Say in the bathroom or a bedroom where you can close the door and give your older kitty 20 minutes to chow down, then let her out, pull up the bowl, so your younger kitty doesn't come in and eat the leftovers .

First though, at that age - 15 - I'd have your senior kitty in to the vet to be sure there isn't another cause for her losing weight. It's not uncommon for kitties this age to have hyperthyroidism, which in some kitties, causes them to lose weight.

Good luck, please post back what you find out, and if you do the supplemental feeding, how that works for you.

Thank you very much for the reply!

I've taken her to the vet, and we did a couple x-rays to see if she has cancer, which is doesn't. She's perfectly healthy, ignoring her feline herpes. Which causes her to weeze (her sniffer is not in perfect order).

So that is the number one reason why she has lost weight because food isn't as interesting as it used to be, though she does graze. And she's the same way with wet food. She'll eat a tiny bit, but then walk away from it, and maybe if your lucky she'll come back it. She's super picky. She hates cold wet food, and if it's been out too long, she wont have any of it. I've gone through A LOT of wet food *sigh*. and not just one kind, I've bought all kinds and flavours.

So, I just don't know what to do.

Though, I think I will have to invest in a cat restrainment bag (She 15, with the strength, teeth, and claws of a TIGER) and start to force feed her hills A/D or something, just to get more in her.

Tough customer! If you haven't tried this yet, try crumbling a favorite treat - something stinky like tuna flakes or one of the dried salmon treats- on wet or dry. If she only eats a bit, I'd just pop her in a room for 15 minutes with her own dish of dry or bit of wet, say 3 times a day..just something where you know she's having the chance to eat more.

Or...keep her in your bedroom at night but not your youngster (if that's an option) so she can chow as much as she wants all night.

I know you can figure out a way to give her some extra chow time!

I'm also a fan of baby food for extra bit of calories.

Thank-you very much for the suggestions! I will try. I know she loves it when I have sushi (she loves raw salmon!!) so maybe I should invest in something like that. I would lock her up, but I worry what might happen if she has to use the litter box! and vs versa for the younger one. hahaha. So, unless I buy anothe little box, that probably wont happen. But again, thank you for your advice I really appreciate it.

HI!! I would offer you senior cat some very special wet food in a separate room. Have you tried Fancy Feast? If you have a natural pet food store near you, try Innova EVO or Instinct wet food. Wellness is another one cats seem to love. Also, the Hill's A/D she might like and that will put extra calories and nutrients into her as well. I would just try to offer her a few small wet food meals throughout the day to see if you can boost her appetite. Even if you have to put the younger cat away for a little bit so your senior cat can eat. I always warm up the wet food in the microwave for about eight seconds to really get the wet food more smelly . Good luck hope your senior kitty starts to enjoy her wet meals very soon.