How to diet a cat in a mult-cat household??

Mufasa went to the vet today, and the vet said he needs to lose about 2 lbs (he's not insanely overweight. But the vet wants to bring him from 26lbs down to 24- which he says would be a healthy weight for him).
My problem is that I have a kitten (under 1 year old) who needs to have food down all the time as she just picks away at it throughout the day.
How can I possibly get him to lose weight??

ps- I am feeding them Acana Grasslands. I don't really want to change their food unless necessary as he is allergic to chicken, beef, turkey, and pork and it is very hard to find food which doesnt have any of those ingredients.

At 26lbs, he isn't going to fit through any small openings a kitten can. So I'd look around and see how you can make that work, even if its just a big old box flipped upside down w/ a weight on it and w/ two doors cut out.

And if he does try to fit through a tiny opening and gets stuck like Maru, be sure to share the pics.

what a great idea. I have an old small cat carrier that I'm pretty sure he wont be able to fit into without getting stuck (in which case I will be sure to take LOTS of pictures ).
My only problem now is I'm not sure how much he should be getting. The weight on the bag only goes up to 11lbs.

I'd ask your vet if he can find out how many kcal he would recommend your cat be fed. You can then either look at the bag and see what the kcal/kg is listed at, or just call the manufacturer's phone number or email them and they should be able to figure that out for you.

You don't want the weight loss to be too rapid.

We had to switch to scheduled feedings. I still do this with my guys, even though no one is currently dieting. I have an 11 month old and he has been on scheduled feedings for over 6 months and does fine.

Definitely talk to the vet about how many calories per (target weight) pound he should be getting. That's how I've finally managed to figure out how much wet food to feed our cats (I switched them from dry to all wet).

And Ducman's right. We had this problem when we had a kitten and older cats, and they wanted to eat her calorie packed food.

We bought a large sterlite container (not clear so they couldn't see her in there) and cut small holes only on two sides that only she could get in.

When you do this, remember that cats can get through a hole into which they can fit their heads because their collarbones are flexible. The trick to making this work is being able to put the food far enough away that a cat reaching a paw in there to try to get at the food can't reach far enough to get at the bowl.

Also, go to measured feeding spread out throughout the day.

Originally Posted by LDG

The trick to making this work is being able to put the food far enough away that a cat reaching a paw in there to try to get at the food can't reach far enough to get at the bowl.

Click to expand...

Excellent point. My Darko is on a diet, and in addition to special food, all their bowls are raised to help slow him down, and he is so smart that he reaches into the areas he doesn't have access to and actually pulls the legs of the raised platforms towards the openings, the little devil

Thanks for the advice everyone. I did manage to make an enclosure for the kitten, so thats great.
I found out that Mufasa should be getting roughly 1 1/2 cups of food per day for his ideal weight. Since i've started measuring his food though, he has only been eating around 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup a day.
Either he is not feeling good, and is not eating very well for some reason, or he has always been eating this amount, and if so, why is he so overweight if he isn't even eating the amount for his target weight???
I am a little confused. Any insight on this?

Another option is something like this:
http://www.nekofeeder.com/

If you're crafty you could probably make your own if you don't want to buy one.

I was thinking of getting one for my cats as I have one who is overweight, but tThe problem with the type that use the tag on their collars as a "key" to open the door is my cats tend to lose their collars.
I've been thinking of getting one of those programmable microchip cat doors instead, where you program it with their microchip numbers, and they only let the cats you want to through the door. That way I don't have to worry about collars.

Originally Posted by gothicangel69

Thanks for the advice everyone. I did manage to make an enclosure for the kitten, so thats great.
I found out that Mufasa should be getting roughly 1 1/2 cups of food per day for his ideal weight. Since i've started measuring his food though, he has only been eating around 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup a day.
Either he is not feeling good, and is not eating very well for some reason, or he has always been eating this amount, and if so, why is he so overweight if he isn't even eating the amount for his target weight???
I am a little confused. Any insight on this?

Click to expand...

Was that what your vet said he should be getting, or what the label on the food says? Sometimes pet food labels tend to overestimate how much a cat should be fed. Additionally, how much a cat really needs depends on their individual metabolism and age. Not to mention the specific nutrient content of the food. Cats eating a food that is high in carbs tend will likely gain more weight than a cat eating the same amount of food with a lower carb content.

I've found it's much less complicated to switch to a lower-carb food than it is to try portion-restricting a higher-carb food. And the Acana Grasslands cat food has a carb content of 20% which is pretty high.

I know you said you didn't want to switch the food due to allergies to common ingredients, but may I ask how you know for certain your cat is allergic to these ingredients? Because looking at the Acana ingredients, it actually contains chicken.

The store told me it did not contain chicken, thank you saitenyo. I will have to switch him. That would explain the occasional throw-ups and mouth ulcers.
The way i decided he was allergic to those foods was I fed him canned fish (tuna, sardines, etc.) only for a week (I know its not something they can be on long term, but I figured it wouldn't hurt for a week and I had to figure out what was causing him to throw-up all the time). After that, I gave him a piece of chicken, a few days later turkey, and a few days after that beef, etc. Each time he got very sick within a 1/2 hour of eating the food- vomiting everywhere for about 6 hours. The vet knew I didnt want to pay tones of money for an allergy test, so had suggested this.
Does anyone know another type of food which does not have any of the above ingredients?

-EVO 95% Venison
-EVO 95% Duck
-Nature's Variety 95% Lamb
-Nature's Variety 95% Duck
-Nature's Variety 95% Venison
-Nature's Variety 95% Rabbit
Double check the ingrediants, but I would assume that these are safe for you to feed.

http://www.evopet.com/products/ is EVO's site
http://www.naturesvariety.com/Instinct/cat/can/all is the Nature's Variety site

I picked up some venison and green pea food at the vets today. I don't like feeding vet food as they have alot of fillers, but the store that sells all the healthy cat food is under renovation right now, so it will have to do.
He absolutely loves the new food, which is good. He's lost 1.5lbs in the last week. I know I'm trying to get him to lose weight, but this seems a little fast. Hopefully this new food will help.

I use the Royal Canin Rabbit and Pea limited ingredient formula for my food-allergy cat (well actually for all my cats since they share bowls). It is one of only about 2-3 grain-free dry foods out there with no fish or chicken. For canned food I use Instinct rabbit, I used to use the Royal Canin rabbit canned food sometimes but he decided he didn't like it anymore.

Originally Posted by gothicangel69

I picked up some venison and green pea food at the vets today. I don't like feeding vet food as they have alot of fillers, but the store that sells all the healthy cat food is under renovation right now, so it will have to do.
He absolutely loves the new food, which is good. He's lost 1.5lbs in the last week. I know I'm trying to get him to lose weight, but this seems a little fast. Hopefully this new food will help.

Click to expand...

That's actually a lot fast. About the most you want your cat to lose in a single week is 2% of his current body weight. 1.5 pounds on a 26 pound cat is about 6%. Did you get that weight loss from a bathroom scale or from something more accurate, like a pet/baby scale? If it's a bathroom scale, the "loss" may just be an artifact produced by the inaccuracy of the scale rather than the true weight loss. Bathroom scales are great for seeing for seeing if your cat has put on or lost a significant amount of weight over a longer period like 3-6 months, but it's tough to get idea of how much he's losing from week to week with one.

I brought him into the vet clinic to have him weighed. He hadn't been eating much at all the entire week so I'm assuming thats why he lost so much weight. He seems to like this new food though. He ate almost a whole cup yesterday, which is twice as much as he's been eating for the last week.

Natural Balance has 3 limited ingredients food: Venison/Pea, Salmon/Pea, and Duck/Pea (well, they have a fourth, but it's Chicken/Pea).