Please share your tips for feeding in a multi-cat household

Anne

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I'm collecting tips for a new article. 

Do you have more than one cat? Can you please share in this thread what your feeding routine is like? I'm especially interested in your solutions for situations where you need to feed different diets to different cats.

Also, photos of multi-cat feeding would be greatly appreciated too! 
 

katluver4life

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I feed 3 but not sure I can offer anything of interest. Mine all eat the same diet and for some reason, just lucky, they don't eat off each others plates.
 

Winchester

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We have seven cats, but I'm not much help either. They pretty much all eat the same food and they all get fed in various places in the kitchen. Bootser is on thyroid meds; I crush a pill into her canned food twice a day and we don't allow the other cats to eat her food at all. BooBoo is on joint meds; we empty a capsule into his breakfast food. He's a good eater, too, and cleans his plate. In fact, all of our cats are fairly good eaters. They eat their canned food twice a day and get dry kibble several times throughout the day. BooBoo, Ms. Pepe, and Tabby are our scarfers and, if there's any food left on plates, they're more than willing to take advantage of it.

Our Muffin was free-fed when she lived with Mom and it's taken us a while to get her switched over to the kids' schedule. Although Rick says she's still pretty much free-fed....she asks and we deliver. 


Now, my sister, OTOH, has some issues with her seven. The two girls (Samarah and Maizie) get fed up in their "apartment" on the third floor of the house; they are content to stay on the third floor and seldom come down to the rest of the house, although Samarah is getting braver in her exploring and she'll come downstairs for a little while. Three of the boys (Midnight, Da Whisk, and Liam) eat out on the back porch, even during the coldest days. Lawrence gets fed at the top of the basement on the landing and Thaddeus eats in the kitchen. The reason Lawrence eats on the basement landing is because he gobbles the food down as fast as he can, then he'll go around and push the other cats off their food, so he can scarf. Keeping him in the basement for awhile will give her other cats the chance to eat their food. Then when Lawrence comes back out of the basement, he cleans all the other plates, except for Midnight's...he's just started on thyroid meds.

My sister pretty much free feeds dry kibble and there are nine bowls of kibble on the various floors of their house. Water bowls and litter boxes, too. I feed their cats when they go away and, while I love taking care of those cats, it is a bit of a chore.....more time-consuming than handling our gang. Her kids are not on any special diet, although Midnight's taking the same meds that our Bootser does. 

See...not much help really. I can say that, for the most part, our kids are good about eating and they don't really try to chase each other off their food. 
 

dejolane

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Seperate bowls of course I only have Bella & Thunder so 2 bowls and if 1 doesn't finish hers the other goes to the second bowl. Because around here,it's first come first serve.
 

Docs Mom

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This is Fancy Feast time in the kitchen it happens twice a day. I sit in front and add as needed. Tazz, the little gray tabby to the left is "diagnosed" with either IBD or GI Lymphoma (fna biopsies inconclusive). So we are trying to get some more weight on her. I initially tried Evo etc for better nutrition, but she just wants her %#*@ Fancy Feast pate.

They also have dry Nutro Max to nibble during day and eve.
 

catspaw66

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I feed the ladies at the same time, in the same place and put down the plates in the same order twice a day. They all eat the same food, but get a different flavor every meal. I rotate among 8 or 9 different flavors, so they never get burned out on any one flavor.
 

ldg

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I police them. Like catspaw, I feed them on a regular schedule. They eat at the same time, each cat in the same spot, and I put the food down in the same order. I think of it like dinner when I grew up. Everyone sat in their place at the dinner table, and Dad served dinner to everyone always in the same order.

When they were free feeding kibble and getting two meals of wet food a day, they played musical bowls. When we switched to only timed meals of wet (now raw) food, I stopped the musical bowls. Billy and Ming Loy will always try to eat the others' food. I no longer give them the opportunity. Thus meal times now occur for a set amount of time. That amount of time is defined by when the last cat walks away from the dish. I pick up their bowls as they step away from them. A meal usually takes about 10 minutes for them to eat. They have learned that they finish or they don't eat until the next meal time.

But my presence is required to ensure each cat eats only from their own dish.

I very much prefer this method to free-feeding or musical bowls. It takes more time and attention on my part, but as I trained them to understand a "meal" is at a set time and for a set amount of time, it doesn't take too much time. The benefit for that time trade-off is that I know how much each kitty eats, so if anyone is off their food, I know it immediately.
 

ldg

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I should add: I have 8 cats, each eats a tailored diet that is different in some way, whether that is ingredients, medicine, supplements, or amount of food.
 

blueyedgirl5946

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At one time, we had three cats. Two of them were cats with urinary issues who had to be fed prescription food from the vet. One could eat regular food and did. I kept two cat carriers on my porch and trained the ones who ate the prescription food to go in the box to eat. The other cat ate at the same time, but I fed him on the back step. The cats with special diets were allowed a certain amount two times a day and they got no between meals snacks or food. Thus, I just trained all three cats to eat at the same time.
 
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