Free feeding vs scheduled feedings in multi cat household with issues

I have been free feeding my 4 cats dry food and giving them wet food in the morning and evening.  I have been having behavior issues with 2 of them and am trying to use the soft food with a calming medicine in it as a way to help solve it.  Quite often the 2 with the issues don't seem to want to eat their soft food and I am thinking that they just aren't hungry enough because the dry food is alway available, or they can taste the medicine and just won't eat it because they are not hungry enough.  I have thought about taking it away or limiting the dry food to solve this problem but one of the cats ( not one with the behavior issues) really only eats dry food and she nibbles on it through out the day. She also has problems with vomiting if she eats to much at once.   I saw a Jackson Galaxy video that says you should never free feed cats because it goes against their natural instincts and if you are trying to change a bad behavior with food then they need to be somewhat hungry to want to do what you want. But have also read that in multi cat families you should have food always available so fights don't happen between the cats. Jacksons advice makes a lot of sense to me because cats in the wild have to hunt for their food and don't always make a kill. They can go for a long time without a meal.  Of course the other advice makes sense too.  Any input from multi cat families would be appreciated. 

I have 3 cats, one that's a senior and has an automatic feeder that supplies her with 6 small meals a day. She used to get 2 big meals a day and threw up 4 times a week until I switched her to the smaller scheduled meals and now the only time she throws up is when she has a hairball and the smaller more frequent meals also helped her lose 3lbs since she was overweight so it was a win win. My other cats get 2 scoops of dry food a day, one in the morning and one at night,  and my kitten also gets one can of wet food every night since she's still growing. They don't eat eachother's food surprisingly because I put my 2 cats food high up on a shelf where my senior cat can't get to, and only the kitten touches the wet cause the other 2 don't like canned food. And the 2 younger cats don't touch my senior cat's food cause the automatic feeder makes noise and they don't like getting near it lol.  I'd recommend trying an auto feeder for the cat who only eats dry and see if that helps with her vomiting, plus it'll help if you want to cut back on the dry for the other cats since the feeder can only feed one cat at a time. Just stick it in a place where only the one cat likes to go. Hope my rambling was kind of helpful lol

I have three cats. They are on scheduled feeding, three meals a day. One cat doesn't like food in general, one is a normal eater and the third would eat an elephant.

First and last meals of the day are served in different rooms for each cat. I have a very small apartment so Harley eats in the bedroom, Amelie in the hallway and Sophie in the livingroom. I stay with Sophie because she needs convincing to eat - sprinkled treats on her food. Plus I enjoy my time with her.

The second meal of the day is a 'family' meal - they all eat in the livingroom. I do this because I sometimes feed bones at this meal and I want to monitor things. Plus I want them to see that eating together is ok.

For two weeks now they are on wet and a bit of raw. No more kibbles. It was hard getting here. I started this in August 2013, transitioning from free feeding to scheduled feeding and from kibbles to wet.

I started this because Harley had to be on a special diet and the other two didn't. I really like the way things are now. They sometimes bug me for food but they do not bug eachother

I have three cats, two males and a female and have never had a problem with fights over food. I suppose this can happen but I would not make the assumption that it is automatic.

Up until last October 2013, my cats were all free-feeding dry kibble. I made the decision to stop this and have been able to transition all cats quite easily to wet canned food. They now get 2 x wet canned at 5:30AM and 10:00AM. Since January they have been getting a bit of dry kibble in the afternoon, but I have started replacing this with wet food. I have added a wet portion at 3:00PM, and the dry kibble is now served at 6:00PM, but only if they are looking for it and seem genuinely hungry.

Dry food can become just a bad habit and something to do when cats get bored, so its important to make the distinction between boredom and true hunger. Portion control feedings will be so much better for a cat's digestion and is more in keeping with their natural instinct to eat a little through-out the day as cats in the wild. I would suggest if your cats aren't willing to eat the extra wet portion, then it is likely that they are not truly hungry.

I have 3 cats and they eat 3 meals per day too, AND they all eat different food, but none of it is dry.  Two of my cats don't get along, but we don't have any issues at meal times vs any other time.  (the two that don't get along eat in different rooms)

i have 2 cats, a male and a female.both are on free feeding and i have never had any issues with them throwing up.the female cat in general is a weight watcher [emoji]128540[/emoji] she eats very little,bored or not. the male cat ofcourse eats more than her but i dont see him over eating. he eats enough to support his body size ( he is a big cat) they both are on dry food mixed with boiled chicken liver and they are doing fine

I have three cats (all males) and feed 3x day out of two bowels (0700, 1430, 2130 hrs). They eat the same food although I will sometimes have to top the canned off with some crushed dried lamb liver to get the old guy to eat it.