timed feedings + going on vacation + previously blocked cat

so one of our two boys had a blockage last fall, and as a result, we switched to an all wet food diet. we feed them each half a can in the morning and half a can in the evening. works great, they love it!

now we are trying to figure out what to do while we go on vacation for about two weeks. this is our first major vacation since the blockage. we have two resources that typically help us with cats...my mom, who lives a half hour away, and an acquaintance who lives pretty close by, but we aren't comfortable asking them to come twice a day, every day.

what would you do in this situation? we have a bag of wellness grain-free dry food that we could leave out full-time for the cats and have someone (a rotation of some sort) come in evenings to give them their wet food, so at least they would get it once a day. is that an ok idea? is giving them dry food after 9 months of a wet diet (give or take a few nights when we ran out of wet food) ok? we are worried about our boy getting blocked again as a result, but i don't think two weeks of dry combined with wet would do that, right?

the other option is hiring a pet sitter to come for $22/visit, which is pretty pricey.

how about your mom comes once a day and the other people come once.

I am more concerned about having dry food out full time and only giving the cats wet food once a day as opposed to the usual twice. Any thoughts?

momof3b1g said:

how about your mom comes once a day and the other people come once.

Click to expand...

This sounds like the best solution. I would definitely not switch to an all dry food diet at once. It probably would cause gastric distress and stomach issues. It could also cause a urinary problem with the cat who has already had this problem. I would not change food for this cat. Changing pet foods in a hurry is never good. Can your mother come one time a day and the other person come one time a day.

momof3b1g said:

 
how about your mom comes once a day and the other people come once.

Click to expand...

A good solution

You can also get a programmable timed feeder (or two) and use that for the canned food. That way you don't have to feed any dry food. I like the Petsafe 5 compartment feeder. There are other brands, such as Catmate. Mom can fill the feeder with canned food in the morning, set the timer (if you get a digital timer one, you just program the times in once and just forget about it ), and whoever comes by in the evening can check the feeder, dump any leftover food and wash the tray, and refill with more food to last until morning.

Canned food is ok if left out all day. Some brands of feeders have ice packs to keep canned food cool. You can freeze canned food into portion sizes and pop  the frozen chunks into the feeder. Since it takes a bit of time for a frozen chunk to defrost enough for a cat to eat, the first meal or two in the feeder should be straight from the can for easy eating.