Changing the Feeding Schedule

Okay, to start with our house has six cats; Momma, Spot, Ra, Asia, Princess, and Slipper. When I feed them, I normally leave down dry food all day and put down wet food twice--once in the morning and once at night. Now, I started with leaving the dry food down because, well, they were kittens (most of them) and still growing. I didn't want to risk making them ill because they didn't have enough (or properly nutritious) food. 

Momma, Princess, and Spot are beginning to get fat. They are growing out instead of up or long, and they are getting quite--round. Clearly, something in the feeding schedule needs to change. I've been thinking about changing the dry food schedule, put it out twice a day, like the wet food, and pull up the bowls when they're empty instead of refilling them and leaving them down.

I have a few reservations about this. For starters, I think Ra is in the middle of another growth spurt (that cat is HUGE!), and I don't want him lacking in nutrition while he grows. My concern is that although he looks  well fed and round, most of that is fur. (He has very long fur, and his body is easily the size of my torso. I strongly suspect his father might have been a mountain lion.) One of my other concerns is that Asia and Slipper seem to be getting exactly  the right amount of food; neither too much nor too little, and I'm worried about changing their  feeding schedules. My last resrvation is that this is the feeding schedule that the cats have been on since the kittens were able to eat dry food in the first place. 

Are there any suggestions on how I should handle this?

How old are the kittens? How old are the others?

As for Ra, can you feel easily feel his rib/hip bones under the hair?

Are you wanting to eventually get them on set feeding times?

I have 7 cats and use a "modified" feeding schedule. They get a set amount of dry food in the morning to graze on and they get wet food at night. My 1 that has difficulty putting and keeping on weight gets an extra wet food meal either in the morning or early afternoon, as well as some freeze-dried raw (complete food) as treats.

I'm still tweaking this as my oldest 2 still need to lose about 2-3 pounds a piece and hope to get everyone on more set meals in the future.

CatPack said:

How old are the kittens? How old are the others?

As for Ra, can you feel easily feel his rib/hip bones under the hair?

Are you wanting to eventually get them on set feeding times?

I have 7 cats and use a "modified" feeding schedule. They get a set amount of dry food in the morning to graze on and they get wet food at night. My 1 that has difficulty putting and keeping on weight gets an extra wet food meal either in the morning or early afternoon, as well as some freeze-dried raw (complete food) as treats.

I'm still tweaking this as my oldest 2 still need to lose about 2-3 pounds a piece and hope to get everyone on more set meals in the future.

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Momma cat is the oldest cat; she's roughly (I use the term because we have no idea how old she was when she came into the house) a year and a half old. Maybe older, maybe a little younger (can't be a lot younger; she got pregnant some time last November). The other five are all littermates and her kittens; they're about seven months old. (They were born early February.)

As for Ra; I don't know about his ribs, because he doesn't like to be touched on the belly area, but his hip bones are painfully prominent through the thick padding of fur. He also seems hungry all the time; he's eating wet food, dry food, and hunting. And if the other cats make a kill, he usually swoops in and eats it. (He doesn't  have worms; we've had him checked.) I will say this; his fur is perfectly healthy and he's shedding neither more nor less than the other cats.