Free feeding cat suddenly eating all his dry food at once?

My cat's ten months old, ten pounds, and a DSH. I've free fed him (Wellness Core dry left out all day plus 3oz of Trader Joe's wet each evening) without any problems for the three months he's been with me, but I'm currently trying to transition him to set meal times. For the last two or three weeks, set meal times (6oz of TJ wet split into three meals a day) have been working fine, but this past Tuesday I started providing him with dry food again so he can graze while I'm at school, and he practically inhales the dry as soon as I set it down. I don't know if that's because (1) I'm feeding him too little, (2) I messed up his feeding schedule and now he thinks I'm gonna take away his food if he doesn't eat it all in one go, or (3) he just really likes the new dry (EVO ancestral diet chicken/turkey). Max hasn't vomited since he started gorging like this, but I can hear him chomping in the kitchen right now even though I fed him wet like half an hour ago...I'm really concerned and he's the first pet I've ever had, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.


To elaborate on those three concerns.

First, when I took Max to the vet last month, the doctor told me he was fully grown and I could start feeding him 6oz of wet a day. Up to that point, I'd been feeding him about 9-10oz of wet a day, plus about 3/4c of Wellness dry I'd leave out during the day that he'd almost always finish. Is 6oz of wet a day enough food for 10mths? I'm confused because all the food packaging instructions say 8-12mths is still considered a kitten and still growning, so should be fed more. Is that correct, and am I underfeeding my cat? If so, will leaving out dry again make up for the deficit in his diet?

Second, in line with the vet's orders, I cut Max's food to 6oz of wet a day, and so tried shifting Max to set meal times because I didn't want to leave his wet out all day while I'm at school. I currently split 6oz into three meals a day (one at roughly 8am, one at 2pm, one at 8pm) and am trying to get him to 6oz in just two meals a day. Could I have accidentally terrorized him into thinking that whatever he doesn't eat now he won't get to eat later? If so, how do I fix this??

Third, the dry I just started feeding him is EVO's ancestral diet chicken/grain. On Tuesday, I gave him lunch and then a few pieces of Carne and Evo to see if he'd like either; the Carne he was meh about (he ate all of it but not with any particular interest), but he jumped on the EVO, even though he'd just had lunch. I've noticed him finishing the EVO dry faster than he ever finished the Wellness, hence the need for this post. Finally, this morning when I fed Max his first wet meal, I served out the dry while he was eating the wet, and when I put down the kibble he actually walked away from his wet to start eating the dry. He has NEVER done this before: TJ's his favorite kind of wet food, from the several I've tried him on at one point or another, and when I fed him Wellness dry he wouldn't touch it if he had the option of TJ wet food. Have any of you who feed EVO noticed your cats loving it like this?

So, yeah, that's my situation. Like I said, I've never had a pet before, and I have no clue what I'm doing wrong; any advice would be so appreciated.

Set mealtimes are a good idea, and several small meals is a lot healthier for them than one or two large ones (I wont go into the reasons now).  You should feed three meals a day at the least, and probably throw in a bedtime snack too.  Your basic diet of wet food with just a little Evo thrown in is a good one, but you are going to need to control his calories or you will have a fat cat and maybe some other problems as well.   Dont give him any of the dry food until he has finished the wet food, and then give him only a little at a time.  Be sure to add up total calories you are giving him.  Compare to what he was just getting, and then cut back gradually to a more adult calorie need (most cans and most dry food give you a calorie count, and avoid canned foods with gravy - stick to the pate varieties, as the gravy is full of carbs your cat doesn't need.)  He WILL adjust to the set mealtimes in a week or so, and he doesn't need to be able to graze all day any more than a kid needs free access to the cookie jar while mom is at work.  Cats actually thrive on structure, and once he knows the new schedule, he will be fine.