Separating older cat's prescription diet food from kitten. Advice needed please!

[daleo]

Hi there

My older cat Gizmo who is about 5-6 years old has been on Hill's Prescription Diet s/d dry food for about a year now as he has had several instances where he has required surgery due to crystals in his urine. Thankfully since being on the new food, he has not had any further problems going to the toilet and seems happy & healthy.

We recently introduced a new member of the home, a kitten, Alfie, he's about 6-7 months old now, and I'm having some feeding problems. They are both on their own diet. Gizmo has his prescription food twice a day whilst Alfie has kitten food (dry and wet) 4 times a day. But they like to steal each other's food! I don't want Gizmo to eat Alfie's food as he needs his prescription food to stay healthy, plus he also has a weight problem. Then I don't want Alfie to steal Gizmo's food as I have been advised by vets that if he occasionally or regularly eats the prescription food it may interfere with his development.

At the moment, Gizmo's food is elevated and in another room, although Alfie has discovered its location and makes every attempt to reach it, and is becoming more successful! Gizmo doesn't tend to finish his food, ever. He will always come back to it throughout the day, which means there's often some left in the bowl. Alfie more than often finishes his, although Gizmo will regularly go looking for Alfie's bowl to see if there's any scraps left over.

So at the moment I'm struggling and need some advice or tips to help make their feeding situation a little easier. I can imagine Alfie will soon be able to move onto 2 larger meals per day instead of 4, but they will steal try to eat each other's food. The only solution I can see right now is to purchase a microchip cat feeder at least for Gizmo, however these are extremely expensive and way out of budget. I'm about to purchase a microchip cat flap this month and have that fitted too.

Anyway, I would be really grateful for any advice

Thank you!

Dale

 

[moorspede]

Gizmo has a weight problem so you need to reduce the food you are feeding him. The perfect solution is to pick the food up after each cat has finished eating. You could feed Gizmo as often as the kitten is being fed but reduce the portions to slightly less than half. He is less likely to feel hungry this way. Kittens eat double the amount of mature cats, you'd just have to make sure Alfie is getting enough to eat.  

 

[crazy4strays]

I have a cat who's on prescription canned renal food and the other cats eat regular canned food. I will put the other cats out of the room where my older cat is eating or put him in a crate for mealtimes, as needed. 

 

[missmimz]

My suggestion would be to switch both cats off of dry food ASAP, especially your cat with urinary issues because kibble contributes to both urinary issues and obesity. Most cats that develop urinary issues do so while eating dry food, because dry food is very dehydrating. While i understand its Rx food, you could use the Rx wet food, although personally, I think all Rx food is garbage and you could achieve the same results you're getting with Rx food by feeding high quality wet food only with little to no fillers, add a water fountain to encourage drinking, and possibly also feed low phos wet foods if necessary. Worth talking to your vet about and doing some research on, as then you wont need to feed both cats separate food. 

 

[crazy4strays]

I second the recommendations to drop the dry food. It will help your older cat to avoid recurrence of the bladder issues and will drastically decrease your kitten's chance of developing bladder problems. 

Male cats especially are prone to painful, expensive urinary blockages and the best way to prevent those, is to include plenty of dietary water. Since dry food is only about 10% moisture, cats usually fall short of water requirements, when on a dry diet.

The water flowing through the bladder helps to prevent the painful urinary issues. "Dilution decreases pollution" is a good mantra to remember. 

If you and your vet want to keep him on a prescription diet, there are canned prescription diet options.

Canned food will likely also help with weight loss. I adopted an very overweight senior cat and got him down to normal weight by cutting out the dry food and putting him on low carbohydrate canned food. 

 

[majola65]

I use Sure flap Sure feed microchip feeder for one of my cats. She is the only one who can eat out of it.  Works very well!

 

[mister baggy]

Will the prescription food harm the kitten? My oldest passed away recently due to struvite complications but his food came in the mail a few days afterward. Would it be safe to give my 1yr old male? I was going to alternate with a regular canned food and raw. Would it prevent him getting crystals, or just give a nutrician issue?