Feeding advice - new kitten and fatty 3 year old

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Lynne - 09 Oct 2006 19:54 GMT

I have always free fed my cats dry food without problems. Since
adopting my kitten, I have been free feeding kitten food in one room
and adult food in the other. The kitten cannot get to the adult food
(yet), but the kitten food is easily accessible to both. My older cat,
Rudy, has been GORGING on the kitten food and is FAT FAT FAT after a
month of this.

I am going to introduce wet food into their diets. I am thinking
canned Nutro kitten food and some kind of canned Nutro weight control
wet foods for the kitten and fat-Rudy, respectively. I figure I can
feed them in separate rooms and they (hopefully) won't leave it long.
I'll pick it up when they walk away from it. Simple enough. I can
also add L-Lysine to Levi's food if the vet indeed thinks he has FHV.

I have a couple of questions, though. I've always heard it is
important to slowly switch food, so I have always done this. Just
curious why this is important. Will it make them sick to do otherwise?

Also, I would still like to leave dry food out for the kitten so he
gets more frequent nutrition. How harmful would it be, if it is
harmful at all, to mix the dry with half kitten and half adult kibbles?
My vet says he doesn't think it's a big deal, because when he started
practicing there was no "kitten food" and kittens did just fine. Of
course there weren't seat belts back then, either... I just don't want
Rudy to continue gaining weight so I'm hopeful that if I mix the food,
or perhaps even just put out adult food, he will slow down with that.
I also don't want to harm Levi's development or growth.

Please note that keeping Rudy away from any food I leave out for Levi
is not possible, or I would have to keep them separated. I will not do
this, they love each other.

Thanks in advance.

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Gail Futoran - 10 Oct 2006 15:13 GMT

>I have always free fed my cats dry food without problems. Since
> adopting my kitten, I have been free feeding kitten food in one room
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
>
> Thanks in advance.

When I bought home two kittens in 2000, I had one elderly female cat on a
senior diet. Not wanting the elderly cat to get at the kitten food, I cut
kitten-sized holes in a large box and put the dry kitten food in there. The
kittens had no problem finding and eating the kitten food, and the senior
cat couldn't get into the box.

As long as the kittens are getting mostly kitten food, it shouldn't hurt
them to occasionally eat the adult food.

As far as transitioning to different foods, I've generally offered several
different kinds of foods at once. When I transitioned the last set of
kittens to adult food, I used the same brands (i.e. kitten SD to adult SD;
kitten Wellness to adult Wellness) and had no problem.

Gail F.
Owned by Lao Ma, Ephiny, Minya, Melosa and the new kids
adopted 10/8/06: Jasmine (special needs), her brother Jasper
(names may change)

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Lynne - 10 Oct 2006 16:18 GMT

> When I bought home two kittens in 2000, I had one elderly female cat on a
> senior diet. Not wanting the elderly cat to get at the kitten food, I cut
> kitten-sized holes in a large box and put the dry kitten food in there. The
> kittens had no problem finding and eating the kitten food, and the senior
> cat couldn't get into the box.

Very clever! This is an EXCELLENT idea. Thank you!

> As long as the kittens are getting mostly kitten food, it shouldn't hurt
> them to occasionally eat the adult food.
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> adopted 10/8/06: Jasmine (special needs), her brother Jasper
> (names may change)

Thanks again!

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Wendy - 10 Oct 2006 16:39 GMT

>> When I bought home two kittens in 2000, I had one elderly female cat on a
>> senior diet. Not wanting the elderly cat to get at the kitten food, I
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> Thanks again!

I used the box trick when my Boots and Diego were kittens and I was trying
to keep my Isabelle out of their food (she was a real fatty at the time). I
had to Velcro the bowl to the far corner (from the door) of the box so she
couldn't tip the box and get the bowl to slide close enough to the door for
her to reach in and steal the food.

W

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T - 10 Oct 2006 22:32 GMT

> >I have always free fed my cats dry food without problems. Since
> > adopting my kitten, I have been free feeding kitten food in one room
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
> kittens had no problem finding and eating the kitten food, and the senior
> cat couldn't get into the box.

Depending on the size of the kitten and the size of the handles, one can
also use a plastic milk crate. Emily was only six weeks old when we got
her and we took to feeding her that way.

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Lynne - 14 Oct 2006 03:43 GMT

> Depending on the size of the kitten and the size of the handles, one can
> also use a plastic milk crate. Emily was only six weeks old when we got
> her and we took to feeding her that way.

none of the milk or file crates I have here have holes big enough for
the kitten, so I used the top half of my cat carrier. The kitten
probably isn't completely comfortable in there, as it's tight (he's big
for his age--quite long and tall, but lean), but it works for now.
What's really funny is that fat Rudy just discovered this set up and
he's PISSED. He tried to shove his head through the half-door, no
luck. Then he tried pulling the food dish out, but it's out of his
reach. He's currently trying to lift the carrier top up, but I put a
heavy box on top. VERY effective idea, with the added bonus of being
very entertaining. Poor Rudy, but hopefully I can get him back down to
the proper weight now. I've been calling him "Fatty McFat Fat" and my
daughter isn't very happy with me about that. <g>

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tension_on_the_wire - 14 Oct 2006 23:24 GMT

> I have a couple of questions, though. I've always heard it is
> important to slowly switch food, so I have always done this. Just
> curious why this is important. Will it make them sick to do otherwise?

The answer to your question is, by the way, that they will not
necessarily get sick just because of a sudden transition. If that
food is going to make them sick, it will make them sick anyway,
even with a slow transition.

But fast transitions have a side effect of sudden food refusal on
the part of finicky eaters, and slow transitions tend to minimize
that occurence.

--tension

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