Transitioning Cats From Free Feeding?

[kate]

Hi Everyone!
I am looking for some suggestions to switch our 2 cats from free feeding to portion control 2x a day. Right now they have access to eat whenever they like and we have a fat cat/skinny cat situation. The fat one eats whenever she is bored or if we are in the room with her. The food is in our office and my FI and I spend a lot of time in there. If she is hanging out in there with us, she will lay by the food bowl and have a snack. I know she isn't hungary, just bored. (Moving the food really isn't an option because of space in our apt.)
We also have skinny cat that sleeps so much, that we hardly ever see him eat, and I want to portion it out to make sure he is even eating enough. The Vet said he is not underweight, but I just want to make sure.
So does anyone have any good tips on how to make the switch?

[Daisy]

I just posted in the "How much do you feed your cat?" thread too.

We have a fatty/skinny too. We just started separating them/taking their bowls away cold turkey. We started on a weekend when we were home. They whined and begged for the first couple of days, but they eventually got into the groove. They still beg during the weekends though.

Our cats eat twice a day and in separate rooms and they eat different food (our fatty eats diet food that we measure out). After they're done eating (5-10 minutes), I take their bowls away and open the doors. Now when they know it's eating time, they go to their eating spots and wait for their bowls.

Good luck - you just need to get thru the first couple of days. :)

[Smilin13]

the first couple of days?!?!?!?!!?!?! *laughs* Ozzie is driving me BONKERS!!!! Of course it doesn't help that he is just naturally a vocal cat. We've been trying to transition him for about a week.
Sadly, right now I work from home, so everytime I move, he is meowing and running to his food bowl and meowing more to be fed. I think things may get a bit better starting next week when I get on a different schedule with a new job.
But right now, I'm almost at my wits end with him.

My next goal is to have him stop meowing at 3:30-4:00am for what he feels should be his first feeding time.

AGH!!!!

:)

[greenbunny]

I know it's really hard to ignore when they whine for food (especially when you're trying to sleep) but remember that NO reaction is the best action. Even if you're scolding them or hushing them, they're getting a response and will keep trying. Just do your best to pretend you can't hear a thing.

[kate]

What do you guys do if you leave for the weekend??

[Daisy]

Well if we leave for just a couple of days, then we leave bowls of diet food out - what can we do? If we leave for longer, we'll either have my IL's watch them (they come, usually, every other day) or my anal neighbor who comes everyday. She is the BEST cat sitter - last time she bleached out our litter box (I didn't even ask!) and bought the cats some more treats!

When I worked at home, my cats totally begged all day too - but I would also feed them lunch (now they just get breakfast and dinner).

[kate]

last time she bleached out our litter box (I didn't even ask!)

Can She come to my house?! hahahaha.

Wish me luck, I am going to start tomarrow! I can already tell I am going to be getting a lot of pouting! I think whenever we do leave on the weekends, I will put rocks in the bowl so Fatty Fiona has to eat around them, and doens't gorge herself. I don't want to come home to a apt. full of puke :(

Thanks for the help!

[keska]

last time she bleached out our litter box (I didn't even ask!)

I love it when petsitters will do this. I scrub and disinfect our litterbox every week even though we use litter liners and I like knowing my petsitter will do the same when I'm gone. It's funny, but when we got housecleaners, I refused to ask them to do this chore because I needed to know that it was actually done correctly (I know, I'm obsessive about it).