Hi
We adopted 2 cats at the end of October, a Mum and her Son. She is approx 18 months old, and her son is about 7 months old. When we got them they had been living with 3 other cats in a 1 bed flat and, although not neglected, they were very skinny and needed feeding up.
We were advised to give 1 x sachet of wet food per day between them and keep biscuits out all day which we have been doing (plus the occasional treat of Like-e-Lix or the weird semi-dry treat sticks). They are both a lot healthier and heavier than they were and seem very happy!
However. The Mum is very nervous and the Son very boisterous and I have noticed since we got them that she will wait until her Son has eaten before she goes for food (the same with treats). This is slightly concerning me as Son is now seeming to eat all the wet food before Mum gets a look in, and I can't be sure how much dry food she gets as she's a grazer. I was advised to give them both kitten food as the Mum also needed the extra calories, however I have tried alternating Cat /Kitten food and biscuits in case it was the smaller bits that made it easier for the Son to eat it quickly, and I've also tried giving them a pouch each but that seems too much.
Any suggestions? She is a very petite cat compared to Son, who is shaping up to be very long and a bit of a bruiser. They generally get on well so I don't think he "bullies" her out of the way; she's just a little more wary and will often run away if I try to encourage her to eat at the same time as Son.
Thanks in advance for any help!
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How to monitor food with more than 1 cat?
DollyParsnip · 18/01/2017 10:50
Dolly Firstly they are adorable 
We have a similar problem in the Slave household - and end up supervising all meal times and if the smaller one still doesn't get food we end up distracting greedy guts with snuggles until the smaller one has eaten.
Hello, thank you all for your really helpful responses - I am a novice at this so all help gratefully received .
They each have their own food bowls (though Son seems to take this loosely) and there's no fighting if they're both eating - it's just tempting Mum in in the first place. Tried giving her food where she was sitting today, just outside the door, and she looked at me as if I was mad and skipped off back to the sofa!
I guess it may just be that she's not as hungry as Son, maybe she eats more overnight and just prefers biscuits 
. Will definitely try some of the suggestions here though!
Thank you!
Those microchip pet feeders are amazing! Sadly no longer an issue for us, our more timid cat was pts with kidney failure 
I used to feed them separately. Greedy boy would snaffle timid cat's food before his own. He was an absolute git about it (still we remain enslaved to him 
)
Hello all,
Thank you so much for all of your really helpful suggestions! Since my OP I've started to sit in with them whilst they eat, feel like I'm stalking them 
.
It now appears that Son actually just eats all of the jelly from the food; Mum is left with quite a lot of meat but it looks less as I mix the meat in with some biscuits (on the advice of CPL lady, to stop him bolting food). Have also noticed that she prefers meat with gravy to jelly so I've been alternating the food types and she seems to be getting more of a look in!
I swear I've been more stressed about the amounts the Cats are eating than I ever was with DD as a toddler!
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