One cat only on special diet

[thecatsthecats]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any special knowledge, because our vets were a little vague about the following.

One of my pair of cats has been diagnosed with kidney disease, and the other one is fine, so they are on different diets at the moment.

Trouble is, they both like to swap food bowls quite a lot (even when their food is identical), and they typically eat half a sachet in the morning, then half left out for them during the day, with dry out for grazing until they have another 1-1.5 pouches in the evening.

My questions are:

1. Is it bad/how bad is it for the healthy cat to have kidney food? (he doesn't have any of the medicine at all)
2. How bad is it for the kidney disease cat to have normal food? (at the moment we're phasing him onto the kidney food as he has a sensitive stomach)
3. Ditto for kidney dry food - I'm not sure I can get him to eat dry food to be honest, because he's spectacularly fussy about dry (doesn't even acknowledge Dreamies as food)

The logistics of feeding them separately would mean one cat being stuck inside all day, which doesn't seem fair! I think I can get them eating about 80% of the 'correct' food normally - but if it has to be 100% then I need to look at solutions!

Are they microchipped? You can get microchip feeders that only open for the correct cat

I'm a vet nurse, it'd be better for both cats to eat the kidney diet. Normal food will be too high in protein for the cat with kidney problems but it won't harm and certainly could be better for the other cat especially if over five.

They are fifteen (brothers), so well over five!

Re: the feeders, how far apart do they have to be - and do they close after use? The problem is their appetites can go up and down a bit (both good weights) so once it's open, they might eat it all, or they might leave it, then the other can get it anyway?

Provided the healthy cat will eat it (it will become miraculously unappealing I'm sure when he realises it's here to stay rather than just something he can steal from his brother...), kidney food seems like the better choice then!

I had a similar issue with my two who share a bowl. I got microchip feeders. But I couldn't work out how to teach them to use it. A d they aren't the brightest either. Fortunately we were able to go back to their usual diet so it was ok.

I would say at 15 the kidney diet will be fine for the healthy cat too.