How do you put one cat on a diet?

[StuntNun]

I have three cats. There is a bowl of dry Royal Canin cat food out all for them the time and the cats get fed Felix As Good As It Looks sachets when they ask for it. One cat is very fussy and will sniff the Felix (after asking for it) but then not eat any. So there is often both dry and wet food out for the cats.

One of my cats is overweight and the vet has recommended a weight management cat food for him. But how do I provide that while still allowing the other two cats, who don't need to lose weight, to eat normally?

There are some microchip cat bowls that will only open for the right cat though they are quite expensive and you would need at least two if not three.

We have microchip pet bowls for biscuits and you can put wet food in also. Keeps the flies away in summer. Mine won't eat wet out of it but they both have biscuits. Fat cat has far less and gets fed morning and night thin cat is fed as he pleases.

Thanks for the recommendations. They do look good but I don't have floor space for one.

I wish someone would do that for me!

Feed them separately.

I have one cat that can't have dry food and the other only really likes dry food.

We'll only give the dry food when we know the other cat is asleep,or out and the bowl is put away when they have finished eating.

It's a pain but the only way.

If you need to feed them the same amount at the usual time and then the other cat can have extra another time?

I could stop leaving food out all the time and only feed each cat one at a time. Does that work for cats or do they end up constantly begging?

This is what we did in our two cat household.
One of our cats was overweight, the other slim. Our fat cat only ever wanted dry (it was RC, too), the slim one preferred wet but would dabble in dry, too. I stopped the dry food completely and only fed them wet for a while. I didn't want to deny anyone anything but it worked beautifully in the end. The fat cat lost all of the excess weight in about two months. I ended up wishing that I'd done it sooner. Obesity is not good for cats.
So you could try that. Maybe get different wet food that even the fussy cat will eat. Prepare yourself for a few complaints from the dry food fiends but it's worth trying.

Thanks @ChickNorris the overweight cat prefers wet food so I might try buying the cheaper wet food for him so that it's less appealing. The slim cats might have to do make with dry food for a while if they won't touch the supermarket own brand. When the bag of dry food runs out then I'll switch to the diet one that the vet recommended.

sounds like a plan. Just keep in mind that cheaper might not necessarily mean less appealing. It could be higher in the undesired stuff like sugars, fats (like a version of MacDonald's for cats if you see what I mean).
Another thought.. and I have never done this with my two but have with the new kitten. I boiled a few chicken mini fillets, shredded it and fed her that every now and then. You can also try this with haddock (I buy it reasonably cheap in Iceland). She seems to love it and seems satiated for longer.
Anyway, good luck whatever you decide.

Thanks again @ChickNorris I don't mean the really cheap stuff but one of my other cats only eats Felix As Good As It Looks so I've been feeding that to all three of them. My overweight cat had two pouches of Sainsburys own brand cat food this morning then glared at me until I gave him a third so, safe to say, the diet isn't going well so far! It's a difficult position because he practically left home last year and was living at someone else's house, only coming back to our house ever few days. So we're more likely to feed him when he's around as we want him to keep coming back.

Definitely don't switch to cheaper food. Felix is already pretty bad nutritionally and giving something even worse won't do him any favours.

If he's not that interested in the dry food then just separate him from the others at wet feeding time and control his portions.

Just cut out the dry food. My fatty cat Two has lost half a kilo in a month and is no longer football shaped just on wet food.

Haha, that made me chuckle @StuntNun .The image of your cat glaring at you until you produced the right food sounds familiar!
I'm sorry that he's taken to wandering like that by the way. They do that sometimes. That must have been tough.
Just remember that you don't need to achieve any of this super quickly. His weightloss is going to take a few weeks, as it probably should. Just a tiny bit less food to start you off. And then a bit less/diet food. Maybe I'd cook him that treat here and there as a reward - to both of you (zero glaring!).

We feed our cat multiple times a day but we mix dry food in with his wet we don't leave it sitting out. (Also helps keep the smell of food out of the living room where he gets fed) he eats fairly quickly now because he knows what time he has to eat. I'd just feed them all separately and take the food away when they're done and put out fresh at their next meal. My cats fussy though- once something has sat for a while he's unlikely to come back to it