Feeding multiple cats can be a difficult task. Having multiple cats in your home can feel overwhelming, especially if one is obese, diabetic, allergic or aggressive. How do you manage the feeding frenzy when multiple cats live in your home?

Free Feeding vs Meal Feeding

Cats often prefer to nibble on their food throughout the day rather than eating a full meal at once. This is called free feeding. You will have fewer options to manage your cat’s food if you don’t feed them. It would help if you moved all your cats to a feeding schedule that allows food to be available for a limited time.

Initial, they should have food ready for 30 minutes. Then, could you pick it up and place it away? This teaches them to eat more in one place. To make it easier for cats to monitor their food intake, you can use different feeding dishes than one common dish. Your cats will adapt to your food schedule.

Low-Tech Solutions

You can also ensure that your cat receives the right amount of food and water if you are using meal feeding. It’s not ideal, but it’s simple.

If your cat is a fast-food eater and likes to eat all the food, you might consider one or more of the interactive feeders. This will slow their eating pace and allow the other cats to finish.

If your cat is very overweight, you can feed them up high so that the food bowl is not accessible to him. Or make a feeding area so that other cats do not block the cat’s access to the food. This article “Fat Cat Syndrome” provides some ideas for slowing down and making meals more enjoyable.

High-Tech Solutions

The modern pet feeders and tech tools are extremely helpful in managing multi-cat feeding situations. Let’s take a look at the options.

• Collar Tag/Microwite Pet Feeder This handy feeder opens the bowl based upon your pet’s RFID collar tag or microchip ID. Only the cat who has access to the lid can lift it, preventing other animals from using the bowl. If the cat leaves the feeder, the lid will close automatically. One feeder can be used, or you can set up separate feeders for each cat.
• Cat Mate Electromagnetic Cat Door – Your pet’s microchip or collar tag can activate this door. The timer will also lock and unlock the door at a specific time. This door can be installed on a room door or a large storage box. You can also purchase this private cat area.

The Control of the Frenzy

These high-tech gadgets can help multi-cat feeding. Let’s look at a few examples:

The Diabetic Cat or Cat With Food Allergy:

Cats with diabetes need to be fed regularly and receive insulin shots. Your cat’s health can be endangered if there is a food stealer in the house or if the diabetic cat has access to the wrong foods. These are some options:

• Automated Cat Door: This allows you to create a special space or room that only your special-needs cat can enter via the special cat door.
• Automatic Feeder: Only one feeder should be opened for diabetic cats. You can also have feeders for other cats that your diabetic cat cannot access.

Safety tip: Automatic feeders can take time to get used to my cats. This could cause problems if you schedule insulin shots for diabetic cats. This may not be the best route if the cat refuses to eat from the food bowl. It might be a good idea to have the auto-feeder used by the other cats to avoid letting the diabetic cat go.

The Food-Aggressive Cat

Automatic Feeder: The feeder lid responds to a microchip. If the aggressive cat chases the weaker cat away, the feeder lid will shut off.

The Overweight Cat

Automatic Feeder: Each cat can have their feeder so that you can set the portion sizes. Microchip control means that overweight cats can’t eat other dishes. This makes it impossible to overfeed.