[fn42]

I'm surprised to see this is the only comment mentioning leaving a bowl of food out 24/7. This is how it's done at every shelter I have volunteered at (and how I do it at home) - the cats should always have access to water and some form of food. The wet (canned) food is what you have to be more careful with because the cats will compete for it.

[pweissbrod]

Yep. We tried this before making the automated feeder. Gave it a 2-week trial period. The initial reaction was surprise and delight with the abundance of food. Initially they decided to eat 3-4X what I normally feed them twice a day. I was hoping once the initial party tapered down they would get sensible. Two weeks in I had 2 happy tigers and two very sluggish fat sad tigers that did pretty much nothing but eat and poop. And Oh man the litter boxes were a nightmare. I needed to clean them 3x day to keep up. I never figured out a way to get _all_ tigers to be responsible with open buffet policy.

[mahyarm]

It depends if they went hungry at some time in their life.

[Zachery]

Some cats will pig out, even if food is regularly available and not scarce. You don't want to overfeed them. This gets way more complicated as the number of cats increase.

[mschuster91]

Cats will also fight over dry food. Source: have two cats who like to steal each others' food (dry or wet) and bash each other regularly... and occasionally I'm the victim of full paw bashing in the morning, when they're hungry.

Sadly OP solution wouldn't help me because they 'd just kick the food under thr sofa where it can rot...

[pweissbrod]

food hockey!

[kayla210]

I guess it depends on your animal's feeding habits. My dogs don't overeat, so we just leave the food out and refill it when needed. Dry food, that is. For wet food, they'd just about fight over it.

[cortesoft]

If given as much food as he wants, my cat gets really fat (I am talking 25 pounds fat). I have to control his food intake.

[mschuster91]

Whoa, 12 kg?! That's either Garfield level of fat, or you've got a massive Coon/Norwegian Forest megacat...

[cortesoft]

He is a Siamese... he is back down to 13 pounds or so, with some diet changes and portion control.

[mschuster91]

Good to hear your cat has managed to avoid hepatic lipidosis during weight loss!