Hi AlphaCat,
I know that isn't near enough so watching him closely while we are fighting through this stage. He isn't regulated yet so don't want to do something that will make it harder to regulate also.
I picked up Fancy Feast one ingredient treats (the Salmon ones) because they are individually wrapped to give Fabby when I test her glucose. She goes nuts for them. Drooling while waiting for me to unzip the glucose meter.
She loves food in general. She's a big gal in general at a regular and healthy 18 pounds. So it's hard for her to resist the clinking of the spoon against her food dish. After she's eaten what she wants I've found if I stir her food into a pile again she will eat some more (not a lot). I also noticed her pushing the food around was her mostly just licking off the juice of the food. Since it's Pate, there's not much to begin with, so if the spoon clinking/mountain making doesn't work, I add a bit of water and stir it around to make it juicer for her. That usually does the trick. But if she doesn't go for that for very long I will break out a Salmon treat and break it up into little chunks and stir it around (making sure there are still some chunks on top so she smells it good).
That has worked for me so far... even though I'd like to get a whole other can added daily. I have noticed she will eat more if her glucose is higher, it's harder to get her to eat when her glucose is lower. (And we haven't even made it into "ideal" numbers yet...)
But to answer your question about free feeding wet food from what I've read in here: As long as you are picking up all food 2 hours before your AMPS and PMPS (and likely any days you do a curve). Then you can leave the food down all you want. If you feed 2 hours before you check glucose it can cause the food to boost the glucose number falsely, which could lead to giving too much insulin and causing hypoglycemia once the food glucose wears off and kitty goes into nadir.
Also, I don't know if Novolin N is like Vetsulin (I do see they are lumped together on the same insulin board here) but I have to feed and then wait a bit to let the food digest before giving insulin. So you would need the 2 hours of fasting so Zeke will eat for you so you can give insulin... (if it's like Vetsulin anyway...)
It's okay to leave wet food down/out... for a while. But you aren't supposed to leave dry food that you added liquid to to make wet as that gets moldy... but regular wet food from a can doesn't. I don't quite remember where I read that on these boards.
Were there other questions/concerns about leaving out wet food?
I suppose my biggest concern about wet food grazing would be - unless quarantined (in a multi-cat household) I'd never be able to really tell how much she was actually eating.
Time for me to poke my cat...
good luck on the food! I'm there with you!
I would say he is getting just over 1 can a day right now. I know that isn't near enough so watching him closely while we are fighting through this stage. He isn't regulated yet so don't want to do something that will make it harder to regulate also.