How to get off dry food completely?

[Melissa and Bailey]

Hello all,
We have 3 cats, one of whom is a recently diagnosed FD. Bailey (diabetic) and Maddie are 11 years old and have always eaten dry food, free-fed. They are pretty thrilled that I am giving them Fancy Feast classics now.. but they are so used to being free-fed that they tend to just nibble and not eat much at any one time. This makes me worry about removing the dry food (Purina DM at the moment), that they won't get enough to eat on days when I am at work and cannot cater to them. How do others who work long hours manage a wet food only diet?
Thanks in advance, you guys are great!

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Your strange question of the day - do your cats know HOW to eat soft food? I just assumed all cats knew how to eat any food but have since learned by experience that that's NOT the case! Prior to dx, KT just licked the liquid off any wet and went back to the dry to truly 'eat'. When he was dx'd, I removed the dry food but I was afraid he was going to starve before he started eating it. The third day, he finally opened his mouth and took a real BITE - the LOOK on his face was priceless! WOW! This stuff is edible! He still has trouble with completely soft food sometimes, I don't mash up the pate, I sort of slice it with the spoon for him. He will eat it that way better.

I have 2 other 'main house' civvies that still eat their hard foods but they only get it when I CAN be there. I usually give KT a tub of those FFeast appetizers while they're chomping on hard food.

You can leave soft food out - either put an ice cube in the middle of it or others freeze portions in ice cube trays and put that out when they leave. It will thaw as the day progresses giving them more....

There's a lot of people in your same boat....don't despair, it CAN be done!

Hugs!

 

[Carl & Polly & Bob (GA)]

Many people use "auto feeders" too, that are timed to make food available during the hours that nobody is home, or overnight.

Carl

 

[Hillary & Maui (GA)]

if you add water to the canned food, you can then easily leave it out for hours. The added water will help keep the food moist and ensure they are getting plenty of water too.

And if you feel that you need to keep dry food out - leave out treats - such as freeze dried chicken (purebites is an example) or Stella & Chewy's makes a freeze dried cat food - that ingredient wise look pretty good and my cats love it - you can serve it dry or add water. Mine like it dry.

but if we are referring to can food only - you can also use the canned food with water added and freeze it, when frozen you can serve and after a few hours it will thaw and cats can graze on it.

as for the amount of water to add, I go overboard with mine and add almost one full can of water to one can of food.

 

[Melissa and Bailey]

Thanks for the advice, I will look into getting an auto-feeder for while I am at work. Bailey ate some dry food last night and her numbers shot up into the 400s. So I am removing the dry food today to see how everyone does without it.
They do seem to recognize Fancy Feast classics as food and are enjoying it, they just still nibble on the dry food all day. I will try adding water to the wet food to keep it from getting too icky when left out.
Thanks everyone!