: When moving two cats in with different feeding styles, which should trump the other? My cat is currently fed on a twice daily schedule. I'm planning on moving him in with another cat who is currently free-fed. My cat will

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Cats naturally tend to eat tiny portions regularly throughout the day. So free access to food should be preferred.

I have two cats and switched from 2 meals a day to free feeding about a year ago. It took a few days to reach a steady state but both cats seem quite happy with it. I can't really correlate the weight loss of the female cat with this change, but certainly my fear that she would gain weight was unjustified.

So I would recommend to switch the scheduled cat to free feeding. Do it gradually, reduce the amount of food you give at fixed times and encourage him to access the food.

I keep two bowls to be sure that both cats are able to eat at the same time if needed.

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The problem with free feeding is that it requires you to use dry food (wet food will spoil if left out too long). Dry food does not contain the moisture that cats need and are accustomed to in their diets. Wet food is best, and so meal feeding is required.

Other reasons that meal feeding is preferred:

Portion/Diet control. Many cats will eat all day and not exercise enough, becoming obese. This can also become important if one cat needs a special medical diet (allergies/intolerance is a common reason), or if the cats are at different weights and need different amounts of food.
Monitoring ability. In a free fed multicat household, if one cat stops eating (or starts eating less) due to an illness/injury, it is much harder to detect.