Feeding our cats: "think outside the bowl"

The "Think Outside The Bowl" campaign has been thought up by The Friendly Pet Nurse.  Cats are naturally designed to search, hunt, capture and kill their food, including small mammals and birds.  Only about 1 in every 4 hunts results in a kill, meaning around 40 hunting trips a day are needing to obtain 10 prey items.  This is a lot of effort used to meet their nutritional needs!

Our pet cats being fed from a bowl twice a day are not fulfilling this innate need to hunt and this can often lead to frustration and behavioural issues.  According to The Friendly Pet Nurse, scientific evidence shows that puzzle feeders can reduce the signs of stress, decrease aggression towards humans and other cats, reduce fear and anxiety, assist with weight loss programmes and reduce unwanted behaviours like inappropriate toileting problems.

A solution to this problem is to provide our pet cats with more interesting ways to obtain their food, promoting mental and physical stimulation. 

DIY Feeding Toys

Egg boxes

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A cheap and simple tool, egg boxes are a good starting point for a cat who hasn't used feeding toys before.  The cat can either use their paw to scoop the biscuits out or use their tongue and teeth to pick up the biscuits from the base.  

Paper parcels
To make the egg box more challenging, parcels of biscuits can be made using scraps of paper and placed in the egg box cups, so the cat has to unwrap the biscuits before eating them.  
Paper can also be used if shredded: hiding biscuits under a pile of shredded paper in a cardboard box makes a great foraging exercise!




Toilet rolls
Cardboard toilet roll inners are ideal for cats to investigate with their paws.  Rolls can be stacked on each other to make a puzzle feeder: Find out how to make a toilet roll pyramid here.

Scatter feeding
If your cat eats dry food, scatter feeding is very easy:  simply scatter around for your cat to forage for.  This could be indoors, in one area, food hidden in different areas, or outside scattering in the garden to forage in the grass. 

Commercial Feeding Toys

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Feeding ball
The Slim Cat feeding ball has different sized holes, selected by twisting the outer part of the ball.  The cat can start with the larger holes, being able to obtain the biscuits more easily before then using the smaller holes.  

This ball does encourage the cat to move around whilst feeding whilst negotiating the ball with its paws and nose.  

Trixie Cat Activity Fun Board
This puzzle feeder provides 5 ways to feed biscuits in 1! From the plastic globes to the tunnel your cat will need to use its initiative to obtain their food. Here is CP adopted cat Taran using his like a professional!

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Trixie Turnaround

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The metal rod can hold up to three blue containers, which can have different caps depending on the difficulty required.  It is best to start out with one container without a cap, so the biscuits can be obtained easily whilst the cat is learning to use it and then up the difficulty as they become more confident.

Once your cat is able to tip the containers they will then need to negotiate the biscuits from between the base prongs with their paws and claws.  

Your cat may need some assistance in flipping the containers whilst learning, with some owner demonstration possibly required!  Here is CP adopted cat Pepper getting to grips with hers and below there's Gin at Bridgend Adoption Centre.

LickiMat
Lickimats are very useful if your cat is on a wet diet or just prefers wet food.  These small squares are also ideal to wedge Dreamies into.  These cats certainly seem to be enjoying theirs!

All these commercial options are available online and make great investments for your cat's enrichment for years to come!  Rotating a combination of different options will keep feeding time interesting and novel to your cat and provide them with both stimulation and satisfaction.