Playtime?

I've been trying to get my cat to play for sometime now and I've noticed a few things.
1. He is supper lazy.... When I use any toy on a string and put it above him, he flops over onto this back and waves his paws around in the air trying to catch it even though it way out of reach. Then he just gives up and waits for you to tap him with it, or drag it on the floor. Only time he really jumps is to get onto furniture, he will never do it in play.
2. He likes the laser pointer, but seems to get board with it easy, also it has to move slow or he acts like he doesn't see it.
3. He loves to play with batteries, but seeing what his teeth do to pens, I'm afraid he will bite into them to hard. (so they are taken away)
4. He loves yarn and hair ties (again to be safe I take them away)
5. He will toss a cat nipped stuffed mouse around from time to time but never goes crazy.
6. He doesn't really care about cat nip...
With all this in mind, can anyone come up with ideas of how I can get him to play more and what I can use?

If he loves yarn, how about something long and string-like? Cat Dancer makes a charmer toy that's a long skinny rainbow-colored strip of fabric, kind of like a big string.

There are chew toys for cats...Juniper has some that are infused with valerian root and lemongrass (catnip alternatives that some cats prefer), and she loves them. It could be a nice replacement for battery-chewing.

For what it's worth, my first cat loved playing with hair ties, and I just let her do it. She never ingested any of them to my knowledge...

Anyway you can find a link to the chew toys?
Both my cats aren’t allowed string of any kind unsupervised, Past personal experience.

Hi. Feeby plays the same way as your cat - on her back and then loses interest in playing altogether pretty easily. She also gets bored with the laser, either that or she has figured out pretty quickly that there is no way to catch it - so, for her it's like "eh, why bother?".

Feeby mostly loves ribbons off of packages, but I realized that she can chew through them, so she doesn't get them anymore. However, I do let her have fabric ribbons, she likes them just as well but can't bite through them even though she does still gnaw on them.

As far a chew toys, you can try searching for ones you might find appropriate on sites like Petco.com, Chewy.com, and even amazon.com. Just search for 'cat chew toys'.

Juniper has these:


She is a huge fan of them, but fair warning! The valerian ones smell really bad to us humans. Since she likes to mash her face all over the sticks (and yes, eventually she settles down and actually chews on them, as intended) sometimes this results in a slightly smelly kitten. She is less enthusiastic about the lemongrass scented ones, but they're more acceptable to my nose, so she gets them more often.

Try wide cat springs from Ethical Pets, most cats go insane for them because they roll and bounce. If you can likes rolling things, give him a ping pong ball or a golf ball. Then there are chew treats in strings or sticks you can purchase. I know Hart’s is one maker but if you google them or look on Chewy you should find a few choices.

He’s kind of picky with things that roll, he loves batteries and pens but doesn’t like the little cat toy balls.

He might love the springs then. This is what they look like and you can find them on Amazon.

If your cat is a chewer, keep an eye on him when he starts playing with the springs. I got some for my cat and realized that he was starting to chew them to bits. I got nervous that he would end up swallowing the plastic bits, so I removed the sprints all together

That’s good to know, he most likely will!