Feeding for Two Conundrum

Mark Write

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First time poster here so let me give a little background first:

I am 60 and have had literally dozens of cats since I was a child. Many from very varied backgrounds. the first began with a stray from whom we kept three generations. Later I had Siamese/Angora mixtures all born in a horse stable. Later, as I grew into adulthood, all my cats have come from shelters. I’ve dealt with many an odd behavior, from one that wouldn’t come out from under a couch for her first three months to young toms bent on fighting. I’ve had biters, scratchers, nasty attitudes, howlers, destroyers, and so forth. I‘ve managed to tame them all.

Today I’m faced with the oddest combination of behaviors that has me stumped. It’s a set of behaviors that are basically incompatible. Three weeks ago we picked up two “siblings” (according to the HS ad), one male tabby, and a female calico. Fred and Ginger. As I have learned from all my previous cats obtained from shelters, the employees there love to be helpful but often think they know lot more about the animals they care for than they really do. I’ve found that virtually all of them turned out to be completely different from what I was told. First off, we figured out FRED AND Ginger couldn’t possibly be siblings since they were obtained from shelters two separate times only one month apart. So they don’t even share parents. I was also told that Fred would try to hog all the food so to feed them at opposite ends of the room and there shouldn‘t be much problem. Wrong! There’s trouble if they are fed at opposite ends of the HOUSE! 😳 I tried using a gravity feeder from our previous cat. That did not last long.

Fred and Ginger are four years old so its going to take a lot of patience and time to retrain any behaviors.

To fully understand the conundrum, you need to understand each cats behavior and suss out how they complicate the matter:

Fred, if left to his own devices with a gravity feeder, will eat until his stomach swells and he predictably upchucks it all. He’s a gorger. He is fed separately now, but wolfs down his food then goes looking for Ginger’s. Fred is extremely human friendly and spends a lot of time on our bed with us.

Ginger would very likely do well with a gravity feeder. She’s a grazer and eats little bits at a time. But there’s another problem. She’s extremely skittish. Most encounters she has with Fred result in her hissing at him and swatting his face. He’s not bothered by it much. Ginger hides a lot and prefers, for now at least, to be in a room by herself. Most of the time she avoids Fred.

If they are in the same room together, it’s usually at opposite ends of the couch. A few times though, we have caught them sleeping in contact with each other. Ginger has given Fred baths, and vice-versa, but that’s not a daily thing. So there’s the background, and here is the issue in a nutshell:

We can’t use a feeder so we feed them twice a day with two separate bowls. Ginger‘s bowl looks different in the hopes we can get Fred to make the association that it’s not his. Fred is fed in the kitchen downstairs. Ginger was, until now, fed on a stair landing. We are figuring a different spot for her because she:

1) Is disturbed by traffic.
2) Hates being watched while she eats. She literally scopes her feeding area and if she makes eye contact or sees Fred coming, she leaves and hides.

So far we’ve had one good try. She happened to be under our bed last night, so we kicked Fred out, shut the door and let her eat in our room. That worked last night, but only because she was already in there. Fred is easy to find and put out. Ginger isn’t usually in our room, but hiding somewhere we can’t get to her. As I’m writing this, her bowl is up where we can see and guard it, but she’s nowhere around and doesn’t come when called. The ONLY time she comes out and around us is during food preparation. Fred though, devours his food so fast that by the time I coax Ginger to come get hers he is already on the prowl to steal it and she’s gone off because of him.

This is the most difficult feeding situation I’ve ever encountered. I’ve had several bully cats before. Usually the other cats get sick of them and fend them off. Ginger hisses at Fred and smacks him all the time, but never does when it comes to her food. I am concerned Ginger isn’t eating enough.

So what would you do? I’m open to suggestions.
 

corvidae

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I also have a grazer and a gulper among my kitties! I would recommend slowing Fred down to hopefully give Ginger more time to eat. One really easy way to do this with kibble is to take an empty egg carton, and disperse his meal throughout it so he has to get it out to eat it. You can also buy “slow feeder” dishes in pet stores, or toys that dispense a kibble at a time. With pate wet foods, I use a mat made for dog enrichment with some textures on and then smush the food down so it takes longer to eat. Not a full solution, but hopefully buying time for Ginger will help her get more of her food before Fred comes looking.
 

Maurey

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I’d get a microchip feeder for Ginger. Fred should do well with no free-feeding and portioned out meals in a puzzle toy or slow feeder bowl.
 
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Mark Write

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I’d get a microchip feeder for Ginger. Fred should do well with no free-feeding and portioned out meals in a puzzle toy or slow feeder bowl.
Already looking into this as a possible solution. ATM, we are feeding them a mix of wet and dry with a little water mixed into the dry and the canned just set on top. Seems to work well for them both. With a chip feeder I assume they only work with kibble so we’d still have to so something different about the wet.
 
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Mark Write

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I also have a grazer and a gulper among my kitties! I would recommend slowing Fred down to hopefully give Ginger more time to eat. One really easy way to do this with kibble is to take an empty egg carton, and disperse his meal throughout it so he has to get it out to eat it. You can also buy “slow feeder” dishes in pet stores, or toys that dispense a kibble at a time. With pate wet foods, I use a mat made for dog enrichment with some textures on and then smush the food down so it takes longer to eat. Not a full solution, but hopefully buying time for Ginger will help her get more of her food before Fred comes looking.
Unfortunately slowing Fred’s intake will only cause him to go searching for an easier solution, which will be bullying Ginger away from her food and he’ll end up with all of it. I’m thinking now that a combination of a chip feeder and doing something different with the canned food may be the only workable solution. Thanks though.
 
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Mark Write

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Anybody know if there’s a chip feeder that has timer settings? Like the ability to limit the times anything can be dispensed?
 
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Mark Write

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Looks like the Sureflap might be the solution. Appears we can put a mix into it. My only concern is the automated flap looks pretty convoluted and may scare the crap out of her so she ends up not going near it.
 

Maurey

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Already looking into this as a possible solution. ATM, we are feeding them a mix of wet and dry with a litter water mixed into the dry and the canned just set on top. Seems to work well for them both. With a chip feeder I assume they only work with kibble so we’d still have to so something different about the wet.
microchip feeders are just effectively bowl stands with a lid, so they definitely work for wet food. Surefeed probably makes the most popular one
 

Maurey

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Looks like the Sureflap might be the solution. Appears we can put a mix into it. My only concern is the automated flap looks pretty convoluted and may scare the crap out of her so she ends up not going near it.
There are special modes to help the cat get used to the movement, so could be worth a try!
 

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Anybody know if there’s a chip feeder that has timer settings? Like the ability to limit the times anything can be dispensed?
I've looked and there are no such ready made feeders that exist. I could use one for one of my cats. However there is this option: Shop for MeowSpace Cat Feeding Stations and Replacement Parts You could put a small timed feeder into the enclosure.

There's also a less expensive DIY option:



I don't see air holes in the container but that's easy enough to make with a large drill bit. A couple along the sides near the top and on the lid will allow the cat to breathe while inside.
 
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Mark Write

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LTS3 is the winner! Chipped door mounted in a tote is exactly what I’m planning. I’ve seen too many reviews stating that an aggressive bully/thief can and will simply shove his way into the feeder and ignore the door closing, which will not close if he just keeps his head in the way. Fred will absolutely do that.

Ginger already spends much of her time hiding under beds and scurrying into hidie-holes, so I don’t think she’ll have a huge issue crawling into a tote. At least I hope not, otherwise this may turn out yo be quite the expensive experiment.
 

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Can you put Fred in a large crate with his food and keep him locked in until Ginger is finished with her meal?

I have one cat who is a slow eater, so he gets put in the crate long enough to get his meal without the other cats shoving their faces into his dish. This probably wouldn't work for Ginger since she's already hard to find/catch.
 
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Mark Write

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Can you put Fred in a large crate with his food and keep him locked in until Ginger is finished with her meal?

I have one cat who is a slow eater, so he gets put in the crate long enough to get his meal without the other cats shoving their faces into his dish. This probably wouldn't work for Ginger since she's already hard to find/catch.
Wouldn’t work simply because Ginger needs to graze and eat at her own leisure. I’d have to keep Fred locked up all day. A crate only she can enter and whenever she wants is just the ticket so we will be buying a chip door and installing it on a large tote. Her own private dining room! 😎
 

pam10144

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I've looked and there are no such ready made feeders that exist. I could use one for one of my cats. However there is this option: Shop for MeowSpace Cat Feeding Stations and Replacement Parts You could put a small timed feeder into the enclosure.

There's also a less expensive DIY option:



I don't see air holes in the container but that's easy enough to make with a large drill bit. A couple along the sides near the top and on the lid will allow the cat to breathe while inside.
This is honestly just GENIUS and I just ordered a microchip cat door to build one of these for my situation. Praying it works because I cannot keep the cats separate at night! Thank you SO much for your brilliant idea. Will let you know how it goes!
 
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Mark Write

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This is honestly just GENIUS and I just ordered a microchip cat door to build one of these for my situation. Praying it works because I cannot keep the cats separate at night! Thank you SO much for your brilliant idea. Will let you know how it goes!
Be prepared for a possibly long training period. My shy one… well it’s been a month and I still have to feed her in a separate room with closed door. So she’s still not free to graze. The mechanism that opens the latch isn’t that noisy, but it’s still just enough that it spooks her. I’ve been laying her bowl in the closed room right next to the feeder tote so she’ll get used to it’s presence at least. I haven’t given up and plan to keep attempting occasionally to get her to go through but recently ran into a snafu:

The bully somehow got into her room and was snatching from her bowl. When I got close to him I could hear the door mechanism engaging and disengaging. Shy girl was nowhere near it. This means the daggum thing somehow got programmed for HIS chip!! So now I’ve got to look up how to clear it and reprogram it for her and her alone. 😳
 

pam10144

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Thank you for this update! I am waiting for the door to come, but of course my girl is skittish, and I was already fearing how to get her to shove her head in the box. My bully will be headbutting the door night and day, and I pray his chip doesn't get programmed. We have had a long haul of getting the two to co-exist, so I don't expect this change to go any quicker. They are currently separated at night so she can graze and he has the lower floor to himself to prowl. We are looking as this for a change where they both have the whole house to explore and she stops bugging us to let her go downstairs at 5 am every morning!

Good luck with the reprogramming! I am certain that we will have glitches in ours as well, but it seems like a good step to having them fed without hassle. I am also thinking of making him his own box (with plain flap) so they EACH have a place for food that he might just sit around in there and no bug her as much???

Wish me luck...
 

Kris107

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I know this is late, but how did this end up working? I'm looking into the Meowspace for my slow grazer and my bully pig (both cats of course).
 
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