- Joined
- Aug 4, 2014
- Messages
- 1,112
- Purraise
- 1,520
I am working on trapping a little semi feral family right now. I’ve had three of the kittens (~8 weeks old) for about a week now.
I started off by offering them kitten wet food on the “slurry” side at least four times a day (adding up to about 6oz of food per kitten - believe it or not, they were cleaning their bowl every dang time!!!). In between meals, I worked on slowly introducing them to Dr. Elsey’s Clean Protein Chicken dry as rewards and treats during our socialization sessions. As of a couple days ago, Dr. E kibble is now out and available to them at all times.
Problem is, the biggest boy, Salem, suddenly started trying to bury the wet food...
He didn’t do this in the beginning. Previously they would all nibble on it together, take potty and play breaks, then nibble on it some more and finish it off.
As of two days ago, they eat together, and while his brother and sister (Binx and Oreo) go off to potty and play, Salem will very enthusiastically try to bury the bowl.
Now, since they are crated, he obviously has a limited means of doing this. When he first started he was grabbing and moving blankets and beds over the food. I ultimately took those out, and then he started using the puppy pads. I took some of the puppy pads out and rearranged the way I place the remaining ones to make it more difficult for him to use them for burying. Now he messes them up trying, often still succeeds, and is now also using the toys.
Aside from being terribly messy and forcing me to remove some of the limited enrichment they had in the crate, he and his siblings seem unable to find or access the food once he “buries” it. I try to catch him when I can but he just tries to bury it all over again anyway!
Since he began doing this, the bowls have gone from empty when I go to retrieve them, to half, or more than half, full. I fast tracked introducing the dry food after just two times of this because I was afraid they weren’t going to get enough nutrition.
I’m aware Salem is only acting on instinct, but is there anything I can do here within reason? We have a bad diarrhea issue going on with them right now, so I REALLY want to ensure they’re getting as much wet food as possible...
And the perp...
I started off by offering them kitten wet food on the “slurry” side at least four times a day (adding up to about 6oz of food per kitten - believe it or not, they were cleaning their bowl every dang time!!!). In between meals, I worked on slowly introducing them to Dr. Elsey’s Clean Protein Chicken dry as rewards and treats during our socialization sessions. As of a couple days ago, Dr. E kibble is now out and available to them at all times.
Problem is, the biggest boy, Salem, suddenly started trying to bury the wet food...
He didn’t do this in the beginning. Previously they would all nibble on it together, take potty and play breaks, then nibble on it some more and finish it off.
As of two days ago, they eat together, and while his brother and sister (Binx and Oreo) go off to potty and play, Salem will very enthusiastically try to bury the bowl.
Now, since they are crated, he obviously has a limited means of doing this. When he first started he was grabbing and moving blankets and beds over the food. I ultimately took those out, and then he started using the puppy pads. I took some of the puppy pads out and rearranged the way I place the remaining ones to make it more difficult for him to use them for burying. Now he messes them up trying, often still succeeds, and is now also using the toys.
Aside from being terribly messy and forcing me to remove some of the limited enrichment they had in the crate, he and his siblings seem unable to find or access the food once he “buries” it. I try to catch him when I can but he just tries to bury it all over again anyway!
Since he began doing this, the bowls have gone from empty when I go to retrieve them, to half, or more than half, full. I fast tracked introducing the dry food after just two times of this because I was afraid they weren’t going to get enough nutrition.
I’m aware Salem is only acting on instinct, but is there anything I can do here within reason? We have a bad diarrhea issue going on with them right now, so I REALLY want to ensure they’re getting as much wet food as possible...
And the perp...