Slowing down a fast eater

[wishiwas]

This has probably been covered somewhere before, but I can't seem to find it, so.. here goes. Does anyone have suggestions for slowing down a cat that scarfs her food like she's starving to death? I've seen a lot of toys that are supposed to release a little kibble at once as they bat it around. This seems like a great idea in theory, but all the ones I've been able to look at in person so far have far too large of holes for her tiny kibble. Is there an easy way to home make something like this maybe? Or other suggestions?

For anyone that wants more info:

Currently we feed Cici 1/8 cup of Blue Buffalo Wilderness kibble 3x's a day. About twice a week she gets a 6 oz can of authority split between breakfast and dinner instead. Once we recover a bit from all the expenses popping up lately, we'll increase the canned so she's getting half/half.

My guess is the starving cat routine is just a by-product of her being on the streets for part of her life before she was rescued. She has a clean bill of health from the vet.

 

[hissy]

Elevate the dish. I use several thick yellow page phonebooks for scarfers- also keep the water far enough away from the food so the cat has to walk over to drink.

 

[luci_sushi]

Multivet Slim Cat Treat Ball works with Wilderness. The opening are adjustable so you can make it easy or harder to get the food out.

 

[addiebee]

small DogIt speed bump bowl or something similar or.... small rocks or ping pong balls in the bowl. They have to eat around the "obstacles."

And yeah, elevate. I have a scarf n barf kitty. He still pukes sometimes... but not like he did before since I changed things around.

 

[dave_ph]

My Fay used to be an eat and puker with food security issues. My Vet told me to spread her food out on a plate in a thin layer. It worked. No more gorge and barf.

 

[~*regina*~]

I was going to same the same thing. Tessie's use to scarf and barf but I switched to a plate for a while and only gave a single layer of food, worked well. Now her food is in a bowl and no problems

.

 

[nutrolori]

Originally Posted by Dave_PH

My Fay used to be an eat and puker with food security issues. My Vet told me to spread her food out on a plate in a thin layer. It worked. No more gorge and barf.

This is what I recommend all the time. It usually works. The more the food is spread out the less they can pick up at a time. I am not sure of the size of kibble you are feeding now but sometimes a larger kibble can help too.

I hope you can find what works.

 

[xocats]

Isis is a scarf & barfer....
we use a plate, feed several small meals a day with her food spread out on the plate.
It works most of the time.

Good luck.

 

[wishiwas]

Luckily she's only ever barfed once after eating, when her daddy fed her too much. I think having to hunt for her food a bit would make for some nice mental stimulation? I'll have to look into the ball mentioned above. Maybe spread it out for some meals, and use that for others? Hmm.

It'd have to be really large kibble for that to make any difference. Even her feline greenies treats she only gives one quick crunch to before they're gone.

I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot if she eats fast or not since she's not puking. It's just so weird to me after always having had cats that were fine on a measured free feed. And I have to wonder if she'd feel fuller if she slowed down a little, the same as people?

 

[2furgirls]

We have two kitties, 3 and 1. The older girl was a rescue; was so starved at 4 months (from her rescue papers), that her dentition appeared to 2 vets and 2 vet tech's to be "at most" a 6 week old kitten; she hovered around 1 pound. She had just been spayed, with raging fevers, infections, fleas, worms etc. rather common situation I hear. When we got her home, she disappeared under a 3/4 inch crack between the kitchen cabinet and the floor. But she had the biggest smile when we put her in front of her own personal plate of food. Her first meals at home, she fell asleep inside her tiny food bowl. How could we not keep it full at all times.

She scarfed, sometimes barfed, but not much; she just ate and ate fast. She began to grow fast; long bones, big, muscular but graceful power-jumper, she had exercise routines 3 times a day. She was a slim very muscular 2 y.o until baby Soleste came. Then came her eating problems. She put on 5 pounds in the 9 months Soleste has been with us. She went from 10 pounds to 15 - we couldn't stop her, she ate her food and the baby's food. It was emotional eating. Soleste had the opposite problem, needed to put on weight, was picky about eating and eating times, we had to free feed.

What we did to reassure the older one was have quality "water feeding" moments: we'd make up a few ounces of water with e.g., kitty vitamins in it, or just plain, and feed it to her through a dropper, like a baby. It takes a long time! She gets the oral gratification and our undivided attention. I found her to be calmer and actually pass up treats afterwards, and eat normally.

Whenever we see her overeating, we do the water dropper reassurance treatment. Hopefully we'll get her back down to 10-12 pounds by the time she is 4.

 

[xocats]

Originally Posted by 2furgirls

Whenever we see her overeating, we do the water dropper reassurance treatment. Hopefully we'll get her back down to 10-12 pounds by the time she is 4.

What an interesting idea...
very creative.

Please keep us updated as you move forward with this innovative technique.

 

[dave_ph]

Originally Posted by wishiwas

It'd have to be really large kibble for that to make any difference. Even her feline greenies treats she only gives one quick crunch to before they're gone.

I'm not sure about the large kibble either. My Vet gives me some large stuff that's supposed to be good for removing tartar from her teeth. Fay just inhales them whole and then barfs them back up.

When I first gave them too her I found a pile of them next to her plate. I thought "That's odd, she just moved them out of her plate into a pile". No such luck. They'd already been in and out without being chewed at all.

 

[addiebee]

Originally Posted by Dave_PH

I'm not sure about the large kibble either. My Vet gives me some large stuff that's supposed to be good for removing tartar from her teeth. Fay just inhales them whole and then barfs them back up.

When I first gave them too her I found a pile of them next to her plate. I thought "That's odd, she just moved them out of her plate into a pile". No such luck. They'd already been in and out without being chewed at all.

Kibble is not effective at removing tartar b/c as you noticed, cats do not chew it... besides... it is like using hard crackers to clean your teeth... doesn't work.

 

[2furgirls]

Originally Posted by xocats

What an interesting idea...
very creative.

Please keep us updated as you move forward with this innovative technique.

Thank you for the encouragement... I picked her up today and there's a long ways to go!

Here's a bit of the backstory in pictures...As you can see from the quick videos in the link, the older one is waiting patiently for her dropper time.

http://soleste.weebly.com/1/post/201...assurance.html

The older one is also allowed a lot more garden time, and she spends it eating the various grasses we recently planted in garden plots for each of them. We plant grasses and plants that are cat approved from the Cat Garden materials blog and they got it from:
http://zimmer-foundation.org/MI/facility/ref8.html


(I guess that also belongs under cat nutrition).

 

[xocats]

Thank you for sharing your videos...
if there was re-incarnation, and I came back as a kitty, I think I would like it if you were my caregivers.
So gentle and full of love.

Please keep us updated.

 

[renovia]

We give stoli and Luxor a little bit of kibble here and there and so they don't have a whole stomach full of kibble at once. As for wet food we push stoli's around with a spoon so he has to wait a second before the next bite

 

[wishiwas]

I tried spreading her food across the floor. It doesn't slow her down much, but it is rather amusing to watch her frantically darting from piece to piece.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to try out the SlimCat ball, once I stop putting off finding the best place to order one.

 

[lyrajean]

Originally Posted by AddieBee

I have a scarf n barf kitty.

I just love the terminology we cat people come up with to describe our furry SOs, 'yeah, I have a scarf 'n barf, too'...

Seriously, sometimes the problem with speed eating and subsequent regurgitating is is the too small kibble size.

 

[addiebee]

Originally Posted by Lyrajean

I just love the terminology we cat people come up with to describe our furry SOs, 'yeah, I have a scarf 'n barf, too'...

Seriously, sometimes the problem with speed eating and subsequent regurgitating is is the too small kibble size.

It isn't kibble size with Tex - it is food -PERIOD! He has no off switch. Eat and eat and eat... til he brings it back up. And then wants more. I have to swoop in and take up the other cats' dishes if they don't clean their plates or he will dart from one to the other... cleaning them off. Also - among my solutions as others here have said - feed smaller more frequent meals... which is a challenge b/c I am not around all that much.