Obsessed With The Feeder

[DesperateCatDad]

Hey everyone,

Recently my girlfriend and I picked up an automatic feeder for our two boys. We did this because we were tired of being woken up at increasingly early times by the cat I am about to complain about.

One of the cats is perfectly fine, he goes to the feeder when it fires out food for him and leaves it alone the rest of the time.

The other one is... weird. He sprints to the food, and I mean sprints. He was on top of the cat tree when he heard it go off one day and he jumped off of it so hard that it started rocking back and forth. I thought it was going to fall over.

Also, and I am not exaggerating, whenever he is not asleep or playing, and one of us is not watching him, he will be sitting across from the feeder and just waiting. He's sat there for upwards of two hours, we checked.

The most annoying thing he does is try to get more out of the feeder. There are two small raised points on the bottom of the feeder, likely to use for picking it up. He will try his hardest to dig under there for whatever reason and wind up pulling the thing across the floor all day if I let him. This is an issue be cause one, holy shit is that an annoying sound, two, I don't want him to break the feeder one day, three, it's plugged into a powerbar and if it gets moved too much we're going to have some broken lights to deal with.

Some background on him, we rescued him probably 2-3 months ago now. We are also fairly confident he used to be a street cat, as one morning he got out of our apartment and I tried to get him back inside but he ran away. When I caught up with him I tried to pick him up and he latched onto my arm (still have the scars) and when I pulled him off my arm he latched onto my face. Was a fun day.

Before when we fed them both on our own he would just shove his face into his bowl and go crazy on his food. He ate so hard he would slide it across the floor, then when he was done he would start to steal our other cat's food.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

 

[Hellenww]

If he's not overweight or makes himself sick by eating too much at a time try free feeding dry food. Maybe once he'll become more confident that there will always be food and you can reinstate a schedule.

 

[DesperateCatDad]

If he's not overweight or makes himself sick by eating too much at a time try free feeding dry food. Maybe once he'll become more confident that there will always be food and you can reinstate a schedule.

Unfortunately I don't think that will work, he will eat until there is no more food. Back when we fed them manually he would power through his portion, then shove my other cat out of the way to steal from him. That behavior only changed when my other cat started fighting back because he wasn't eating enough.

Sometimes he ate too much and puked. He is not good at controlling himself.

 

[Hellenww]

Get a weight plate, spray paint it to match feeder or room and glue it to the bottom of the feeder.

Since he's so food motivated I bet you could have fun training him.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi!

He's not weird, he's afraid there will be a day when there's no more food, the poor guy.

Can you get a second feeder with a different schedule and maybe smaller amounts of food.

Also try playing with him more, a laser light, food puzzles could be a great thing for him, platter style toys et al.

 

[susanm9006]

View attachment 250317 I would definitely get his some food puzzles where he would need to lift a latch or move a lever to get food. This should occupy him and keep his mind off the auto feeder. If you want to leave kibble out use a slow feeder bowl where the cat can only get food if they scoop it out with their paw. This is what I use with my gulper.

 

[duncanmac]

I agree --> Food puzzle toys might be the answer. You don't have to put much in them and you can give them to him at random (or not so random) times of the day. We use the roll-around ones that drop a treat here and there and mix kibble with treats. You can make these with a plastic water bottle too.

Training him sounds like it could be a good idea, but one of my guys is so obsessed when the treats come out that he is too focused on the treat to be distracted with a silly trick. Look up clicker training, though, you never know

 

[DesperateCatDad]

Get a weight plate, spray paint it to match feeder or room and glue it to the bottom of the feeder.

Since he's so food motivated I bet you could have fun training him.

That's not a bad idea regarding the weight plate. Or something else to hold it in place. I haven't found anything yet but I'm going to see what we have around the apartment that we could use.

Honestly he's really well behaved, aside from this. He is obscenely cuddly and will fall asleep on me at the drop of a hat.

Hi!

He's not weird, he's afraid there will be a day when there's no more food, the poor guy.

Can you get a second feeder with a different schedule and maybe smaller amounts of food.

Also try playing with him more, a laser light, food puzzles could be a great thing for him, platter style toys et al.

Yeah we think that's the issue as well, barring anything medical. I'm guessing he might not have been treated well at his other home, thus the rescue.

We do play with him but I'll definitely be upping how much it happens.

View attachment 250318 View attachment 250317 I would definitely get his some food puzzles where he would need to lift a latch or move a lever to get food. This should occupy him and keep his mind off the auto feeder. If you want to leave kibble out use a slow feeder bowl where the cat can only get food if they scoop it out with their paw. This is what I use with my gulper.

I'll look into this as well, might be a decent thing to tide him over.

I agree --> Food puzzle toys might be the answer. You don't have to put much in them and you can give them to him at random (or not so random) times of the day. We use the roll-around ones that drop a treat here and there and mix kibble with treats. You can make these with a plastic water bottle too.

Training him sounds like it could be a good idea, but one of my guys is so obsessed when the treats come out that he is too focused on the treat to be distracted with a silly trick. Look up clicker training, though, you never know

We've got the roll-around type already so I might try breaking that out more often.

 

[Furballsmom]

 

[jen]

How about ditching the dry food (I would never recommend to free feed dry food to an adult cat period let alone one who is obviously a food addict hehe) and go to 2 or 3 canned food meals a day. Something with low carbs and higher protein so he is satisfied longer (for example friskies and fancy feast classics are inexpensive and VERY low carb if money is an issue). Dry food is so low in protein and water and high in carbs=empty calories, also carbs=sugar=weight gain=diabetes and kidney issues...and with boys they can easily get blocked and need a catheter if they don't get enough water in their diets, it isn't natural for cats to drink water from a bowl so they need it from their food. He isn't getting enough satisfying protein so he is constantly hungry.

You could also get an interactive treat dispenser that he has to work at to get the food out of. Fill it with some dry kibble to be used more as a treat then the bulk of his diet.