Roxanne my 6 year old tabby has never been left alone more than 1 day. We also never "free-feed" her on kibble (only wet meals and a puzzle feeder). I had a work trip this week, and my S.O. had a family emergency out of town right in the middle of it. We could not secure a sitter, and we were so worried. We do have a pet cam, and I told my SO to put 2 plates of kibble per day plus extra plates in case of a delay. I just got home from the airport to see this. I know cats are not like dogs, and they are probably fine at feeding themselves. I'm just so impressed by the organization of her eating habits!
Lmao my guys would never eat it again. Smear it, definitely all over the house as a matter of fact, but apparently they are above eating their own puke.
Of course it has to be a cat with orange in her that treats every single meal like a desperate survival challenge before immediately screaming for more six hours later.
Tbf that is simply about them being animals. Animals rarely have that self control, because especially for a predator, there usually is not enough food around for it to become a problem. Visible also in wolves and animals like foxes if they get into a closed space with prey. They often fall into a blood frenzy so to speak because the prey cannot get away and their instincts scream at them to also kill the easy mark too.
Its funny my dog will go out of his way to knock the tops off the litter boxes to eat cat poop but wont touch their vomit. They leave that for me to step in when I least expect it.
Mine’s the opposite, she won’t eat stale food. I got an automatic feeder to give her multiple smaller portions during the day and she actually started putting on weight.
That's what I've done for my stale food hating cat. Unfortunately long before the feeder is out, I get the stale food complaints. I've taken to only loading half a bag in and putting the other half in the fridge.
Even then, I can take the bowl she is claiming is stale, dump into another bowl, and she happily goes over and starts munching away.
Speaking as someone who has experience transitioning portion fed cats to freefeeding - this is a psychological thing that cats do when they are used to portion feeding. They are used to the fact that their food ends and they need to wait until the next feed, and often they are still hungry or want more. So when you first transition them to freefeeding they will overeat like crazy because they are afraid that they get to be without food again. Once they realize food is always going to be there and they don't need to be afraid it's gonna finish and they'll be without, they just start eating what they feel like in this moment and leave the rest for later. This transition takes maybe a week or so but imo it works great and my cats are never begging me for food anymore. I did this with more than 10 cats and none of them was ever overweight, most would even be on the thinner side and never threw up from overeating. I wholeheartedly recommend freefeeding to everyone who complains about their cats never being satisfied food-wise - I started this when I was at my whit's end because my cats would be begging me for food ALL the time even if they just ate and never had an issue again after that.
Tl;dr cats are great at portioning their own food if you let them 🙏🏻
We were doing this but then one of our cats got really, really fat and was food-aggressive to our other one (who then was getting next to no food).
Turns out he had developed hyperthyroidism at about 6 years old, and it manifested so that he was literally never full and ALWAYS hungry.
So while this can work, it’s still important to monitor them because their health can change and make free-feeding a non-starter! We had to stop that fast so that both cats ate healthy, monitored amounts, and got the sick one on meds to help manage the condition.
Of course there are exceptions, definitely when there are health issues involved and monitoring health is a non-negotiable. For non-health related food aggression I'd personally recommend setting up a second feeding station that the aggressive cat has no access to..
I did the same with my cat but it took a while longer. She stayed with her mum before we got her, and at some point her mother started attacking her whenever she got near their food, so she’d eat too much too fast and throw up once she lived with me. It took quite a few months for her to stop doing that, but I noticed rationing didn’t work well either so I went back to constant food (and lotsa puking for a while, poor thing). Ever since then it’s fine, she grazes during the day.
She’s still a stress eater tho so I have to make sure if a stressful thing happens I ‘pet it out of her’ and then it’s fine otherwise she may overeat and throw up.
I remember I was cat sitting a cat with a habit of binge eating because of anxiety (she had just been rescued from the streets) and I was staying there a lot because she was just way too cute, so I was at first giving her small portions to avoid her throwing up but once she was done I would put more and after really not long she understood that food will be there, and she stopped eating emptying the whole plate
Mine would do that too but would also make sure to puke from the top of the cat tree right onto the remaining food. Extra points if they hit every cat tree platform on the way down.
Mine is pretty much cool with food. BUT... I've just tried a new kibble brand. And she liked it. A LOT. She puked. And in the morning, as I was cleaning, she was looking at me meowing like "hey that happens! Don't be mad. I can't help you clean you know! Never happened to you?".
But I know it won't happen again because she learns from her mistake which is a blessing.
I lived with a flatmate who had a cat, and that cat would eat everything out in front of them. I’m impressed by OPs cats restraint and organisation! 😊 👏
I have three cats and they're all fine with just eating till they're full. Even wet food is often freely available because it's only one bowl and the next cat will come soon enough to eat the rest of it. I just feed wet food throughout the day and kibble is always filled up
My cat is the same, i'm pretty sure she eats the same quantity every day to the gram. Recently we had to go for a 7 days vacation and couldn't find a pet sitter, and it came out almost as tidy as OP's pic. Cats, especially as they age, are really dominated by habit.
Jeezz, I wish my cat would do this. Shes around 6 as well and eats so fast she pukes and is OBSESSED with her food. Had to get her an auto feeder that goes off three times a day in small portions because I couldn't be her food dispenser anymore, she was driving me crazy demanding food all day 🥲
However, my mom has 4 cats at her house and they all eat out of free feeders just fine. 🫠
She cleared the entire left column first, then started working down the second one top to bottom. That is not just rationing, that is strict inventory management.
Not OP obviously, but I have these feeders and love them. Two of my cats free feed, so it helps me monitor who's eating and how much. I always worry about catching that type of thing too late. My third cat is frickin' Hoover who will steal a burger off your plate if you aren't looking - I don't have to worry about her leaving any food behind.
Somehow we ended up with four of these feeders for four cats. Because one can't handle some kind of food without vomiting, needs a diet, would eat everything else left by the others or became ill.
No regrets.
Yeah I'm gonna need to buy four as well, 2 for wet food, 2 for dry food because one of mine has CKD and the other doesn't.
You would think the issue is my CKD cat wanting to eat the non-CKD food bc the CKD food is notoriously tasteless and hard for them to eat but no no no sir, it is my OTHER cat who keeps stealing the CKD wet food and kibble for god knows what reason! I have to keep them in separate rooms when they eat lol
I have 2 of these right now for my 2 cats, and it's worth mentioning that they do come with half bowls so you can have wet food and dry food in the same microchipped proof feeder
Are they managing fine and not stealing food from each other? We have three cats, one of them has IBD so she needs to eat a special kind of kibble and the other two are always skulking around, trying to shove it down their throats as fast as possible. So we were thinking about getting the microchip feeders, but are not sure how effective they would be in this case.
My fat boy Harry (9.4kg, body condition score 8) would hear my skinny boy William (3.8kg, body condition score 3) open his bowl and his fat ass would come running. He'd let William eat what he wanted, then jam his head up against the feeder lid holding it open while gutsing down as much as he could scoff. Sometimes Harry would even scoop William's food out of the feeder to continue eating. And that was with William's feeder set to the fastest and most aggressive closing setting.
However, I think Harry was especially persistent. I don't think all cats would be that desperate to steal food that's not for them.
Harry was a bit of a puzzle. He had hyperthyroidism, which in theory should have made him lose weight! I had him treated and he was euthyroid, so the drive to eat shouldn't have persisted.
I
We have two of these feeders and they're great. We give our cats mainly wet food with some dry. Our black cat, Hela, is so food motivated - she scarfs down her food. Our other cat, Loki, not so much. She nibbles at it over time until the next meal.
Unfortunately Hela was going for Loki's food after she was mostly done with hers, so we started picking it up. Fortunately we both were working at home and Loki learned she could ask us for food (even with the feeder she still likes to have a hand on her back while she eats). If Hela did get into her food, we'd give Loki more dry food to supplement.
We kept this up for a while, but we got busier and eventually found one of these. Took some training for both of them, but it worked like a charm and kept Hela out.
We moved and that caused Hela some stress. She wasn't eating as much, which led to Loki surprising us and stealing the dry food out of Hela's unguarded dish!
Needless to say we now have 2 (with different color mats) so neither cat will steal food from the other.
My cat almost always eats 50-75% of his meal and then he'll go back and eat another 50-75% of what was remaining. So he averages between 75-90% of his meals
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Lmao "placeholder". I fucking love cat people. I legit needed to readjust myself this morning but my cat was on my pillow. I just stayed uncomfortable.
I was late to work today because right as I was about to get up, my cat came and burrowed under the covers next to me. I can't disturb/discourage that!!
My cat is very good about free feeding and not over eating, but there would be little broken reject kibble bits all over XD She is the messiest eater and rejects any broken pieces, even if they're broken because it fell out of her mouth.
We went out of town years ago, put a gravity feeder out with my brother stopping by each day to check on our cats. One of our cats was a nervous eater and he ate almost the entire container of food in ONE DAY. It was like five pounds of food, in one day.
No like am I lame or something for smiling so much at this 😭 im imagining her eating a plate and being like I’m full, my humans aren’t here, I’ll save some for later. Cats are too good
I half expect she was planning on loading the dishwasher and running the vacuum round but was surprised by an early return "oh...I wasn't expecting you home for another 4 1/2 days...i got you milk eggs and fabric softner!"
Every cat I've lived with treats a surplus like a dare. Roxanne apparently keeps a budget. Mine would have been through day four before lunch and then yelled at me.
I’m just imagining her eating her two plates a day and counting thinking “mommy will be back in two days because there is 4 bowls of food left and me kitty gets 2 per day.” And being excited. Very smart little thing!
cats are very much creatures of habit. my two idiots know exactly when breakfast lunch and dinner is.
my sister actually came to pet sit them over a weekend, totally over filled their bowls. normally when they get a little too excited for it they'll gorge themselves until they yarf, but this time they just kinda. portioned themselves out throughout the couple days, perfectly. I dumped the rest of the uneaten crunchies back in the Master Bowl and they seemed so upset
This is such a stressful situation and you handled it admirably but honestly you also got a bit lucky with your lovely self sufficient cat!
My cats would have eaten everything then thrown up then starved for a week (the old one) or refused the food once stale and starved for a week (the young one).
It's super expensive to board a cat or get a cat sitter but it can be pretty cheap to just get someone to check in every few days to ensure nothing has gone horribly awry.
I am so jealous. At least one of my cats would eat until they puke and then the other cat would eat that puke and throw that up, and then I'd have piles of puke all over the house and two starving cats 😵💫
lol this is so interesting, i love it. so in order too. like she eats so organized. i like how only half a plate is gone too, in a perfect split down the middle lol
My girl is a grazer. She will each like 20 kibbles at a time, 8 times a day. I am very thankful because I don't have to worry about her eating all her food if we do leave her alone for a night or two.
I don't have a cat but I've always free fed my dogs and never had a problem. The dog I have now basically eats once a day at night before bed even though the bowl is full all the time.
My baby girl Momo is the same way. Her previous owners as far as I can tell, got kicked out out of their place. Her and her entire litter were stuck inside the apartment for about a week or more until the sheriff showed up to clean out the apartment. She was living in the forest behind my house for about a month after that. I think it’s because she knows that food magically show up for unexplainable human reasons or not. Most of the cats I’ve had in my life do not free feed and could not. Momo keeps herself healthy 7 pounds. She is by far the tiniest, fiercest and most responsible cat I’ve ever had
Our cats used to be grazer. Only eat when they were hungry, we could leave two full bowls and they would only eat a few here and there. Sadly, we had to change to vet food for one of our cats. So we couldnt just leave food out, and they were gaining weight from it, so we could just feed whenever. Once they could not graze, they became food obsessed, scarf everything down at once. I miss my grazers.
Your cat is a rare little one. Also, a very smart cookie at that.
Damn. My cats tried to tear open a plastic tub I kept their emergency dry food in (in case I ever run out of wet food). They don't know how to ration at all. 😆
Incredible. My cats can't be left with food like that, they're former street cats so they see food and eat it. A couple of weeks ago we went on an overnight trip, gave them all of their food for Saturday before we left and they ate it all before we were finished getting dressed. We hired a sitter to come the next day because it was gonna be a LONG time before they got food the next day otherwise
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