With Thanksgiving coming up later this month, let’s talk food.
Do your cats seem more like hungry, hungry hippos than cats? Is one refusing to let the other one finish a meal or do they need to be fed separate diets due to a medical condition? It can be hard to stop a cat from eating another cat’s food, but if you know what you’re doing it’s not impossible. Here are a few quick things to try so each cat can eat in peace.
Check Your Cat’s Diet
Obesity in pets is a big problem (affecting over half of pet cats), but cat behavior professionals often see cats that are underfed because hunger can cause some wild behavior changes in cats. If your cat has aggressive behavior surrounding food, the first place to start is evaluating if they are getting enough food in their diet.
This can be complicated to do so working with your veterinarian or a certified pet nutritionist is the best way to go. For a starting place until you can do that, check the manufacturer guidelines for your cat’s food. Chewy has a great guide on how much to feed a cat as well. Even if you’re within guidelines, every cat has different needs so it’s still worth checking with your vet.
Your Vet Can Rule Out Medical Problems
Speaking of a veterinarian appointment, your veterinarian can check to make sure your cat’s food frenzy isn’t due to a medical problem. They can come up with a plan for treating it which will help your cat control themselves when the snacks come out.
Change Your Feeding Habits
Are you feeding your cats once or twice a day? Chances are your cat is getting hungry because that’s not how cats prefer to eat. Cats prefer multiple smaller meals rather two larger ones. Shooting for 4 to 6 meals per day is a good goal and will keep your cat’s hunger at bay. I realize that is a lot of feeding, but you can fudge it a little to work around your schedule. Cats are somewhat flexible so you’ll still see an improvement even if things aren’t perfect.
Feed Cats Separately
Cats don’t like eating near other cats because they aren’t social eaters. Yes, this includes during introductions. If you feed your cats near each other, they’ll feel the need to defend their food so you’ll be more likely to see food aggression.
A few ways to feed cats separately in multicat homes:
- Feed them in separate rooms with the door closed. Even if your cat hates closed doors, you’ll only need to do this for a few minutes. You can let them out after they finish eating.
- Use a food puzzle to slow them down if they tend to eat faster than your other cats.
- Feed each cat at a different height. One cat can eat on a counter, a cat tree, a table, a console table, a cat shelf (you can get some with built in cat bowls), or however else you can add in elevated space
- Set up a freestanding barrier between them.
Use Technology
Not all robotic products for cats are great, but some are actually beneficial to you and your cats. For preventing food theft, the easiest option is using a microchip feeder. Microchipping your cat is a good idea anyway and these feeders allow you to control which cat gets access to the food. The feeder will open when they approach and close after they leave.
I use the SureFeed microchip feeder for ‘Zac because Poutine likes to eat everything in sight. He caught on very quickly and I splurged on the version that allows me to track exactly how much and how often he eats.
If your cat is really persistent and figures out how to steal a bite from the side, you can get a shield to add to the feeder to prevent swiping bites.
Automatic Feeders With RFID Tags
Automatic feeders can be a great way to feed your cat (though they’re still not an excuse to leave your cat unattended for a few days). There are automatic feeders that can be synced with an RFID tag to allow only one cat to eat from it and prevent food stealing. As long as your cat is okay with wearing a collar, either the RFID feeder from PetLibro or PortionProRx are good options.
Get Creative With Cat Flaps
Cat flaps aren’t always a great idea, especially when if you’re using them to force your cat to use a litter box in a closet or dark corner of a basement. To feed cats separately, they can be a great solution. If you get one that syncs with your cat’s microchip or an RFID tag (I sense a theme here…), you can allow only certain cats to pass through. This can be used in two ways:
- If you live in a small space or rent, you can put a flap into a large storage tote using a similar process to making a litter box out of one and feed one cat in there. Make sure the tote is very big and there are small air holes cut into the tote. You can use this with a repurposed litter box enclosure as well.
- Give one cat access to a room where they get fed consistently using the cat flap. The food aggressive cat won’t be able to access that space so your other cat can eat in peace.
Things To Avoid
While it may be temping to try to punish the food thief, you’re only going to increase their stress. This may lead to other behaviors you don’t like and won’t solve the underlying issue. Deterrents tend to not work particularly well because food is VERY motivating. Rather, address the underlying issue. If you can’t figure how to stop a cat from eating other cats’ food, consult your veterinarian, a certified pet nutritionist, or set up a session with me so we can solve the problem.
