If you observe cats in their natural environment, you will notice that apart from when they rest, they are always busy by hunting or playing.
Hunting for food originally was important to survive. Nowadays, most cats don’t have to hunt for food, but usually have a bowl of food waiting for them. This form of food source is not species-appropriate.
Species-appropriate feeding
Cats are instinctive hunters. Hunting prey in the wild requires many skills from cats: use of the senses to track down prey, patience and dexterity to hunt the next meal. They often do this several times a day until they succeed. But cats don’t just like to hunt to catch food, it’s also a popular activity. Cats also prefer many small meals spread throughout the day, rather than one large meal. For this reason, hunting usually accounts for a large part of cats’ daytime activity.
With this knowledge, you also understand how problems can occur in the relationship between humans and cats or in cats’ health. Since the well-fed cat does not have to move much to get some food, boredom comes fast. Besides being unhappy, this can also lead to health problems such as obesity or begging.
Activity Feeding as a solution
The idea of activity feeding is, that cats should make an effort to get their food and also to offer them a species-appropriate activity at the same time. The cat must invest time and effort and ideally skill to get its food because not every meal is served automatically.
Start to let your house cat work for at least one food ration. Dry cat food is particularly suitable for this. If your cat doesn’t yet know how to do this, you should first introduce the new idea slowly. Not every cat has the same level of perseverance and talent to get the food right away. Take your time and try out different options of activity feeding to find out what your cat likes.
Benefits for your cat:
- Activity against boredom
- Training of intelligence and perseverance
- Ability to express hunting and playing instincts
- Reduction or prevention of obesity
How to start
Dry cat food suits best for this type of feeding as it has a longer shelf life, can be easily filled into toys and does not attract flies. Nevertheless, there are also food games where licking wet food out of special containers is a good idea.
Start with an easy level, where your cat can see and smell the food. For example, place some MeatCrisp kibbles in an empty packaging and fix it on the ground. The cats’ paws must fit into the opening. When your cat succeeded you can increase the level of difficulty and hide the food that your cat is unable to see it.
Once your cat has figured out certain food games, it can also get bored. That is why we recommend increasing the levels of difficulty but also alternating the games and challenges. You can also involve moving elements like a food ball.
Many of our PLATINUM customers have already told us that they use our MeatCrisp dry cat food for activity feeding. They provide one or even two rations a day to their cats.
Cats do not only love the variety here but also PLATINUM MeatCrisp. They love this dry food and therefore they are motivated to solve the little puzzles. This makes cats happy for two reasons: first, about the ‘successful hunt’ itself and second, for the tasty food as a reward.
For more information, please visit the website www.platinum.co.uk
