Believe it or not, cats are actually designed to work for their food. It is not easy to catch a mouse!
When feeding our cats, it is important we provide them with the opportunity to exercise their brains and paws as well as their jaws. This keeps them mentally stimulated and physically fit while keeping stress at bay. Puzzle feeders are a perfect way to do this and can easily be made at home with some everyday objects. How about involving the children? They are the masters of crafting!
We have some illustrations on how to make three different kinds of puzzle feeders in the Five-a-day feeding report we did for The Big Bang
https://icatcare.org/app/uploads/2019/10/five-a-day_felix_report_final.pdf
Top Tips for parents
As well as making the puzzle feeder (under adult supervision), children can help fill the feeders. Measuring out dry cat food, counting individual cat biscuits, distributing them evenly between different puzzle feeders and timing how long it takes the cat to eat the same amount of food from different puzzle feeders can all help integrate many school subjects such as art, design technology and maths into daily cat care. See examples of puzzle feeders below.
