Hey Pet Parents & Pet Lovers,
If you haven’t already read my last blog about the possibility of Beau having Pica then please check it out here.
Over the past few days I’ve been doing more research on Pica and what some of the choices we have moving forward are. Currently we are feeding Beau once a day, but many articles suggested splitting your cat’s meal into two. In the past I have asked my vet which would be better for the cat, him knowing about the fact that Beau chews. He said splitting the meal would probably do nothing, and that it’s probably not worth trying. Well, I know my vet said it’s probably not going to help, but I’m still going to try. We feed Beau using a number of feeding toys. Beau is a very fast eater, finishing his whole dinner in about 5 minutes and would risk throwing up from fast eating. At first we bought Beau a PetSafe SlimCat Feeding Ball. Beau learned how to use the feeding ball within minutes of it being in front of him. It used to take him about 15-30 minutes to eat out this food dispenser and we were extremely happy that he got exercise while he was eating.
More recently my sister moved to England and left us a number of toys/a feeder that Avery, her kitty, used to play with. Among the toys was a Catit Senses 2.0 Food Tree. This is the toy that we are still feeding Beau with. The reason being: It takes him around 45 minutes to eat from. Beau also leaves a good amount of food in the machine after this 45 minutes for him to come back and graze on if he feels hungry. This machine has also allowed him to take breaks from eating to drink water. (Which he didn’t used to do with the feeding ball.) This, to us, meant that he was getting more out of the feeding tree than out of the feeding ball. (Although we do wish that he was getting exercise out of the tree as well.
This brings me back to my decision to feed Beau twice a day. My partner and I were discussing feeding Beau through the SlimCat Feeding Ball in the mornings and feeding him by the tree at night. That way he’s getting both his exercise and his puzzle-completing needs done every day. This will also give us the luxury of changing up his schedule by alternating between feeding ball and feeding tree every so often. (As cats who have Pica should have their schedule changed every so often.)
We’re also going to be changing Beau’s food from BLUE Indoor Health Salmon & Brown Rice Recipe to Performatrin Ultra Lamb & Brown Rice. Although BLUE is a fantastic food (which we still feed Walker), I thought I would try changing the source of protein for Beau as well as the levels of fat & protein that he’s used to. A number of PetsOverload followers (as well as my own twitter followers) have suggested that Beau might not be getting all the nutrients he needs. We’re pretty sure that BLUE has covered all of his nutritional needs, especially because none of his blood work has shown signs of deficiency and in every physical he has had the vet has stated that he is extremely healthy.
I’m also very interested to hear your opinions of cat toys we can start playing with Beau. Considering the fact that he eats cloth, they have to be extremely durable. He currently plays with feather toys (supervised), balls with bells, string built mouse toys (supervised), springs, and string that we drag along the floor. Surprisingly Beau is not interested in catnip or laser pointers. Any thoughts of toys we can grab? Or ideas for interaction to keep him running around?