Camera Critters (#95)

 
I heard they did a study recently to see what cats do with their time.  They put cameras on their collars to record what they did all day.  I’m not sure I believe the results of that study, because it said that just six percent of the cats’ hours were spent sleeping.  I’m thinking the results would have been completely different if they’d studied the cats in my house.

Sure, there’s some looking out windows, interacting with one another, climbing on stuff and getting in trouble, and of course eating, but there is an awful lot of sleeping.  Seems like a lot more than 6% of their time.

Camera Critters is a fun weekend meme hosted by Misty Dawn.Visit the Camera Critters headquarters and join in.

About that Cat Food

We’ve been feeding the cats from their own dishes for a few days now.  It really has helped us see how much each cat eats.  We were right – Teddy eats the most.  We measure 1/2 a daily serving into each dish in the morning, and Teddy always eats all of his.  Then, the rest of the day he does his best to convince someone to feed him more.  If Tillie or Weasley are eating, we have to keep an eye on Teddy, or he’ll push them away an help himself to their food.  He has a hard time understanding that he has to wait until mid-afternoon when it’s time for him to have more food – which he promptly eats.  All of it.

Tillie and Weasley don’t eat all the food we give them.  One day Weasley ate all his in the morning, but didn’t finish the food in the afternoon.  Both of them like to eat some, walk away, and come back later to eat some more.  That means I have to keep an eye on them so I can pick their food up when they walk away – or Teddy will eat it for them.  It might almost be fun just to measure food out and keep feeding that cat until he thinks he’s had enough – just to see how much he really would eat.  All I know is that, if we don’t limit him, he would eat a lot.

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• How Much Can Three Cats Eat? (alwaysbcmom.com)

How Much Can Three Cats Eat?

The thing with having three cats in the house is that we seem to be going through a lot of cat food.  Teddy always wants to eat.  If there's food in the dish, he just has to eat it, and if there's not food in the dish, he's trying to get the bucket open to get to the food, or begging someone to give him some.  If we let that cat eat as  much as he wants, we're going to have to go looking for the best fat burners for cats, because he's going to be huge!

Weasley likes to eat, and he always begs for our food, but if there's no cat food in the dish, it doesn't seem to bother him.  He's more than ready to run over and eat as soon as we put some food in the dish, though - and that's usually when Tillie begs for food.  She begs patiently, standing over by the food dish quietly, waiting for someone to notice her.  We have to lock the boys up or hold onto them when we feed her, though, because she won't eat when they're around.  I wish she'd stand her ground when the boys try to rush over, but she won't.  She only wants to eat a little and walk away, and then be able to come back and eat a little later.  The problem is, as soon as she walks away and the boys are let go, they rush over and finish the food - so the next time Tillie wants to eat, there's no food.  So we start all over again, and we have no way of knowing how much each cat is eating.

So, today I got each cat his/her own food dish, with a lid - they're actually 8-oz. dip containers.  I measured out half of what the food bag says each cat should get per day (about 3/4 cup) and marked the containers so we know how full to fill them, and I labeled each container with one of the cat's names.  Now, twice a day, we can fill the food dishes to the line, and feed each cat from his or her own dish.   They can each eat as much as they want, and when they walk away, we pick up the dish, put the lid on, and put it away.  If Teddy eats all his food in the morning, he waits until afternoon to get more.  When Tillie walks away, her food gets put away until the next time she wants it.

As long as we pay attention and remember to pick the dishes up when the cats aren't eating, it should work.  Hopefully.  And one cat won't be eating twice as much food as the other ones.