and treat release toys so that that cat once he's done eating has a little bit of problem solving
and some enrichment and that'll distract him from wanting to eat the other cat's food hey friends
it's jess and jericho and we are joined today by a special friend melocat who has a youtube
channel that talks about catification for nine apartment cats hey everyone how's it going melocat
here so on this channel i have jericho only and i talk about feeding schedules for one cat so
melocat maybe you can walk us through how you stay organized feeding nine different cats um actually
okay sure um so what happens is in my family it's just one human nine cats and i found your channel
actually actually i follow your channel on a regular basis and i was very intrigued about you
know the nutritional advice and all the revamping uh regarding their diet and i've been following a
lot of that but that's it's not the easiest when you have nine cats so now another thing is um
like not just the kind of food but how about the areas do you guys like like do you suggest
having one designated area for you know all cats or you know kind of spread it around or you know
some people say don't put it beside the food the food the food dish beside the fountain
some people say yes some people say no what's your take on that i've read that before you know
that cats don't like to eat where they where they drink and i've tested that with jericho so i had
two water bowls set up one that was where his food dish was and then the other one like completely
separate he drank water from both of them but it could also be that he drank from the water
that was near his food because i don't leave his food out all day he eats raw so obviously
i don't leave it out all day he licks his plate clean every time he eats
so it could potentially be that his food isn't sitting all day next to his water dish
but as in terms of feeding areas since cats are territorial most behavioralists do recommend
feeding multiple cats in separate areas that way there's no stress or competition for food and they
can feel like they can eat without having to rush i know you you mentioned before that you have some
fast eaters and some slow eaters yeah and the one gets a little worried and anxious about
you know like am i gonna get enough food today so i think um you know especially if they live
outside and you rescue them from outside which i know a lot of your cats are or a lot of people
rescue from shelters you know there's like 15 or 20 cats in one room so that's a lot of stress just
because cats are territorial you know out in the wild they would have like multiple block radius of
their own territory so when we bring them indoors it's like you know we have to do the best that we
can to kind of replicate how their life would be outside as practically as possible so separate
feeding areas would be great and if it doesn't cause too much stress maybe you have one that's
you know eating much quicker maybe put that cat in a separate room and maybe you can redirect
that attention to play or you can use a puzzle feeder or a foraging mat and put some freeze-dried
treats in those puzzles and treat-release toys so that that cat once he's done eating has a little
bit of problem solving and some enrichment and that'll distract him from wanting to
eat the other cat's food yeah because right now because i have nine right and you're right there
they're actually all rescued so what happens is i i got five separate uh automatic feeders
and so when i'm not home they spit it out on a schedule some of them are double sprouts
so it comes to two uh two dishes so it adds up to seven uh seven dishes so five feeders seven dishes
what happens is i have to sync it perfectly that all them spit out food all the same time so the
food bully because my black cats recarlos what happens is that he gets very territorial when it
comes to any food even if he can't finish all of it he'll block it off for as many
other uh competitors so-called competitors as he can so what happens that i timed it exactly the
same because he can eat really fast so i i time it like it takes a while because sometimes these
feeders they can be off by like 10-20 seconds before uh you know the other one goes off so i
actually tried it many times and make sure that they actually all spit out food at the same time
that way he doesn't get anxious about it because if there's like 20 seconds apart he will actually
eat so fast that he'll eventually throw up which is not good it's just so that he can hoard another
bowl of food um so as soon as soon as that's actually in sync he kind of gave up after i
had i think about five dishes of you know in sync dispensing then he's like okay i can't hoard all
these so it really worked out for us that way um but it does take a little while because um
yeah because of the technology part of it check the description for automatic feeder products and
then check out this video right over meow for more tips on feeding multiple cats thanks for watching