Any ole wine box will do to make this super easy and cheap foraging toy. Watch to see how these three silly's utilize this object. They are pretty hilarious. It helps if you have long legs for this one!
Similarly you can use any compartmentalized box such as a beer caddy as well! Cheers!
Foraging cubes are one of the most difficult food puzzles you can offer your cat. Most cats are initially pretty stumped by cubes but once they do get the hang of it they are unstoppable! Foraging ping-pong balls can also be combined with these cubes to further increase the challenge. Simply fill ping-pong with dry food, place inside the cube and offer that to your cat. This way they have to accomplish acquiring food from two objects at once! A puzzle for the Kitty Einstein/Master Forager for sure!
Milly, the star of the video below, is one of the kitties featured in the table of our Food Puzzle paper in the JFMS. She is the very last kitty in the table if you follow the link provided.
One of the more challenging of the commercial food puzzles, the pryamid is weighted, heavy and also comes in an opaque version making it great for an experienced forager. The challenge is tipping it over! Similar to a Weeble-Wobble, it will constantly right itself and stand back up.
This is a great beginner toy for multi-cat households. Food goes in through the top and funnels into the tunnels. If you wish to increase the challenge further, fill ping-pong balls and place inside the tunnels. This way the cats must spin the balls to get the food to dispense and then extract it from the tunnel.
This is a fantastic feline foraging toy! Traditionally a dog toy, it really seems geared more towards cats as most dogs would destroy this product. It comes with two sets of interchangeable lids, a set with one large hole and another set with three small holes. The holes can be taped up with scotch tape once your cat has mastered the concept to increase the challenge level. Large marbles can also be placed inside to add weight and obstruct the opening from time to time to make the toy much more difficult once your cats gets the hang of it.
Gus so nicely demonstrates the difficulty of oddly shaped items. When full this object can be quite heavy making it difficult to manipulate. For Gus it is no problem! Eating this way has helped Gus loose weight. Please share this video if you know an overweight kitty who could benefit from learning to forage for their food.
This is an earthy, natural style food puzzle. The rock provides some weight to keep it all in place. Some cardboard tubes were used along with a little garden twine to keep it all together. It's a little rickety but a fun impromptu puzzle.
*Know your cats! Leaving string/twine unattended could result in a cat eating something they should not. Safety first!
Wet food foraging can be a great way to slow down voracious over-eaters that later vomit their canned food meal. This stationary foraging board is fantastically versatile. In this clip Samson is demonstrating how the tongue module exercises their tongue and jaw muscles!
Opaque, cube-shaped toys are among the most challenging you can offer your cat. In this video Paige shows you how it is done! Not every cat becomes this skilled or manipulates toys with this much gusto. A goal for you and your cat to work towards.
The Foraging Wiffle Ball from Fundamentally Feline is a good beginner object. The many perforated holes increase scent attraction, it is round so it is easily rolled, and the cat can also see that there is food in the ball since it is not complete opaque. It is only available with onelarge hole for large kibble for obvious reasons, as it already has many small holes. Some cats hook their nails into the holes and learn to shake out the kibble!
Watch video below to see it in action!
