Cat eats too fast: possible causes, risks and health remedies
Why should you keep an eye on a cat that eats too fast? All possible causes and risks to his health.
Most owners may be surprised, but there are also cats that are not fussy about food and that voraciously eat everything in front of them. Of course this is not always the case and yet a cat can happen to eat too quickly. It shouldn’t make this smile so much, as there could be very serious factors behind this behavior. Let’s see what could be the possible causes, but also the risks it runs for its health and all the remedies to be adopted to avoid it.
When the cat eats: let’s not generalize!
We must never generalize, especially when it comes to our pets: each of them is a fact in itself. So if in terms of nutrition it is common to see cats picky about food, which eat only what they want and when they want, the opposite case can also happen.
The cat usually eats only when it is hungry and stops when its stomach feels full: it is no coincidence that more and more often the owners choose a diet based on wet food in two moments of the day and leave the bowl of kibble at its disposal.
In this way the cat will be able to regulate itself with its hunger and satisfy it only when it feels the need. Yet among those who turn up their noses at a meal that is not to their liking and others who find it hard to eat, there are also those who we will have to try to ‘restrain’ because of their greed.
The cat eats too fast: causes and risks
Among the possible causes there is certainly a dissatisfaction with the doses: as if they were not in adequate quantities to satisfy him, or because there is an underlying health problem that continually stimulates his appetite.
Only our expert veterinarian will be able to give us the answer, probably requiring a series of tests useful to analyze the clinical situation of the feline. But what are the possible risks for the cat that is always hungry? Obviously he may feel sick, self-inducing vomiting.
In fact, when he eats too much and too fast, his metabolism will have problems. Not to mention the resulting health problems including:
cat overweight,
gastro intestinal gas,
He retched,
nausea,
poor digestion.
The cat eats too fast: home remedies
If we want to rely on homemade methods to prevent the cat from eating too quickly, it will be necessary to give him the meal not in a single solution, but in several portions a day. In this way, his metabolism and digestion will also have certain benefits and moreover he will not arrive hungry at the next meal of the day.
If the meal consists of croquettes then they can be spread on a flat and wide surface, so that Micio cannot dive into them with his whole head. He will be forced to slow down before his mouth reaches the croquettes scattered all over the shelf.
Another solution is to spread food all over the house: obviously not on the ground, but distributed in various bowls, so that the cat can eat a little food every time and is forced to move from one side to the other.
The remedies to buy
What if the solution was affordable? Fortunately, there are now numerous remedies on the market to prevent the cat from eating too quickly: they will therefore force him to ‘slow down’ because they will automatically divide the meal into smaller portions. They can be:
containers with strange shapes,
silicone containers (ice-type),
baking trays (such as for muffins),
games that feed food when activated.
The shapes different from the usual bowl with a concave bottom, will force you to spread the food in several hollows, in several sections, without letting it all accumulate in one place. The same principle will also apply to silicone containers, those used as molds for ice and baked desserts.
Finally, there are also mental activation games that ‘hide’ the food and force the cat to think in order to have some. Usually the mechanism is activated with the paw and a small ration of food will come out.
