# Where do you feed your cats?



## KittehLuv'n (Feb 19, 2011)

I know I've seen a thread regarding this before, just can't find it now.

I currently feed my "at large" cats in the kitchen in dishes on the floor. I ama really tired of the kitchen looking so cluttered up. My kitchen table has two shelves on one side (like an island I guess) and I had hoped to feed them there- but, they don't like the "enclosed" feeling.
I am thinking about moving their feeding station to a spot in the basement. I have a nice long bench I'm thinking I could use. Also have a storage cabinet I can use for the food supplies.
It also would ensure that I get to the basement twice daily to scoop the litter boxes (in the laundry room in the basement). I have a tendency to not clean as often as I should.
I have three of my own cats, and usually have one or two fosters "at large". (I have an isolation room for newbies until they are healthy enough and social enough to mingle- they get fed in there)

So- where do you feed your cat/s? do you have a cool feeding station set up?
Ideas and pics- all welcome


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

MowMow eats on the bar section of the counter.










Book eats on the bathroom floor.


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

We feed Blacky in a fairly unused room. The room is one big waste of space, I only go in it when I'm walking through to the garage - another large room filled with junk, never has been used for cars - and then through to the backyard.

There's an old pool table in the room so we feed her on it, it's also were we keep most of the food since it's such a large table. The reason we originally fed her there was that she was a feral and afraid of the indoors, we opened up the cat door and she learned to come inside that one quiet room to eat. No way she would've walked around the house looking for food, and it just stuck that way.

Now there's a feral coming in the room through the cat door late at night, but we don't really want to move her feeding location to other parts of the house.

I wouldn't feed cats in the kitchen, it's already cluttered with one to three dog dishes on the floor at a time and I'd rather cats just stay out of the room as much as possible. Blacky shows no interest in the kitchen, even when we're eating chicken, pork, beef... she never goes in there unless she's headed straight through onto the sundeck, I'd rather not have her suddenly start begging or jumping on counters, especially since there isn't a lot of counter space in there.


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## spotty cats (Sep 23, 2011)

Mine eat in the kitchen or one of the 3 kitten rooms or the wide hallway


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## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

Io eats under the window by her cat house. It's technically a "dining area" but the house is so small it's the exercise bike / K-cup and board game storage / bread maker area.


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## Vivid Dawn (May 31, 2010)

Zinny only goes in the kitchen to hide behind the fridge or dishwasher (I'm not actually sure which one she uses) to hide when guests are visiting. 

The feeding station is at the base of my toy shelf. The kibble feeder is no longer there, and now there's 4 bowls for food. I am feeding canned and raw now, hopefully going to only raw by the end of next month! 









I have read a lot of things about plastic water bowls giving acne on cat's chins. While I haven't seen any on my cats, still not sure I want plastic (their food bowls are glazed ceramic). So, after I switch the floors from carpet to tile, then I'm going to save up to get one of these water fountains!
Hand-made Ceramic Art Pet Drinking Fountains - elegant and functional
I want to custom design one, and have it battery operated, so it'll cost about $200.
The reason I want battery, is because when my dad passes, I am seriously thinking about buying travel trailer and living in that. I just can't stand the thought of having neighbors all around me in an apartment! Besides, trailer lots are a LOT cheaper in rent than a whole apartment, and by then it'll most likely just be me, Zinny and Nebbie.


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## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

We feed Io with our normal dishes (washed every night with the rest). Is that weird? :s


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## Vivid Dawn (May 31, 2010)

Nope. The dishes I'm currently using are little dessert plates I bought at a thrift store. They are ceramic and painted with blue and yellow flowers. Luckily the set was exactly 4 dishes! If they had 6, would'a bought those too, just in case of another breaking.
They get put in the dishwasher at the end of the night, and taken out for breakfast.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Charlee eats in the kitchen, Cleo eats on her plush rug on the washroom (has for years), and Cali eats under the long counter in the bathroom in my new place (so I can close the door and keep the other two Hoovers away until she finishes).

As soon as I put Charlee's bowl down in the kitchen, Cleo runs and jumps on her rug and Cali runs into the bathroom and air-meows until I bring her food in.


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## dweamgoil (Feb 3, 2010)

My cats take turns going into either the kitchen or bathroom. Both rooms have ceramic tiled floors. They just love to drag their raw food on the floor...lol


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## amelia100 (Mar 12, 2011)

mine eat on the kitchen floor. I can't bring myself to wash their bowls with ours though. I just don't know how hygenic that is lol. So i pile their dishes up and give it all a good go when the sink is empty of our dishes, then i disinfect the sink....Maybe that's a bit OCD, but when you think where our cats mouths/tongues have been.... 8O lol. rcat

On another note, raw food is often a mess. I often have to scrub around their mats regardless of the food type though. Dried wet food on tiled floor is a ******.


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## mainecoonmama (May 24, 2012)

Mine eat in front of the fire place. We don't use it because we are in an apartment and it worries me that it has not been properly maintained ( oh and I am in Georgia and its already in the 90s here so we only have a few opportunities to use it each year anyways). So it never gets used, but they seem to like the tile there so thats where they eat. 
Litterbox is in the oh so convenient vanity space in my bathroom. When Winston first came home i also had a box and food in the laundry room, just for him. BOth were completely ignored so they went away.


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## jadis (Jul 9, 2011)

Mine eat on the counter in the kitchen. I'm sure some people think that's gross, but I rarely cook and I wipe the counters before and after. The primary reason for their eating arrangement is that I have two dogs as well as the two cats, and the dogs get into the leftovers if the dishes are on the floor. I used to feed them upstairs where I could just close the dogs out, but I found that Tiger Lily was not leaving my sons room at all, so food was a way to coax her down and get her to socialize more.


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## spotty cats (Sep 23, 2011)

Jacq said:


> We feed Io with our normal dishes (washed every night with the rest). Is that weird? :s


to me yes lol

Mine have their own dishes/plates and they're washed separately with a separate dish cloth too.


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## littlesushi (Jun 8, 2011)

We feed our cats on the kitchen floor, so we can easily wipe down any raw food they drag out of their plates. And we wash their dishes with our dishes.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

I've never even thought about washing their dishes separately. It's all just food.


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## Cat'sHouse (Apr 5, 2012)

I used to have a three section red/yellow bowl that was probably some kind of chip server at one time. When they were little I fed them out of that but Kermit became such a glutton that the other two would sit back and watch him gobble their section...so we switched to separate dishes. that bowl now hangs from a tree as a bird/butterfly waterer.

Now, I use two small pet bowls for Kermit and Marble in the kitchen...they eat from them and then Kermit goes to hers and licks it clean...I mean he would lick the label off of a cat food can if I let him. In the kitchen is a dry food cat dish if they want that as a snack.

Eliza eats out of her own dish upstairs in a room where she spends most of her time. She is 18 now and doesn't roam as much, just keeps wife company up there. Wife is COPD and doesn't roam much anymore either....and I bring our meals up there twice a day and we eat on tv trays on the bed....Kermit sits on the bed and waits for a handout which he gets cause he is a polite beggar.

One ice creme bucket full of water is the watering hole tho I keep one on the back porch too so they have water out there when they sit out there. A liter box is out there also.


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## OctoberinMaine (Sep 12, 2006)

Murphy's food is on the kitchen floor on a little raised tray that my husband made that's wide enough for 3 dishes -- wet, dry, and water. Murphy makes sure that the dry is covered with his toys so it doesn't .... what, get taken by predators? This is ant season, and they always make a beeline (can ants make a beeline?) to his food. To ward them off I created little moats around each leg of the raised tray. Each moat is a small food dish with a shot glass in it, so the leg of the tray doesn't get wet. Amazing what crazy things we do for our kitties.


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## Huge2 (Jan 28, 2008)

spotty cats said:


> to me yes lol
> 
> Mine have their own dishes/plates and they're washed separately with a separate dish cloth too.


So you don't use any kind of soap then?

Peggy eats in the kitchen and her bowls go in with ours. Same cloths get used, same everything.


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## yingying (Jul 19, 2011)

Mine eat in our dining room. I wash their dishes with only hot water (no cloth no detergent) immediately after they finish.


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## mainecoonmama (May 24, 2012)

Jacq said:


> We feed Io with our normal dishes (washed every night with the rest). Is that weird? :s


Nah I used to do that with wet food when i only had one set of bowls. Then I got more so now the cats have their own dishes. Mainly because they are cute, and dishwasher safe.  They still sometimes get a sliver of chicken or something on a regular plate.


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## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

spotty cats said:


> to me yes lol
> 
> Mine have their own dishes/plates and they're washed separately with a separate dish cloth too.


I just figure if my sandwich tastes like catfood it's a heads up to wash them better :wiggle

Since she eats her wet food (noms) and dry food (crunchy munchies) completely everyday I think it's better for her lazy-lump owners to wash all the dishes. If she had her own we might get TOO lazy and leave germy plates around for longer than is necessary.


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## kty78 (Mar 18, 2012)

Jacq said:


> We feed Io with our normal dishes (washed every night with the rest). Is that weird? :s


That's what I do, for the wet food. I rinse them clean with hot water and put them in the dishwasher. They eat that on the kitchen floor. The kibble goes in a set of cat bowls in the little hall area by the kitchen. Water is in a large ceramic crock near the cat bowls and the water gets changed a couple times a day.


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## kty78 (Mar 18, 2012)

I would like for our next house to have an enclosed porch or sunroom and I would probably feed the cats and keep most of the cat stuff there. I had to clear off every flat surface near the windows in this house because the cats would just knock my lamps and stuff off to make room for themselves.


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## MowMow (Nov 6, 2010)

As I said in the other similar thread, I have 8 stainless steel dishes that are pretty tiny. 3 feedings per day so I go through all of them in just over two days. 

When they are done eating I put their bowls in the dishwasher with my dirty dishes and I run the washer when it's either full or when I've used the last of the c at dishes, whichever comes first (usually because I've run out of cat dishes).


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## cinderflower (Apr 22, 2012)

i've said this elsewhere (i think. i have CRS disease lol). about five years ago i was confined to bed for months so i put their dishes at the foot of the bed on a pad. i only fed them dry because anything else would have become repulsive really fast.

even after i was up and about, i kept doing this because it was easier to give them food first thing in the morning (or at 5AM, i used to get up at 3:30 every day so i keep changing their eating schedules and sometimes they wake me up just to eat) or last thing at night. 

but i just moved all their bowls to the kitchen area because i changed to 100% canned and they don't seem to mind. food is food.

for people who wash their dishes separately: most of the bacteria/virii in a cat's mouth is zoonotic (species specific) so we won't get anything from them anyway. and if you're still concerned, think about the fact that right after they lick the most unsavory areas, they lick their entire bodies and then you touch them so . . . lol. their saliva is *not* antiseptic, no matter what rumors you've heard. it has antibodies for _them_ which have no bearing on what affects humans. their food dishes are not going to be any more unsanitary than your own, especially if you wash them in your dishwasher. if you still can't bring yourself to put them all together, that's up to you, but if they accidentally got mixed up, it wouldn't do anything to you. (you would not go to aich ee double hockey sticks or have to bury your dishes in the back yard )

i used to wash them separately, but i kept a kosher kitchen for years and i did a lot of weird things. the only throwback i have to that is when a spoon falls into the garbage disposal and gets all nicked up, i don't want to use it to eat with myself so i put it in a big cup under the sink with their cat food covers and use it for their food. it all gets washed in the dw eventually anyway, i just keep them separate because i don't want to end up using one.


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## Dicesmom (Feb 28, 2012)

Dice,Yoda and Thunder eat in the bathroom. It is safe from the dogs and the ferret. Thunder eats in the laundry room. Fat Albert(not so fat anymore so know just Albert) and Thunder get in little fights when they are together with food around so they have to be separated when eating. it is only with them two together though. Thunder can be with Dice and Yoda and be fine same with Albert. There dishes are cat bowls but still washed every two days. All the animals share a water bowl. Thunder does have his own though in the laundry room since he spends most of his time in there.


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## Victoriax (Feb 25, 2012)

I use the saucer's from our dinner set for the kitty food they have wet food only & I try to get them to eat a lil raw food sometime's 

Meeca eat's on top of a set of drawer's in our bedroom & the other 3 eat wherever they choose to on any particular day they may decide to eat on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, in the living room or in the bedroom always on the floor

they also tend to all want to eat at different time's so I now leave the food down & they go & eat it when they are ready

just lately they have been eating mostly once I have gone to bed.


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## LaurulFeatherCat (Sep 16, 2011)

Currently the cats have a feeding station in the living room (I live completely alone, you see). Dry food is available at all times and wet food twice a day. For 11 cats I split two 5.5 oz cans twice a day for 10 of them and I give my anorectic Apache up to four 3 oz cans throughout the day at her demand. The others get her lefovers. I am going to try raw ground chicken on Apache next.

When I had the catroom and the large number of cats, I used one of those six foot long banquet tables as a feeding station with multiple dry hoppers available at all times and wet food twice a day; about half a can per animal. Putting the food (and the litter pans on separate table) on tables kept the dogs out of both the food and the litter. It also was easier to clean up as it was at counter height. I had a laundry sink installed in the catroom for convenience for cleaning and that worked wonderfully. The room is now used as a birdroom for my parrots.


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## Straysmommy (Dec 23, 2010)

I usually bring them each breakfast to bed, and at dinner time I serve them wherever they happen to be sitting. Apart from the raw meat and/or wet canned I feed twice a day, there's always kibble and fresh water in 2 stations on mats (one in the kitchen, the other in the living room) just in case one of the cats feels threatened and doesn't dare go eat. Princess, who lives in my bedroom, eats only wet and raw, so no kibble station for her in the bedroom, and she NEVER drinks water, in spite of everything I've tried. She used to drink a lot of water when she was a stray, as I feed the strays mostly kibble.


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## Goldtanker (Jan 9, 2011)

Midnight, the wild cat, has his meals in the garage. I check for him from time to time, and when he is there, I give him a menu and he places his order - which is filled, of course.

Then he retreats to his house (heated in the Winter) for a snooze. Luckiest cat in the world! 

He never leaves a tip! Which is why I have not complied with his request for Cable TV! :wink:


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## Jacq (May 17, 2012)

Awww his Casa la DuctTape Is adorable!


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## BroganMc (Feb 28, 2010)

Ours have dry food & water in the bathroom. They get a can of wet food every night in the kitchen, floor just beneath the clock.


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## heston (Nov 17, 2011)

Autumn eats in the kitchen under the kitchen table.


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## bkitty (Aug 17, 2009)

Kitchen will hold 3 of them, Dining room for the other 2


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## Mhelmandollar (Dec 9, 2011)

Savannah its in the kitchen (raw)
Himalayan eats in the bathroom (kibble)


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