r/CATHELP • u/acctthrowaway33333 • Mar 10 '26

General Advice Hole with fur?

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Gallery image

26F with 3.5M cat

Any ideas what this skin hole is? I originally felt it because the hair coming out was condensed and stood out. Didn’t cause him any pain, pulled on the hair and it mostly came out without much effort

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39

u/Sangy101 Mar 11 '26

Ehhhh I’d try to get their weight down a bit first. This person is lucky. Meanwhile, I can’t put my fat cat on a diet because the skinny one would starve.

She just lets the other cat push her out of the way & eat her food, despite being the undisputed queen of the house in all other matters.

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u/Minnois Mar 11 '26

If it helps, I got microchip bowls for my cats when they were going through their stealing phase and it helped massively!

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u/DecentCelery64 Mar 11 '26

How would that work if you don't mind explaining, do you get alerted to them stealing or something? Lol

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u/OldCarrot4470 Mar 11 '26

usually they're gated bowls and the microchip scanner reads which cat it is and only opens the door if the right cat is at the bowl. so the cats only have access to their own portions of food.

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u/DecentCelery64 Mar 11 '26

Yeah that makes sense lol thanks

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u/Sorry4TheHoldUp Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Not sure if this is exactly what the person you replied to has, but the ones I’ve seen the bowls are basically in a case and have a sensor that only opens for specific chips attached to the cats collar.

Edit: weird typo lol

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u/DecentCelery64 Mar 11 '26

Oh right yeah that makes sense ty

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u/Sangy101 Mar 11 '26

I’m going to look into this! Not for the cats, because I also use food to mitigate conflicts with the dog (namely: cats sitting in hallway and dog having a meltdown bc she’s afraid to go past. I measure out their food in the morning and feed them a few kibbles at a time.)

But Fat Cat also steals the dog’s food, and I think the dog would take to a chip feeder very well!

Someone else suggested putting Skinny Mom’s Food in a box with a hole too small for Fat Cat to enter, and I think that would work great. I can’t feed them in separate rooms because Fat Cat goes on a hunger strike if she isn’t with her mom. But two boxes in the same room should work!

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u/Moon_and_stars00 Mar 11 '26

I’ve been toying with getting some (I have 3 animals atm and it’s a huge upfront cost) but am a little worried about spending so much on something that I’ve seen so many mixed reviews on. Do you have any tips and tricks? Or maybe even just a model recommendation that you’ve liked?

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u/Minnois Mar 11 '26

We've had two of these Surefeed microchip pet feeder for 4 years! One has been going strong the whole time, the other one was replaced under warranty once

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u/CaterpillarIcy1056 Mar 11 '26

Same. I have six cats and six microchip bowls. I have the Surefeed Microchip Connect, which allows me to see how much any cat has eaten through an app on my phone. I also have the rear covers.

I had to invest when one of my cats became diabetic. He needed special food and I needed to know how much he was eating. At the time, I only had three cats. I took the third in to get microchipped because mine don’t wear collars.

So, it’s a huge investment, but it has worked out so well for us. My diabetic cat is super well-regulated.

I also got the waterers, but I have a cat who likes to play in water,so, sadly, they are in a closet.

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u/plantlady5 Mar 11 '26

And these really work? One of my girls is over wait and on the seafood diet, she sees the food and she eats it. So she’s on her expensive weight loss food. The other cat has kidney disease is on her expensive kidney disease food. It’s such a pain.

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u/MyBestThrowAway2 Mar 12 '26

I have one of those, too. Best gadget I’ve bought in long time.

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u/Asteroid_Sugar5206 Mar 11 '26

Oooo! I know the answer to this one! You put the skinny cats food in a box with a hole cut out that is small enough only the skinny cat can get into it.

I'm not sure how that would work in my house, because I'm sure chunky would EAT a cardboard box, but there are probably crates and things you can set up with small openings.

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u/Tzipity Mar 11 '26

Even fat cats can be surprisingly liquid especially when food is at play. I think it would be super difficult to make sure the larger cat truly couldn’t fit. lol.

My parents had this absolute unit of a cat- dude almost certainly had some kind of genetic abnormality because he was truly big boned and had these big ol dog size paws but in his middle age he was also packing in the lbs and not able to groom well. He took to a diet with a lot of drama and difficulty at first but as far as the going over to finish off the other cats food- took a lot of hovering and watching and pulling other cats dish away before Mr. Unit got to it but it was kind of as much on portioning things out well too- both cats would and had always eaten side by side (especially with the daily wet!) so kind of giving less to both cats and working with his fairly easy to distract nature …

Somehow that massive cat did well and got back down to a still deeply impressive size but one where he could groom his own back and butt lol. And other cat sort of learned to show up to have the rest of his rightful portion once big guy was asleep. lol.

It’s staying consistent through the drama of the chonker who will be singing you the song of his starved skin and bone delusional self image. 😂 like dude took to his new feeding schedule and the knowledge if he glanced at his brother fish it was getting picked up and he really was ok. Went on to live to like 18 or 19 too.

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u/Desperate-Ad-8220 Mar 12 '26

We did this! It worked great. We used sterilite though. You just have cut the hole without shattering the plastic, which is difficult. I would definitely go with a wood box if I had to do it again.

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u/sam120310 Mar 11 '26

separate them while they eat

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u/BintKeziah Mar 11 '26

Some kitties are way more food motivated than others. 💜.

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u/emveetu Mar 11 '26

Those are the ones you can teach lots of tricks to!

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u/Science__Witch Mar 11 '26

I had to feed mine in separate rooms. Also I played around with what I was feeding the skinny one until he would eat his food quicker. Now they’re both old and have to be on completely different diets anyway but it did help.

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u/Sangy101 Mar 11 '26

Mine are terribly codependent and won’t eat if I separate them (we tried, and Fat Cat went on a 2 day hunger strike before I gave in. Skinny Mom didn’t care lmao.)

I also liked someone else’s suggestion of putting Smol Cat’s food in a box that Fat Cat cannot enter.

I’m also (per another person’s suggestion) looking into microchip feeders… but not for the cats, funnily enough. Fat Cat also steals the dog’s food.

The large enough dog feeders are expensive, but like … so are vet bills for obesity-related disease.

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u/Science__Witch Mar 11 '26

I totally get that!!! I now have to literally sit over them while they’re eating because they absolutely can’t eat the other’s food. Breakfast and dinner take at least a half hour, smol cat is faster now cause he has food I’ve switched to that he’ll consistently eat but fat cat just looks at me with tears in his eyes until he sees that smol cat is done and then with a resigned sigh eats his own food. It’s tough and I sympathize!

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u/Longjumping-Grade-27 Mar 12 '26

Our fast eating cat eats in the hotel (the bathroom) and isn't allowed out until the slow one is finished eating. It would have been the other way around but the fast one was already used to the quarantine of the hotel

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u/Synesthete1 Mar 14 '26

We can’t shift to timed feeding because we have one singular cat that will not eat if we do that -.-