Cat Toys!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Please help educate me about cat toys.

I have invented two very cool types of cat toys–a felt ball and a mousie. They are both made from recycled wool, and everyone who sees them (both feline and human) thinks they’re really neat. So much so that I decided to make a bunch and try to sell them at a local craft show on Dec. 8.

But here’s my problem: I know little about cats and what kind of toys they like. I can make the toys in several versions and sizes, but I don’t know where the demand is. So I’m hoping you all will help me out and answer a few questions:

Catnip: I know most cats love catnip. Do any cats dislike catnip? Do some owners not want to give their cats too much catnip. Should I make some of the mousies without catnip, or should I put it in all of them?

Jingly bells: Should I put jingly bells in all of the mousies and felt balls, or should I make some without?

Size: Some of the cat owners that have seen my toys have expressed that it is good that they are on the large side. Do your cats like bigger toys or tiny toys.

Also, how does your cat play? Does he like you to dangle something? (I can make an extra long tailed mousie.) Does he like to bat the toys around?

And how much would you pay for a super-cool, environmentally friendly cat toy?

Any advice at all is very welcome.

Thanks.

2

Q-tips. But my cat is not representative of the feline species.

3

My guys love catnip, but it makes them fight, sometimes so hard that I have to break them up. I can see how some people might want to avoid catnip.

Anyway, in my experience catnip-inside-things doesn’t excite them nearly as much as just sprinkling dried catnip on the carpet. They go nuts for it, the little druggies. I keep it in the freezer and they start to get excited when I open the freezer door.

Sound is very good. Consider rattlies as well as jinglies.

The one toy my boys have gone consistently nuts for is little brightly colored rabbit fur mice. Real rabbit fur, and I’m sorry to say I think it’s the actual animal hide that they’re so attracted to.

People love to buy pet toys because it’s partly about the novelty. Cats get bored with anything in a few days; you have to have lots of toys and keep rotating them, adding new ones every so often. So go for different, unique, individualized. Something people don’t already have a bunch of.

Oh, and dangly is great. A vote Yes on the long-tailed mouse.

4

Medium to large (nothing smaller than, say, an inch in diameter) is good, and the toys should be very difficult to rip apart, especially if you put sound-makers inside. No one wants a happy playtime to end with a trip to the vet for emergency surgery to extract pieces of cat toy from Kitty’s gut. Dangly is fantastic, as long as the cats can’t rip the tail off the mouse.

If you can make toys that owners can dangle for their kitties, those are great, too. Almost every cat I’ve known has gone crazy for those “feather-duster” type toys a person can wiggle at them.

5

catnip is weird stuff, man… my mom used to make her own cat toys for our baby and her occasional litters, and once a bag of catnip spilled, the whole thing, on the kitchen floor. She cleaned it up and swept and mopped and stuff… but the cats would just roll around in that spot on the floor, rubbing against the linoleum like mad, for days…

My only input would be on price. If I thought it was a really awesome toy, and environmentally friendly to boot, I would probably pay, at the most, 6-7 bucks for it. Probably a little less, though. But I’m cheap. I dunno.

6

Both my adult cats love catnip (I grow my own) but my 6 month old kitten hasn’t developed a taste for it - yet. If it was inside of the toy, and the cats weren’t actually consuming it, it shouldn’t be a problem. Yes - my cats eat the catnip, then roll on the spot on the floor all goofy like.

One thing I learned with my new kitten is some cats like to drop their toys on the water bowl :rolleyes:, so make them so they don’t fall apart when they get wet (unlike those furry mice - they make a mess when wet, but my kitten loves them). Another thing with the getting wet - toys with a lot of dyes annoy me - they stain when they get wet.

Sound is good - Hanna much prefers the toys with bells. I, OTOH, like silence at 4 AM when she decides it is time to play with her toys on the bed.

All three of my cats (even the two adult fuddy duddies) like toys on wands. I get paraniod about the string part (worried about it getting wrapped around their necks) but that thicker plastic string is OK. It isn’t rigid, but it is rigid enough that it would almost be impossible to accidentally tangle.

If it was a good, durable toy I would probably pay up to $10 for it. I hesitate to spend more because cats are so fickle about what they like.

7

Masonite, catnip makes my guys fight too. Actually, just one. Rudy gets all mellow and Manfred acts like he’s on PCP. He once hit Rudy so hard he knocked him off his feet. That was the last time I gave them the stuff.

8

Cats love interactive toys that you dangle or drag for them because that’s closer to hunting something down. Mine, however, really, really, really love toys they can grab hold of and just kick the shit out of. Eponine especially loves to roll around bunny-kicking the living hell out of a toy. Maggie prefers to just bat crinkly things around.

9

Well, my Mom has 9 cats and I have three, and these are my suggestions. Most all of these cats like smaller toys. I don’t like bells, and they don’t seem to either. I saw in a documentary on cats that any noise you hear is ten times louder to cat ears. Ever since then I can’t bear bells on toys or collars. It would be funny to say “bell-free for your 4 a.m. sleeping pleasure”.

Some with, some without catnip would be my suggestion. Liking catnip is a genetic thing. Some cats go crazy, some could care less. But I don’t think any cats are revolted by the smell. Most all of ours like it, but they all get pissy after a while of being around it.

Most cats like just plain old string, like shoestrings. So extra long tails are good, they will save the owners’ fingers from scratches in the long run too. Perhaps you could braid three strands to make the tail extra sturdy.

Good luck with your sales! To catch cat-lovers’ attention you might get a few cute stuffed kitties to put with your display, or some cute cat photos – maybe one of your friend’s cats with one of the toys, and maybe decorate one of those small fake Christmas trees with some of the smaller toys. A cute display can persuade people to spend more $$.

Also, I would totally not tell anyone there that you don’t own any cats or don’t know much about them. Cat people can be weird about stuff like that.

Blessings,
Bethany

10

One toy both my cats go nuts over—the plastic rings (about an inch and a half around) you pull off the top of plastic orange-juice jugs when you first open the lid. They play ring-toss with them, chase them around, wear 'em like bracelets.

11

Pens.

If you leave a pen on a table, one of my cats will always start playing with it. I don’t know what the fascination is.

As for general observatons, I would say that anything that rattles is good. I think such sounds give added impetus to playing/hunting behaviors. Also, it’s been my experience that cats like balls, and so forth, especially that bounce or roll unpredictably.

THE BEST CAT TOY EVER!! Once, when we had a mylar balloon leftover from some holiday, I took a small toy mouse and tied it the other end of the balloon’s ribbon. This floated around the apartment–a “fledermaus”, if you will. This thing drove all four cats wild.

12

Medium to large is definitely good–you don’t want something so small your kitty can swallow it. Long tail is also great as long as it’s not long enough for the cat to partially swallow and gag on.

For some reason, my cat doesn’t like catnip-stuffed toys as much as the real deal scattered on the floor. I don’t think that stops owners from buying it, though.

One note: I’ve had a lot of difficulty in finding cat toys that are well constructed. I avoid ones that have pompoms, feathers, etc. glued on and am also a little wary of jingle bells. My cat is very aggressive–he would tear off things like that and possibly swallow them.

As for price–depends on the size and construction. I pay about $3.50 for the durable sisal-covered mice that Max loves.

13

I brought home a bouquet yesterday for Pepper Mill (It was her birthday). It was a BIG bouquet, wrapped up with a Pipe Cleaner. Pepper tossed that Pipe Cleaner onto the floor as a Cat Toy.

The cats all went NUTS over this. They have other things on the floor to play with (like the bottle-cap-rings Eve mentioned), but they each had to take a turn at batting this around. Lotta was so engrossed that she didn’t even beg for food at dinner. Midnight, our arthritic overweight cat, was running around on the floor after it like a kitten.

Quote from Nancy Leibowitz’ button site:

“Anything not nailed down is a Cat Toy. Anything nailed down can be pried loose.”

14

Let’s see:
*Catnip: My cat pretty much ignores it.
*Jingle bells: Ditto.
*Size: depends on how she wants to play with it. For something to bat about, it needs to be relatively small (like the top to a 2 liter bottle). For something she wants to ‘kill’, it needs to be big enough for her to hang onto with her front paws and rabbit-kick with the back ones.
*Method of play: She likes it when the toy comes to her instead of having her go after it.
*Other favorite toys/snacks: Dad (chew toy), cardboard (toy/snack), used Q-tips (snack), bubbles (toy, attempted snack), furry mouse-on-a-bungee (hangs from a doorframe: toy).
*Toys that are ignored (stupid human trick!): Laser pointers, anything gotten ‘for the cat’, anything that makes us laugh at her.

How about (if you can make the mice big enough) having the butt-end be a flap that Velcro’s shut, so that people could put fresh catnip inside, switch out a jingle bell, or otherwise customise what’s in the mouse? Small snaps might work also, but if they came off they’d be a possible hazard.

<< Tag! >>

15

One of my cat’s favorites is a piece of dry cat food on a long length of fishing line. I trail it behind me, and she gets the “ooooh it’s a bug” look in her eyes.

16

Favorite toy for my parents’ cat: dry kibble fished out of the dog’s bowl.

17

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions so far! Keep it coming!

Fortunately, the mousies are damn near indestructible. The tails and whiskers can’t come off. And they wouldn’t be harmed by getting dropped in the water bowl.

The bodies of the finished mousies are about 3" long and 1.5 inches in diameter. I’m going to make some smaller, some will probably come out bigger, but they will all be in that range. People can pick out a smaller or larger one if they want. The regular tails are about 4" long, and the long tails are over 2 feet.

The smallest felt balls are about ping-pong ball sized. The medium size is about that of a tennis ball. The large size is close to a softball. I don’t expect to sell those as cat toys, but rather for dogs and humans.

Thanks for all the info regarding pros and cons of jingle bells and catnip. I will make some with and some without.

Nightsong: I’ve already thought long and hard about making refillable catnip mousies (it’s a great idea). I don’t think I can do it for a couple of reasons: 1. It would take a lot of extra labor, meaning that the mousies would have to be priced too high. 2. Durability issues, as you noted. 3. These toys will be 100% biodegradable, except for the metal jingly bells, which can be reused or recycled. Adding features like velcro means that I’d have to use plastics.

I don’t know if customers are really that interested in biodegradable and environmentally sound cat toys, but it’s important to me. Hopefully, I can help the environment, make cats happy, and make a profit at the same time. It’s a win win win situation (if it works!).

My prices will be about $5 - 10. The higher prices will be for the bigger balls and the long-tailed mousies. According to my informal research, there are a lot of the nicer cat toys being sold in that range, so I guess people are willing to pay that much. I decided to design toys that can profitably be sold in that price range rather than try to convince people to pay more than they’re used to for a cat toy.

bwk Your point is well taken. I expect to hear a lot of cat stories! I love cats, but have never lived with one long term. My husband is allergic, which gives me a convenient excuse to give my customers if they ask why I don’t have a cat. I’d certainly have one if I could. I think cats are really terrific. To me they are like living pieces of fine art.

18

My cats definitely love things that make some noise, but not a lot of noise. They absolutely loved a couple of toys I bought last year - they were pretty normal looking, but when you squeezed them they sounded like they had crumpled paper or plastic inside. My cats went wild for this noise. Which makes sense, since most cats looooove crumpled paper.

19

I think a wool cat toy would work quite well as a rechargeable catnip toy. Just buy the finely powdered/flaked stuff and rub some more on the mousie every now and again.

I bought a cardboard scratching pad that came with some finely ground catnip recharger. The cats didn’t use the scratching pad for scratching, but they’d spend hours licking and rubbing it after I recharged it.

20

Put the catnip on your dog’s testicles, then be prepared for hours of fast-paced entertainment. Aaaah, pets.