Top Three Cheap Cat Toys
Cats are bonkers for toys. Play is essential for their mental health and physical fitness whether they are young or old. Even our old cranky 17-year-old tabby who insists she Really Doesn’t Have Time For These Shenanigans still sneaks off to go play with her toys when we aren’t looking. It’s normal for cats to sleep a lot but they need to balance it out with plenty of activity during their waking hours, especially kittens and young cats.
There are literally tens of thousands of cat toys out there. The Evaluated Feline Team has tested hundreds over the last two years and when trying to come up with this list, we all tried hard to think about what has consistently kept our cats busy and moving with universal appeal across every age group and type of cat we’ve tested on or owned. This list was perhaps one of the hardest to narrow down but in the end, none of these should surprise you if you are a cat owner.
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The Hair Elastic, aka "Mouse"
The Hair Elastic. I know. Crazy if you haven’t seen how cats run and play with these. If you haven't experienced the mayhem and weirdness, you are missing out. The 4mm size is best, fairly firm so it stays round and rolls- and it has to be a soft finish so it easily slides across the floor.
Every cat I know tosses these in the air, chases them, and eventually hoards them. Dark-colored ones are more visible on a light-colored carpet, your bed, and other places where kitties like to play with them. These also come in bright colors, which we recommend for older/visually impaired cats.
If you’ve never heard the eerie sound of a cat singing the triumphant song of the successful hunt with one of these in her mouth, it’s time. You get a big pack of them and a bonus- if you have long hair you can use them too. When giving these to your cats, be careful around dogs, as they might eat them after seeing how much fun the cats have.
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The 7-in-1 UpGraded Improved Laser Pointer
I don’t know who first thought “let’s see what happens” or if the cats just figured this all out by themselves but for decades the laser pointer has been the ultimate way to have a cat tearing around the whole house without even having to get up out of your chair. And these laser pointers take that crazy to a whole new level of insanity- you can change the projection of the laser from a dot to various shapes, including a mouse. So the kitty gets bored of the dot and is sitting there looking at it, acting casual, like he just really doesn’t give a care, and boom! Suddenly the dot changes. It keeps the play going longer, and even the disinterested cats who feign no interest will get triggered when the stupid little dot suddenly shifts and changes.
Pro tip: Be sure to click it back to the dot when you are pointing it at a far away surface. If you project the shape too far away on a distant wall, the mouse/butterfly/star will look really, really big. This may (at best) make your cat lose interest or possibly scare him.
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The Flopping Shark Toy
The famous flopping fish toy went viral a few years ago- the ultimate kicker toy. These toys flip themselves around, wiggling using a hinged mechanism inside that’s powered by a rechargeable battery. We went through over a dozen of the various flipper toys in the last year of testing and found that we like the Pet Craft Supply version the best. Why? The printed fish toys tend to have a thinner material that looks realistic but wears out in a hurry. This shark has thicker plush material so it stands up to those two back legs trying to shred it… and it’s hilarious to look at. We’ve tried these on each of our feline teams around the world and every group of them has tried extensively to murder it. So you know it’s good. It flips pretty vigorously, so let your more timid cats approach it on their own. Add a little catnip and it’ll be total mayhem. We rotate this out with the Pet Craft Squid as it has to be recharged every 2 days or so. This is not a safe toy to have around dogs!
