I feed my cats on flat, low-walled plates to reduce whisker fatigue, but they tend to push a lot of their dry food off the back of the plate and onto the floor, at which point they refuse to eat it as it’s “dirty”.
Bowls with higher walls can cause whisker fatigue, where the cat is stressed by their sensitive whiskers brushing against the raised sides of the bowl. This leads them to avoid eating from the bottom of the bowl where the stress on the whiskers would be the highest, leading to them yelling for more food when the bowl still has food at the bottom. That’s why I use wide flat plates, so their whiskers can move freely while they eat.
So I designed and printed a 5cm (2”) tall semi-circle wall with a floor section that slides under the plates. With this wall on only part of the plate, they can still eat comfortably with their whiskers out, but they are blocked from shoving their food onto the floor with their giant bites. The wall fits 18cm diameter plates by default but can be easily resized to fit other plates.
Since I printed the wall a few days ago, I’ve had only two pieces of food make it to the floor! That’s a vast improvement, so I’m very happy with the design.
Also, to be clear, the larger white table thing under the plate is not part of the print - it’s an anti-ant device with diatomaceous earth around the legs so ants can’t climb up onto the food plate on top.
My print is just the half wall directly attached to the plate.
The author marked this model as their own original creation.