I have some entertaining cats, as most of you are aware from some of my other posts. They are both very independent barn cats who love on you like housecats. And really, they are porch kitties more than true barn cats.

However, they love the barn. They love to sleep in the hay. And the barn is where I feed them. I actually put their food on top of the tall hay stacks to keep the dog from eating it. Works well as they enjoy climbing the hay bales and the dog can’t follow. Although… it has created an interesting dilemma.

Our one cat, Spice, has this odd desire to hide her food. Now, I understand it, as everything seems to want to eat cat food. I have found squirrels, birds, raccoons, and even stray cats in our barn eating our cats’ food. However, I have never heard of a cat hiding her food.

I noticed first that hay seem to pile up on top of the cats’ food dish. I thought it was accidental at first, until one day I actually watched the cat scrape off the hay from the bale to cover the food. It looked just like the same process they use to cover their waste when they are in a sandbox, except she was scraping hay up to cover her food dish.

Has anyone ever heard of this kind of behavior from a cat before? I know I haven’t! It seems counterintuitive too as their food becomes mixed with little bits of hay that can’t be pleasurable to eat around. I even started putting the food on top of a piece of wood – but that hasn’t stopped her. She will scrape the hay across the wood to get to the food dish.

So, I have accepted her need to hide her food and let her deal with the ramifications of pokey hay mixed in her cat food.