What cheap cat toy does yours like best

[awfulapril]

Young cats 1 yo

Cat nip banana wins hands down with every cat I ever had.

Silver foil rolled up into a ball!

Hair bobbles. Drives you mad when you can’t find one in the morning though!

A wiggled piece of string!

A cardboard box.

Springs, thankfully they come in a pack of 40 for about a fiver because they all end up under the sofa!

A stick (garden cane) with a long bit of cotton tied to the end and a sweet paper (or bit of foil) tied to the other end of the cotton.

Make the sweet paper 'hide' like a mouse behind cushions or coffee table legs ect and just jerk the cotton and rustle the paper a little bit and my usually quite inactive ragdoll cats go mad hunting, finding and then chasing it. Even my 17 year old one!

My youngest one (3 yr old) leaps miles in the air to get it and races across the sofas like a crazy thing 🤪

Haha I had a little tub that contained them and I kept finding them on the floor but didn't know why.

Until I witnessed my cat helping herself to one 😅🤣🤣🤣🤣 she would pull it up in her mouth with it attached to her claw then it'd ping and she would chase after it! So clever but no bobbles for me so had to box it off 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Our postie used to drop elastic bands so she would find then outside and do the same thing lol.

He is very good at footie ( for a cat) so a mini size tennis ball is good. His absolute favourite thing is his scratching post, he has practically destroyed the first one through overuse so I might have to replace it.

My dds old cat used to hoik chocolates out of the celebrations box and chase them around the room, I only found this out when I helped myself to one and spotted the tooth marks.

Small child's tooth brush. Fits perfectly under the fridge. Spins nicely on the tile floors and moves fast!

Little felt balls, you can get a bag of 20 or something from Amazon. I spend a lot of time at the top of the stairs, her at the bottom, whilst I throw these down for her and she goes crazy catching and chasing them!

Mousie on a stick for one, ratty old feather mouse for the other. They both like a cardboard scratcher too.

Also cheap pens and nerf bullets on hard floors.

Every other thing is ignored in favour of my stair carpet and the fabric round the footstool which are both disintegrating fast...

We have a tatty piece of string tied to the bannister which god knows what visitors make of it!!

Also, I started a thread about this, currently going mad, and I mean mental for a small piece of plastic plumbing pipe that got left behind after some recent plumbing work.

I used to have a cat who brought in elastic bands from the postie too! How funny.

Cotton buds!! I was wondering why they were scattered over the floors in the morning, discovered the little scamp had learned how to open this in the bathroom 🤣

Cat 1 - catnip mice (or real mice 😬)
Cat 2 - small fuzzy balls. Similar texture to wool dryer balls but smaller. No other balls will do 🙄
Cat 3 - plastic drinking straw or pasta.

The foil off a mint Viscount.

thank you all!

like what? Can you show me?

TOTALLY agree with pom pom balls, they love them

Empty large brown paper envelope/bag packaging form an Amazon order. Totally free and all five cats love it.
after that, any toy that vaguely smells of cat nip.

Ours still enjoys playing with the baubles that he knocked off our Christmas tree.

Hopefully the picture appears, but these things. Amazon have them in packs of 40. I've just had to open some more as I couldn't be bothered hunting under the sofa for them 😁

Anything that moves once it's been touched - they see it moving and instantly pounce on it which makes it move more etc.

Sparkly tinsel balls, springs, mini foam footballs etc all get played with several times a day.

They also like kicker toys (stuff they grab with their front paws and kick with the back legs). I have a few, some with cat nip in, some without.

For active play I have laser pens (ones safe for eyes), a feather on an extra long pole and string toy that gets some very impressive leaps out of them, and a duck on elastic that hangs in a doorway.

They are 13 now and still play with the above. I've tried lots of more expensive techy toys over the years but these are what they consistently liked.

I keep a big box in a cupboard and when they stop using something for a week or so it goes in the box and something else comes out, so there is a constant novelty in what is available.

Shiny, crinkly ball. Loves to carry it around! 🤣