Cardboard Tube Treat Wall

🧺 You will need

• Six to nine cardboard tubes (toilet roll or kitchen roll cut down)
• A stiff cardboard backing board, roughly 30cm square
• Non-toxic PVA glue
• Scissors
• Dry treats or a portion of your cat's daily kibble
• Tissue paper or small cardboard offcuts for extra difficulty

🔧 How to make it

1. Cut the tubes to varying lengths, between 6cm and 12cm, so the finished cluster has an uneven, interesting profile.
2. Arrange them upright on the backing board in a honeycomb cluster, with the openings facing outward, and check the layout before gluing anything.
3. Glue each tube to the board and to its neighbours, then leave the whole thing to dry thoroughly — several hours at least.
4. Prop the board against a wall or lean it in a corner. It works vertically, but a slight backward tilt stops treats rolling straight out.
5. Drop a few treats into the bottom of some tubes and leave others empty, so searching is part of the game.
6. For the first few sessions, leave the treats near the tube openings where they are easy to see and reach.
7. Once your cat has the idea, push the treats deeper and loosely plug a few tubes with crumpled tissue paper to make it harder.

💡 Tips

Feed a portion of the daily ration through the puzzle rather than treating it as an extra — otherwise you are adding calories to a cat that is probably already getting enough. Cats work these out much faster than owners expect, so build in the ability to increase difficulty: deeper treats, plugged tubes, a mix of empty and loaded holes. When the board eventually gets shredded, it costs nothing to build another, which is rather the point.

📝 Notes

Takes about twenty minutes to build and lasts a month or two of daily use. Keep collecting tubes for the next one.

🎬 Related videos

• DIY Cat Treat Dispenser
• Cat Enrichment — The DIY Puzzle Feeder