I know people keep saying feed multiple times a day, but what amount of food is everyone leaving out for snacks? I know some depends on the cat, but when everyone references small meals throughout the day, talking a spoon full, a dollop, a 3 oz can? Help...my cat (prior to diagnosis) at around 4 oz of wet food a day to maintain her weight to give some perspective (yes, I weight out my cat's food, otherwise they all get tubby).
Once BK regained weight he had lost he ate 1/2 can (fancy feast) at each shot time (fed by myself or Dominick) and from the timed feeder 1/4 can at +4 and +8 and a chunk of freeze dried chicken breast at +10 both AM and PM
I can only speak for myself, but here's my loose regimen: My 3 boys get 3-4 cans in the morning with Edward's shot. I leave the food out, refreshing as needed - sometimes I just re-mix the food to entice them to finish it, and sometimes I'll add another can if they have cleaned their bowls by +6 to +8. Then all food comes up 2 hours before the evening shot, at which time they get another 3-4 cans, which are left out all night until 1.5 hours before morning shot. They don't always finish everything by the time I pick up the bowls.
For snacks, I put a tablespoon or so of LC food into four slots in the auto feeder at +2, +4, +6, +9 at the day time cycle and same thing for the night time cycle every day.
Question on the timed feeders... Does one just program the feeder to open up at a specific time for a specific amount of time? For example - open at +2 for a half hour then close until whenever?
So I have the Petsafe 5, I got it on amazon, it has 5 slots for food. When you open it up, you program it with the current time and then you program the times you want it to turn, so the food will be available. Blaze’s amps and PMPS is 5:30am and 5:30pm, so I programmed the auto feeder to open at 7:30, 9:30, 11:30 and 2:30. The current slot will be open until the next programmed time, and then it will turn again. So the first slot is empty between 5:30-7:30, at 7:30 it turns and the first snack is available and it will stay open until the next programmed time that I have, at 9:30, and so on. I hope that makes sense. You can set it for whatever times you want snacks to be available.
So maybe this is a dumb question, but what if the cat(s) are sleeping when a slot opens/closes? What if the cat has bad timing and only happens to be around when the feeder is closed?
Good info, I too wondered how the autofeeders worked. I'll have to consider getting one to see if it works as well as a camera. I have 6 cats, so I'm sure it won't take long for the constantly hungry ones to realize good food is available at preset times. Does the autofeeder make a noise when it rotates (like a bing or alarm)?
Not a dumb question at all. Sometimes (but this rarely happens) I get home from work and open the auto feeder and one of the snacks wasn’t eaten. So obviously the cats didn’t hear it, it sat there for two hours and no one ate it. It happens but it’s no biggie. Most of time, Blaze hears that auto feeder turn and open and he RUNS to the kitchen to eat the snack. I have ours in the kitchen, I would say to put the auto feeder somewhere that is centrally located in your house, where your cat will most likely hear it when it turns. It makes a loud turning sound so they usually hear it. If you do snacks every 2-3 hours, he will most likely get up at some point, if he didn’t hear it turn, see the snack in there and eat it. I’d say it’s probably only happened twice that I’ve found a snack uneaten.
It’s really a huge peace of mind for me, because I work Monday through Thursday and am usually gone from +1.5 in the am until PMPS, when I get home from work, so knowing that Blaze has snacks available to keep him safe while I’m gone is a life saver. Same thing at night, when I need to go to bed, I know he has the auto feeder. If he’s lower than or similar to the Pre shot test before I’m leaving for work, I will put MC or HC on top of his LC snacks in the auto feeder, to keep him safe. I have three cats, and was worried Blaze wouldn’t get to the auto feeder first when it opened, but I’ve watched him push his brother and sister out of the way to get the food in the auto feeder you can get more than one auto feeder if you are worried that your sugar cat won’t get the snacks. I would definitely test it out when you’re home, so you can see how the cats react to it, if they fight over it, and that will tell you if you need more than one. it doesn't make a bing or have an alarm but it makes a kind of loud “whirring” sound when it’s rotating, definitely loud enough for the cats to hear and know it’s opening. Blaze will be asleep and it will make the turning sound and he will wake up and run to it
I use the Petsafe auto feeder as well and have 4 cats in the house. I have to keep the feed off of the ground otherwise the dogs will get into it. So we put the feeder on top of a table. Problem was Freckles figured out if she knocks the whole feeder down, some of the food might leak out. (It's not a small feeder either). So now I use an old dresser and open the top drawer to put the feeder in it. She can't knock it down anymore and if I don't want her to get into her snack for a particular reason, I can just close the drawer. I was concerned about her missing her snack too, so I put her bed on top of the dresser. Even when another cat decides to sleep in Freckles' bed, she will sit in the drawer and wait for the feeder to turn. She's pretty good at telling time now.
I've got 2 food thieves in the house. Freckles and Tuxman (he loves Freckles and she can't STAND him!! )
My feeder has a recorded message of my voice , so when my cat hears the motor and then me- he goes to the feeder. Unless I am home and then he just sort of looks at me confused for a minute. The feeder slots stay open until the next rotation, so it doesn't matter as much if they don't run for the food right away. Some nights, his +2 is only half eaten- some nights the +4 hasn't been touched. It's just a safe net in case he needs it and I am not around. I use the freezer cubes that other people have mentioned and some are half cubes and others are full- it just depends.
Regarding snacks... I tend to think of them as mini-meals. Once you know how much your kitty needs to eat to maintain a healthy weight, divide it up into the number of mini-meals you want to feed or however you want to proportion it out over the number of times you want your cat to have food. Using Blaze as an example, let's say Blaze eats a 6oz can of food at AMPs and PMPS. Food is provided at 5:30, 7:30, 9:30, 11:30, and 2:30. One option would be to feed Blaze 2oz at shot time and an ounce at each mini-meal slot thereafter. If you base the snacks on how much your kitty requires to maintain a healthy weight, your kitty won't get to "fluffy." Usually the cats can hear the Petsafe 5 turn. Some feeders have a bell. Some will even record your voice.
Before Blaze was diagnosed and my kitties were still on dry food, I had auto feeders for kibble and it had the option to record my voice so I recorded myself saying “DINNER TIME KITTIES!” in a southern accent (I don’t have a southern accent). It was so funny to hear, my husband and I would laugh when we heard it but I think it just confused the cat’s
Yes! Thank you for making the snack amount more clear. I know all kitties eat a different amount of food to maintain a healthy weight. At amps and PMPS, Blaze gets 1/3 a can of Friskies paté, and about a tablespoon, maybe a little less, at each snack time, at 7:30, 9:30, 11:30 and 2:30 for the am and pm cycle. This amount of food daily helps Blaze maintain his weight and not get too chunky
Just adding the raw food persepective. And also noting it's not the amount of food that's important, but rather the calories. Raw food is more calorie dense than canned. 4 oz, or 125 grams of raw food was what Neko got a day. She'd need a 5.5 oz can to get the same calories, of the brand of canned food I was feeding at the time (only for trips when raw was just too hard to manage). I split the 4 oz into AM and PM portions. Neko got half her cycle portion at preshot, and the other half was split between her mini meals. She got a slight advance on her PM feed at AM+9. Or if I was up at PM+9 for my workout, then an advance on her AM feed. She often nadired around +9.
