Re: 7/1 Peyton Recommendations for auto feeder
We loved the Petsafe 5 compartment feeder too. The only thing i saw criticized in reviews back when we were looking was that it sometimes failed to rotate completely and therefore would open with only part of the compartment open. We found that was caused by not having the food tray fully seated in the base unit.
As long as we made sure it was completely seated, ours always opened. There is a button to rotate the food tray once you have it in the base - so i always set it in one compartment back from where i wanted it, then pressed the button to rotate it. that way i knew it was all the way in.
Two great features to this feeder - it has 4 compartments, which is nice if you want it to open several times. It also has the feature that lets you set whatever times you want. Suzanne/Cobb got one (i don't know what brand) that had preset times that reduced the flexibility of when you could have it open.
i usually put one or two ice cubes in each food compartment to keep the food fresh. There appears to be a spot for a blue ice under the tray, but none came with it and it seems like it was too shallow for any to actually fit in there. I'm not sure if it was meant for that or not.
punkin had acromegaly, which means a huge appetite, and even so, he never broke into that feeder. i really liked it. As far as i could see the only negative was the noise when it rotated, but we "practiced" with it for regular +3 feedings when we were home so he'd get used to it before we actually used it while we were away. He got used to the noise, waited for it to open and would leap for the food. i'd buy it again.