Automatic feeder recommendations?

Hi,

I'm a regular on the Lantus board, but felt this question was more general in nature. We're going away in early July and still working out the arrangements for our three cats, one of whom was diagnosed as DB in May and on a micro-dose (fat .25u and heading into lower numbers at night). We're looking into arrangements for watching them, but it seems like for at least the first four days (we'll be gone a week), it will be one person visiting twice a day at shot time. After that, they will likely have someone full-time. We're looking into automatic feeders to make sure food is always available. They were all changed to an all wet food diet (FF) recently and doing well, but I'm worried about someone hogging the food. I'm wondering which feeders you have that work well? Why do you like it, what don't you like, do you have multiple cats? Do we need more than one? I'm worried about many aspects of leaving, but it's the only time each year that my whole family gets together and we are locked in with plane tickets. I just want to eliminate as much worry as possible.

Thanks for any feedback you can offer!
Janice

 

Hi Janice
the petsafe 5 meal feeder. Lots of us use it. Petsmart has it. i don't have the link handy but you can check out the site. I love it. I only have 1 and was using it for Max for nights.
With the 3 cats, for sure 2 unless they eat at different times. I wish I had another one as I will be going away for a few days and have not figured it out with 1 feeder and 3 cats.
You can get the little glass dishes from the dollar store and they fit into the slots.
The kitties can't break into it. I used to put my bowls in the freezer so the food stayed cold but
I just might have to freeze the food too and have it left out so it will thaw through the day.

 

Me too. PetSafe 5 is the best. They can't break into it; it is easy to program and not prescribed - you can set it up for any amount of time you want. It holds 5 cans of Fancy Feast. I had two other kinds and Oliver destroyed them both. This one, the sections with the food move, not the lid.

You will probably need more than one since it opens one section at a time. I freeze my FF in a plastic cupcake pan, pop them out and store them in freezer bags. Then when I need one, it is ready in the freezer.

 

I just bought the Auto pet feeder and I like it so far. I will be going away at the end of July also, so trying to get things lined up as well. I bought mine from another site, but the next day I found that Wal-mart carries them cheaper ohmygod_smile http://www.walmart.com/ip/6-Day-Automatic-Pet-Feeder-Cats-Dogs/5969455 I had to buy 5, so the PetSafe 5 meal was a bit pricey for me.

Good luck!

 

For 3 cats, we have 2 of the Petsafe 5-meal and 2 2-meal/48hour pop-up ones. We set the Petsafe for turning every 4 hours (1.5 oz in each slot) and the pop-ups for 6 hours (3 oz in each tray) when we are gone. The pop-ups are good for having food available all the time since they stay open and they can eat until its gone, the 5 meal are good because it rations so they can't eat it all in the first hour :lol:

My Smokey has declared the 5 meal feeders hers and I have caught her running the other ones off and wolfing all the food down. The other two know the sound of it turning though, and if they are hungry they will get there and she can't eat out of both at the same time, plus they like eating the out of the pop-up ones in the kitchen.

We also always have out sitter feed then when she is there so they all at least get fed something twice a day.

The only drawbacks I see in the 5-meal Petsafe if that they sometimes get stuck in the middle of two sections (for cats not a big deal, they just dig it out with their paw ) and they are noisy-ours are in the bedroom and my husbands hates them.

 

Petsafe 5-meal Auto Feeder

Shadoe loves hers, and it's a good way to space out food for her to eat during the days when I am away.
It's especially handy now with 2 cats eating wet foods. Even if Oliver eats some of hers from the feeder, she can still have some foods a few hours later when the feeder turns.