Only a matter of time
I bought this auto feeder a few months back and it has alleviated everything from long hours and trips away from home to 4am wake up calls for breakfast. I use a small scoop for dry food portion sizes that don't even come close to the amount of food that could be stored, and the dual timers make creating a schedule easy.
**HOWEVER**
If your cat, like mine, is intuitive and persistent, they will eventually learn how to turn the timer dial until it reaches the "open" slot to chow down on their hard earned reward.
As of now I'm unaware of any modification that can be made to the dial itself, and it seems I may need to upgrade to something different in the hopes that my cat doesn't figure that out as well.
It Worked!
My cat has been waking me up at 5 am, non stop meowing, demanding breakfast. I bought this to try to alleviate that problem. 2 things I learned.
1). Cup open an old ice pack and repackage it into baggies in a size to fit the trays. Saves buying the much more expensive ones that come with ice packs. (and yes, it's safe, I worked for years in a plant that made those ice packs.). 2). At least for my cat, regular cat food wasn't enough to impress him. I started adding a few temptation treats and a Lickable treat.
Success! I now don't hear from him until 7 or 8 am. He's happy. I'm happy!
By Bellamom on Mar 24, 2023
Needs better timer
We have two cats, so bought two units. Was kind of excited that this would allow us to take weekends away without having to bother others to come feed the cats. The problem is that the timer has marks for only opening on the hour and the half hour, and the instructions say that it will only open at these intervals. However, there are several clicks between each hour marker, and once you choose a set time, the indicator has play in it that allows the arrow or dial to swivel between one numbered hour or half hour all the way to the next, so you do not know what time you are really setting it for. Figured that a half hour either way would suffice, so set both units, one for each cat at opposite ends of the room, exactly the same way with exactly the same number of clicks between numbers. No go. One opened 10 minutes early, the other 20 minutes late. Since only one opened at first, both cats ate the food from the first one, then one cat retired to the other room. When the second unit opened, the one cat that had stayed in the room got all of cats ate the food from the first one, then one cat retired to the other room. When the second unit opened, the cat that had stayed in the room got all of the food in it, which meant that had we not been here, the other cat might have gotten only a half portion of food. While I am sure she would not starve over the course of the weekend, it is not an optimal solution. Now we have to purchase two OTHER, probably more expensive, maybe digital units, and we are out the money for these two. My fault for trying to be thrifty I guess
Gets the job done
I bought this so my cat can have dry food snacks throughout the day and night outside of her wet food meals at breakfast and dinner. She can’t graze so I have to break it into little snacks. Within an hour of me setting it up, she had already flipped it over (and she is a small cat who otherwise has never tried to break into her food supply). I Command Stripped it to the floor and that seems to be working. The thing itself is easy to use and to clean. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on something complicated when I really just need a way to keep her from waking me up before the sun is even out for breakfast.
Hmmm just OK.
This feeder is ok as backup. The dial is hard to see and the numbers rub off. One side did NOT consistently pop up. I tape little bells to each lid to signal opening. I upgraded to a 2 bowl digital timer bowl that works for wet food, that has not failed. I use this dial bowl for treats. Please, someone out there, make a Wi-fi digital timer WET food feeder. If wet cat food can come in pouches (canned or pouches is room temp) then someone make a bigger pouch to load and squeeze into a bowl at a set time. This is NOT to leave my cat home alone. This is to help me get some SLEEP so kitty doesnt throw a hangry tantrum at, hmmm, 3 or 4 or 5 AM!!!!! You know what I mean, LOL!!
Most affordable feeder
This is the second one I've ordered. It is a simple mechanism and it works silently. My cats no longer demand to be fed at four in the morning. The feeder opens and they eat, leaving me alone. It's a miracle.
Finally getting sleep
This feeder has allowed me to sleep past 4-5 am. My cat was waking me to be fed, & would not let up at all. This is working out really well for us both.
24 hours total
Each feeder is only 24 hours, so this will work only if you can reset it each day. It works just as described.
Affordable Assistant
This is a wonderful item. I set it at 3.5hr and 7hr past the last feeding of the evening and it attends my cat overnight without me being awakened by his call to feed him every 4hrs.
Not secure
Welp, after all of two uses of this product, our <1 year old kitty was able to figure out the mechanism.
The timed opening works alright, just beware that any food motivated pet is probably going to be able to open the lids early.
