If you are thinking of getting an automatic feeder for your cat but are not sure of the benefits of doing so, here are the main benefits of setting up a programmable device that will feed your cat automatically.
1. It disassociates you from food: No More Waking Up At 5 or 6 am
Cats associate their owners with food and this association could be very annoying because cats demand food anytime they’re hungry or not so hungry. The most common situation is to be woken up at 5 or 6 AM in the morning with loud meows asking for food. If you need to rest well you will really benefit from your cat to disassociate you from food. Automatic pet feeders allow you to feed your pet without your intervention so your cat won’t expect you to feed him in the morning but instead, he will be sitting next to the feeder waiting for the kibble to be released on the plate when it’s time to eat. If you still want to keep the bond with your cat through the food you can feed your pet wet food in the morning or in the evening when you get back home.
2. Peace of Mind While You Are Working Or On A Trip
If you leave your cat alone at home while at work there’s no option but to leave a bowl full of cat food for the rest of the day. If you go on a trip you may leave a huge container with cat food. You can do better than that for your cat. Get an automatic feeder that works with AC adapter and batteries as a backup. This way you eliminate any risk of the feeder being stopped from operating due to a power outage. The Feeder Robot, the Petlibro Air or the PetSafe Simply Feed, are automatic feeders that work with AC adapters and batteries.
We know cats are food lovers and they tend to eat all their food at once so imagine how much your cat would starve if he eats all the food in the morning leaving nothing for the rest of the day. By the time you get home fluffy will be loud and desperate asking for food. A good benefit of an automatic cat feeder is the ability to dispense the daily food intake in several small portions throughout the day. Maybe you want to feed your pet up to 5 or even 6 small amounts of food at a time to complete his daily food intake. The number of mealtimes to program within 24 hours will depend on the device.
Some automatic feeders allow you to program as many times as you want, especially the WiFi-type feeders that are controlled by smartphones. Dividing the daily food intake into small portions stops your cat from gorging all the food at once which is healthier and avoids vomiting. If you go on a trip the automatic feeder won’t replace human care but if you get a good and reliable device such as the Feeder Robot, you can ask your friend to come to your house less often to check on your pet.
3. Control of Food Intake and Portions
One of the major benefits of automatic cat feeders is that they allow you to feed your cat a healthy amount of food and control the portions.
Control of Portions
You don’t need to divide and measure the daily food intake in several equaled smaller portions. The automatic device does it for you. I am certain that you have better things to do than measuring your cat food every day. I must mention that not all automatic cat feeders on the market allow you to control healthy amounts of food and portions so you have to get a unit with this capability. Some good automatic dry food feeders that dispense small amounts at a time (e.g. teaspoons), are the Petlibro, Pet Feedster, Super Feeder, PetSafe Healthy Pet Simply Feed, Honey Guaridan A36, and Wopet Boost. To feed your cat wet food a good device is the CatMate C500 automatic cat feeder, and the Petsafe 5-meal.
Control of Food Intake
Controlling the food daily intake is really important too. If your cat is overweight or tends to eat too much, this is one of the best benefits of having an automatic cat feeder. If you love your cat as I know you do, you don’t want it to be overweight because this creates a lot of health complications. Free feeding your pet not only can make it overweight but also create bad habits. For example, some cats start eating right after some triggers and this behavior is not uncommon in cats. Having food available at all times allows this to happen. For example, my first cat Lily would eat every time I visited the kitchen, so if I went 30 times she would be eating 30 times. My cat Sophie likes to eat every time he sees us eating :)
4. Control of the Feeding Schedule
If you want to set a personalized feeding schedule for your cat, let’s say a very early breakfast at 5 am, main breakfast at 9 am, then lunch at 1 pm and another at 4 pm, to finish with dinner at 8 pm, for example, you can accomplish that by choosing the right automatic feeder that has this capability. It’s almost like having a pet sitter pouring food in the bowl for your cat, at the exact hours you want. Check the following video on how the Pet Feedster dispenses food in the bowl for my cat to eat.
VIDEO OF HOW AN AUTOMATIC FEEDER FEEDS MY CAT
Automatic feeders allow you to program a custom feeding schedule. With a digital timer, you can program the meals by choosing the hour and minute for each one. You don’t want to choose devices that offer little flexibility to program the hour and minute for each meal. You want to have a unit that can be programmed to feed your cat anytime you want and several times a day. But if you want to fully control your cat’s feeding anytime, from anywhere, the WiFi feeders allow you to trigger meals in real time through your cell phone. Also, you can change the time you want the feeder to dispense the meal, all just by entering the App.
5. Control which pet eats the food
With some automatic feeders, like the Wireless Whiskers, SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder, or PortionPRO RX, you can control which pet will have access to the food. This is a very good benefit if you have:
- A cat with a prescription diet and more pets in the house
- A dog that eats the cat’s food.
- If one of your cats eats the other cat’s food.
Usually, when two cats eat together, the dominating one does not leave the other cat to eat enough or maybe not eat at all. This situation could get really bad to the point of having the starving cat at risk of malnutrition. Fortunately, there are good solutions to keep your chubby cat away from the other’s food that you may want to learn if you have this problem with your cats.
You can experience great benefits by choosing the right automatic feeder. Just do good research on automatic cat feeder reviews and be ready to outsource the task of feeding your cat to enjoy your extra time more.
They keep making these cat dispensers more sophisticated. Won’t be long before us humans aren’t needed anymore. :-)
I hope that does not happen lol!
My daughter uses one of these and it works really well for her although the cats prefer their food directly from her.
Does she feed them during the day too?
Really useful for anyone who is away from home during the day travelling and working. I think a extra treats when home again would let your cat know who feeds and loves her, don’t you think?
I agree. Automatic feeders help in the sense as they feed the cat in healthy amounts daily and according to desired schedules when people is not home. It is excellent as well to disassociate the owners with food in the morning when cats usually want to be fed at very early time when people is usually still sleeping.
It’s good to know that an automatic feeder can control the feeding schedule of your animal without any hassle on your part. My brother-in-law always forgets to feed his pets but doesn’t want to put out extra food because he wants to keep his pets healthy. I’ll pass this information along to him so he can look further into his options for automatic feeders.