i'm not sure there's a perfect answer to your question. i agree with Sandy in that food is your friend in caring for a diabetic cat when you work. i had the same feeder as Sandy, the
PetSafe 5 Compartment Feeder. The complaints you'll see online about it are that it doesn't open. My experience was that as long as you have the feeding tray fully seated in the base unit, it always rotated appropriated and always opened all the way.
Here's a discussion with some opinions about
timed feeders.
If a cat's BGs go below 50, you give them food. So when you go off to work, you're going to predict what Mottyl might do in the next few hours. Set the timed feeder to open based upon your predictions. if she's a cat that you can count on eating, that's a good thing.
Some people adjust their shot time so they can get a +2 before they go out the door. That gives you the little heads-up about what the cycle might bring. Punkin's nadir was regularly about +5.5, so we always fed him a second breakfast at +3. If his preshot was low and we thought he might need help, we set the timed feeder to go off at +3, +3.5, +4 and +4.5. Then either my husband or I would jet home from work, test him and reset it with more food if needed. I have thought people could get a second feeder and just set it to go every half hour if they couldn't come home to test. just a thought.
the timed feeders make a lot of noise when they rotate or open, so it's worth getting Mottyl used to it when you're home so you can count on her accepting it and eating from it when you need her to.
