Long vacation- auto feeder?

[Amyitsallgood]

I could really use some advice. I have two 10 day vacations coming up in July and I'm not sure the best way to keep my cat well feed while I'm gone. She is OTJ so I won't need to worry about the sitter giving shots or anything. She eats FF 3 times a day at 7am, 1pm, and 7pm. Will an auto feeder work or is that too long to leave food out? If I freeze the food how long can it be left out? I've also been thinking about trying to switch her to Evo cat and kitten or young living zero carb dry food, figuring that would make things easy, but hate to switch foods. I'm worried about not being able to find a dependable friend that will be able to be at my house at 7am every morning!

What would you do?

 

[Dyana]

I would ask a neighbor (or two) to help. When I go on long vacations (like 10 days), I ask one to do the mornings, and another one to do the evenings, so it's less of a burden. There are auto feeders that you can put ice packs in. Usually, we exchange pet sittings between us.

 

[Melanie and Smokey]

Are you talking about trying to fill an auto feeder for 10 days? The 5 slot PetSafe feeders will cover a 24 hour period counting the hole that is open right away so you have 4 slots covered for the future when the sitter leaves. I don't know if other brands allow you to stretch that farther. I would use an autofeeder and still have someone stopping everyday. They can fill all the slots so if they don't make it on time, there is extra food in the feeder to cover a few hours late. Maybe arrange for someone to be backup so if the usual person can't make it they have someone to call.

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

We use a pet sitter with a feeder for our OTJ kitty. The sitter comes over in the evening, plays with and brushes Niko and then puts food in for the evening meal and a frozen puck for the next morning meal. So it's a once a day visit. We've done it this way for the last few years and it has worked great for us.