timer vs freezing food in multi cat house

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Misty&Bast

Misty&Bast

Member Since 2012
My kitty will be coming home soon and I know i need to get both my cats on a wet food diet. They are used to a free feeder of dry food all the time.

I work long shifts. I worked out I can give shots before & after work (the 11 hour shifts are ok for that) I am concerned about feeding. I have read about some people freezing food or using a timed feeder. How do you keep the food from going bad? I live in CA and eventhough we have air - it sometimes gets HOT. How do you know who ate the food? (which cat)

any advce would be welcomed.
 
Some users freeze the wet food and place in the timed feeder. Some use a reusable freeze pack with the food in the feed. Some feeders sell ones that fit but small one seem to work OK.
The problem, as you said is you do not know who ate the food unless you place the cats is separate rooms.
 
I have a timed feeder that is set up for when Lucy was on insulin (5months OTJ) and I froze the canned food in an ice cube tray! Each morning after kitty breakfast I filled the feeder, it was set to open 3, 6 and 9 hours later....never had an issue with it.

I can relate to the two cat scenario, my diabetic gal was sooooo hungry when first diagnosed that there was NO WAY her civvie sister would be able to get at the food (heck, she still sits on top of the feeder 5 min before it opens so she is first at food) I find now that they work it out between themselves, the civvie often doesn't bother with it.

My advice would be to make sure that they get enough food while you are able to supervise them, or, can someone come over mid day to feed them for you?

Not sure if that helps you @-)
 
any brand you reccommend for feeders?


I found 9 lives & friskies 5oz cans for 50 cents on sale - is that good? I was told most cats eat 2 cans a day- that seems like a lot of food.
 
i can't speak as to what food works best for feeders as i've always done the frozen food cubes laid out on a plate thing myself but just wanted to say, yes, 9 lives and friskies have several brands that are low carb and fine for diabetics.

and fifty cents a can is about the going rate for both right now i think. i did go to petsmart last weekend and they had the friskies on pet perks for forty nine cents if i remember right and the walmart there at the 91 and mckinley (and petsmart is right next to the walmart) has theirs for forty six cents a can. the only problem with walmart is they don't carry too many flavors that are low carb in the friskies 5.5 oz cans anymore. they do though have 13 ounce cans of about 3 or 4 flavors that are low carb for ninety four cents a can which is a really good deal and useful when freezing food :-)

oh, i don't know what petsmart is selling 9lives for these days but again, that walmart has 4 packs of the 9 lives for $1.58 if i remember correctly.

there's probably petsmart and walmart a little closer to you and i'd assume the prices should be the same since we're so close.
 
We have the Petsafe 5 feeder and love it! I'm not sure where you live, but here it cost almost $70!!! Honestly it was the best $70 I've spent!

That price sounds about right. Currently Lucy eats one 5.5oz can (great choice) and one 85g (fancy feast) daily. Sometimes she is a bit more hungry so I give her extra. She lost a lot of weight before she was diagnosed so her vet wanted her to eat!

Also, when she was still unregulated and newly diagnosed the vet told me to feed as much as she wanted. I know that sounds like it could get expensive, but it is cheaper than insulin!

Hope that helps!
Val & Lucy
 
The canned will be better all around than the dry (dry is full of air) but they might eat more of it until they realize it. And the diabetic cat is literally starving, so leave extra out to feed her. Slowly they will lower their intake on their own. Sneakers was eating 15-18 oz.day and now eats 8-10 oz since she is regulated.

I do believe the formula is 20-30 calories per kg of cat (of ideal weight).
 
Ok I need to get a timer for the days I am working. Am i correct that it should be set to go to an empty spot 2 hours before the second shot of the day?
 
I have a Catmate C20. it comes with an ice pack that you freeze and put in the bottom of the feeder. It has 2 trays and the lids pop up. They timer is not exact, but this works for us. I work 7 days a week and am gone at least 8 hours a day, sometimes closer to 10. I put a cold portion around an ice cube (I bought a special try from my P/T job that is made of PFC rubber and the cubes are small) on the left side to open between 10-11 am (they are fed at 6am) and a frozen portion that will open between 3-4 pm (they are fed dinner at 7pm). When I rescued Dallas I bought him one too, but recently i put it away as Cedric (the FD in remission) was eating all the food. Dallas is good with it, sow we are down to 1 feeder. The trays are easy to clean and my cats don't attempt to break into it. I ordered it from petMountain.com.

Oh, the frozen portion that I mentioned gets put into a small oxo container the night before and frozen. I use a cookie scoop to "measure" their food, so that helps me to place a cold portion around the Mickey ice cube.

Good luck!
 
I've used this feeder for about 5 years now and I like it a lot: http://www.amazon.com/Petself-Elect...rder/dp/B003T7UH22/?tag=felinediabetesfdmb-20.

What I did with my two cats (because one is a gobbler and the other was not and I was worried he would eat all the food and leave her with none), was I started feeding them every meal at opposite ends of the kitchen. Each of them only were fed in their "spot". I bought two feeders. When I needed feed them during day when I was gone, I set both feeders to go off at the exact same time, and put one feeder in each spot. I fed them 4- 6 times a day (with and without the feeder), so their portions were small enough where my non-gobbler would finish most of her food before the gobbler would finish his and run to clean up the rest of hers.

I was able to do this by experimenting by setting the feeders and observing their behavior when I was home. If you can get them on a regular feeding schedule and routine (e.g. feeding each cat in a different spot for every meal, at the same time, every day), that helps a lot.

I usually fed them 4 times a day, so that meant I would shoot and feed at 7am when I left for work, set the feeders for 1pm (6 hours later), feed and shoot at 7pm, and then feed again at 1am since I was getting up to get Bandit's daily nadir blood test at that time anyway (I would set an alarm and then go right back to sleep).

I had to do things this way because Bandit would eat and eat until he puked if I tried to free feed canned food by adding water and leaving it out, or he would sit and gnaw on the frozen food nuggets if I left those out, and he would eat the other cat's portion because she wouldn't touch it until it was unthawed. I also wanted to make sure he was getting food at +6 during the day while I was at work, because that was when his blood sugar usually dipped the lowest and I wanted to make sure he had food available for a boost at that time.
 
themewedd said:
Ok I need to get a timer for the days I am working. Am i correct that it should be set to go to an empty spot 2 hours before the second shot of the day?
Click to expand...

Yes. Or, just don't set the feeder for 2 hours before the insulin time. The last compartment of food should be empty by then ayways and there won't be anything for your cat to eat. Of course, if you worry about maybe your cat not finishing the food in the last filled compartment, then do set the feeder to rotate to an empty clean compartment so that no food is available.
 
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