Looking for an automatic, random, hide-able cat feeder?
September 4, 2013 10:09 AM   Subscribe

We have two cats that are growing older at the same time we're become less tolerant of their constant crying for food. I would like to feed them with 3 hockey puck style containers that each open at some random time within 24 hours of being closed and placed randomly around the house.

The idea is to encourage the cats to spend more time being active "forging" for food and would de-link us from their feeding so we could spend more time on pleasant interactions and less time tripping over them.

I'm sure someone else has thought of this but I haven't found anyone selling a suitable product. The single serving size at a time is important, the automatic part is important and the random part is important. It can be battery or spring powered. Surely someone else has already thought this up and is selling them but I haven't had any luck finding them. Any thoughts?
posted by ChrisHartley to Pets & Animals (12 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, I've never seen one that opens at random intervals but there are companies that make automatic pet feeders.

Like so (for dry food)
posted by joan_holloway at 10:12 AM on September 4, 2013


I think this might do the trick for you.
posted by o0dano0o at 10:20 AM on September 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


What if you strapped one of those automatic feeders to the back of a Roomba? That wouldn't cover the random requirement, but everything else would be covered.
posted by Betelgeuse at 10:41 AM on September 4, 2013 [2 favorites]


I use this feeder, and it's not random, but it definitely keeps my cat from bugging me for food -- instead, she sits and stares at it for about an hour twice a day, waiting for it to open. You could perhaps make it "random" by only filling some (or even one) of the food slots (so that sometimes it will open to an empty dish*), and/or by reprogramming it regularly?

*I think I would feel guilty doing this to my cat, but it's possible that I have issues with guilt.
posted by cider at 10:42 AM on September 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


Actually, I'm not sure the random opening will work that well, unless there's another cue. If the cats are always foraging, then they find a closed container that they know might open at any time -- imagine the container being scooted along the floor, bumped into furniture, clawed and chewed on, you get the idea. It will be noisy and maybe destructive.

(Also, I tried an automatic feeder once, and the ants found it. Not a problem for you if you change locations a lot.)

I've had *fabulous* results with using a sound cue. When the iPhone harp sound happens, once in the morning and at night, that's everybody's cue that it's feeding time. Not before.

The cat knows that that's when it's food time. She does get a little hungry before then, but she doesn't get overly excited.

The key is that it's not (seemingly) totally up to us - it's the mysterious harp sound. So she doesn't plead with us so much.

Also, she gets _really_ excited when she hears the sound, which is kind of fun.
posted by amtho at 10:47 AM on September 4, 2013 [6 favorites]


I think the "foraging" thing is a really bad idea. You should talk to your vet about it, but I think it might have the opposite intent that you think it will.

From the cat's perspective, if the cans open randomly: they'll beg for food continuously, and sometimes, it will suddenly work and food will magically appear elsewhere in the house. You've basically created a slot machine, where bugging you may well be the "lever". Moving the "payoff" elsewhere in the house may not be enough to convince the cat that you aren't the key to getting fed, particularly since they already think that.

What has worked well for me in the past is to feed the cats on a very reliable, regular schedule, and do the exact same thing every time. They get fed at 6AM and 5PM, and only 6AM and 5PM. They know this. If they don't get fed on-time, they'll get pesty (which is reasonably fair), but they generally don't bother wasting a lot of time/energy bothering me in advance. They know that the food is going to appear so it's not worth the trouble.

The only problem with this occurs around DST changes. I've honestly thought about keeping the cats on DST continuously, and just changing the feeding time, but that's a bit inconvenient as their feeding times depend on when we get up in the morning and get home from work. So for like a week every 6 months they either think I'm being generous or trying to starve them to death.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:32 AM on September 4, 2013 [8 favorites]


For DST - you can prepare/compensate a bit by gradually moving the feeding time, maybe 10-20 minutes per day, until it changes to one "real" hour ahead or behind. The sound cue system does help with this, but changing times gradually helps too.
posted by amtho at 11:51 AM on September 4, 2013 [2 favorites]


Scheduled feeding in the same place every time will work way better to control this behavior than encouraging random foraging.

Cats aren't really foragers. They're hunters with specific territories and schedules.

To give them the activity they need, play with them for at least 30min per day with active toys like feather sticks, "fishing" toys (string tied to a stick with a toy that can be flung toward and pulled away from kitty), ball-chase circles, or cat safe light pointer.

If you really wanted to make it seem more random, you could get three of the timed automatic feeder referenced above and set them for different times, occasionally changing the times. I just think this is going to make the kitties more neurotic, not less.
posted by batmonkey at 11:57 AM on September 4, 2013 [3 favorites]


Seconding the plastic-ball-filled-with-food thing. That totally stopped my cat from endlessly whining for food (she still whines sometimes, but for attention, not for food). It helped because she would usually wolf down all her food in 10 seconds and then be "starving" an hour later - this way she has to work for every bite, and she ends up eating little bites all day, plus getting a bit of bonus exercise (she's really lazy).
posted by randomnity at 12:41 PM on September 4, 2013 [1 favorite]


Having automated feeders set for about the same time every day (4 meals) has significantly cut down on our cat's pestering. He used to meow woefully for 1-2 hours before feeding time. Now he'll sometimes meow a little bit before his night meal. The rest of the time, he lies around wherever until he hears the lid release, or he sits and stares at the feeder until the lid releases.

Because the whole point was to kill the idea of humans as food providers, we also stopped giving him treats.
posted by moira at 2:09 PM on September 4, 2013


We have pop-open feeders (Catmate C20) that open 3x / day - we do the last feeding by hand at 10pm. It works - the feeder is close to the wall and it makes a popping sound when it opens. They know what that means.

That being said - if your cat is older and constantly begging for food, have his thyroid checked out. Thyroid issues will make your cat crazy obnoxious.
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:32 AM on September 5, 2013


Response by poster: Sorry, I should have mentioned in the question that I've already spent time perusing Amazon and I'm familiar with the automatic feeders they offer, as well as things like the food dispensing balls. We feed our cats 4x a day now on a strict schedule, small amounts each time in a way that encourages them to eat slowly. They are both a healthy weight now but they still run to the food dish every time I walk around. I'm really just looking for a random automatic feeder to try something new.
posted by ChrisHartley at 8:38 AM on September 6, 2013


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