Using an automatic cat feeder may require more diligence in multi-pet households, especially if any of ’em are on a prescription diet. This is also helpful when you have a food thief on your hands who will try to steal their sibling’s leftovers! This feeder pairs with your cat’s microchip, so only they can access it. When they walk away, it closes to protect any food they may have left in the dish. Each dish can hold 13.5 ounces of wet or dry food. The lid closes and forms a tight seal, helping retain moisture and keeping food fresher longer.
Note: This feeder is compatible with 9-digit (Avid Secure), 10-digit (FDXA), and 15-digit (FDXB) microchip numbers. Check with your vet if you’re unsure about your pet’s microchip number!
BuzzFeed editor Jenae Sitzes says: “I’ve had my microchip pet feeders from Sure Petcare for a couple of months now, and while it was a pricey investment, it’s been worth every single penny and has alleviated a ton of stress around my cat’s meals. One of my cats, Sneaky, always wants to eat his brother’s food and has a tendency to be overweight. Separating them for meals just wasn’t working — they would whine at the door and simply not eat enough unless they could eat side by side and have free access to food throughout the day — but I also couldn’t be sure that my younger (and much smaller) cat, Chicho, was eating enough with Sneaky gobbling up part of his meals, too. When my vet started throwing around the word “diabetes” as a very real concern if Sneaky didn’t start sticking to controlled diet every day, I knew I needed to finally cough up the money for microchip feeders — I mean, it’d be a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term cost of cat insulin.
The setup was ridiculously fast, the open-close function works beautifully, and my cats learned how to use these almost immediately. Finally, Sneaky can *only* eat what’s in his feeder, which allows me to control his calorie intake and see exactly how much food he’s eating daily — and I can be sure that Chicho is getting *enough* food, too. This is also a fantastic solution if you have cats on different diets due to health reasons, and if one of them starts eating way less for some reason, you’ll know immediately and be able to report that to your vet. I also love that the feeder comes with both split and regular bowls — I use the split bowls to serve my cats both dry food and wet food at once!
BTW, I have the basic microchip feeder (because it was the only option in stock at the time), but there’s also a Wi-Fi-enabled option that connects to the Sure Petcare app for monitoring eating habits, weighing food portions, and more.”
Promising review: “We have three of them, and I can’t say enough positive about this brand. We have two cats who are on different types of food and they can’t cross over so having different feeders, but allowing them to graze when they want to, was super important. It used the microchip that they had implanted as kittens, but also came with something to attach to a collar if needed. You can buy the accessory hood if you have a cat that likes to reach into the side, but these have worked perfectly for us.” —Lori
Get it from Amazon (feeder bowls available in four colors) or Chewy for $165.99 (originally $208.95), or from Petco for $199.