Pet Feedster Automatic Cat Feeder with Battery Backup

We "inherited" a couple feral cats when Momma Cat had three kittens in our backyard. Eventually, two of them disappeared, but the Tortoiseshell momma cat and the little black kitten, we call "Spook" were still around. Momma cat is pretty wild, and we didn't find the kittens until they were too wild to domesticate. The Animal Defense League of Arizona has a spay and neuter program run by volunteers who loaned us a couple cat traps and have an arrangement with a local animal clinic to spay and neuter feral cats for a very reasonable charge. The requirement is that after they are released from the clinic, we should release them back where we trapped them. We had begun putting food out for them for humanitarian reasons. We skipped their food for a couple days so they were very hungry. Then we set the traps with extra enticing food (sardines). We caught Momma Cat and Spook and got them "fixed". We were putting a moderate amount of food out twice a day, but there weren't really our "pets". We can't get within ten feet of them. We think they will provide a deterrent to a "Roof Rat" infestation we have around here.We sometimes travel and didn't think it was fair to ask our neighbors to take over putting food out twice a day for our feral kitties. It seemed that an automatic pet feeder would solve the problem and make it easier to support our feral kitties. I looked at specifications and reviews of many automatic pet feeder systems and learned that most of them had problems. Some were only for indoor use, and we needed an outdoor system. Some had a very limited capacity, not enough to support two cats for two or three weeks when we traveled. The Pet Feedster PF-10 Plus Cat feeder had the best reviews and had all the important features we needed, including a 10-lb food storage capacity. Although it is designated for outdoor application, it should not be exposed directly to rain and needs to be in a sheltered location. To solve this problem, we found a Petmate BarnHome III Medium dog house that makes a perfect shelter for the Pet Feedster.The instruction manual for the PF-10 is quite understandable, and I didn't have any difficulty in setting the clock and setting the time and feed amount for the two feedings we use. The unit can be programmed for up to eight feedings! A useful feature of this unit is a quite effective ant trap that sits under the unit. It is cleverly designed so ants cannot get up into the food without going into the vinegar/water solution under the unit. It is designed so that most animals can't open the food storage compartment. Perhaps an intelligent monkey could figure it out, but it would be difficult to open without fingers. Also, unlike some units, a cat can't reach in through the food chute to reach the food pellets. The unit operation is very smooth and quiet, but these cats anticipate the feeding times. Spook waits up in a nearby tree and when she hears the unit, she comes down in a flash. Momma cat waits in a different tree, further away, but she seems to know when the food comes out. She gets to eat first and Spook has to wait around until momma gets done. The interaction is interesting to watch.Our unit sits away from the house, so I had to dig a 46' trench for a buried 120v electrical cable to the unit. It does contain 6 D-cell batteries, but they are primarily for backup power in case the A/C power goes out. The cable connects to an exterior receptacle on our house with GFI protection.

** update: quit working entirely after four months. Lowered rating from 2 stars to 1.Original review:Worked more or less as advertised for a couple of months and then started having issues. I can’t trust it to feed the cats. It might dispense way too little food. Just seems random how much food it puts out.Not intuitive programming. No way to just have it dispense food as a test (in other words you can’t hit a button and make it dispense food to see how much it’s giving. This seems like a big oversight). Kind of like programming your 1986 digital watch. Basically I’m going to have to buy another brand and this was a waste of money except for the couple of months it seemed to do ok.

I have had this for nearly 2 years, and I've had zero issues with it. It was a bit weird learning the buttons, and I often had to refer back to the instructions to figure out the button combinations. But I've gotten used to it now. We have it set to feed our cat 4 times a day, and it has done just that for 2 years now.I did run into a problem with ants at once point, but filling the bottom basin with water fixed that problem. There were a few times in the beginning where it felt like he was getting fed enough. We fiddled with the measuring device to make sure it was tight and not getting unscrewed as it spun around inside, we no longer have any issues with amount of food being released.We have it set to feed at 4:30am, 11:30am, 4:30pm and 11pm, about 3/4 cup total for the whole day. My cat no longer wakes me up in the middle of the night asking for food. I used to hand-feed him every morning around 7am when I would get up for work, but he started waking me up sooner and sooner until it got to the point where he was getting me up at 2am. It was so miserable, this thing saved my sleep life. It took him a while to understand that it would feed him automatically without my influence, but he no longer wakes me up now. When I'm up, he will get really cuddly and needy around the time he gets fed, but I'll take that over being woken up any day.We recommended this to my in-laws for their Labrador after they had an unsuccessful attempt with a $20 automatic feeder. They also really like this one and it's held up well for them for almost a year now. Their dog tried to bite at it in the beginning but she couldn't damage it much and learned to just be patient and wait. I definitely recommend this. The sooner you get it, the better your life will be.