34 Products To Address All The Annoying Parts Of Living With A Cat And Make Your Life *Way* Easier
9. Or a truly game-changing microchip pet feeder designed to recognize your cat’s microchip and open for them *only* — then close after they step away from eating. This is a lifesaver if you have several cats and want to keep them from eating each others’ food, whether they’re on different prescription diets or you need to count calories for an overeater.
I’ve had my microchip pet feeders from Sure Petcare for quite a while 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 longterm 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 (also requires a Hub) that connects to the Sure Petcare app for monitoring eating habits, weighing food portions, and more.
Get it from Amazon for $180.02 (feeder bowls available in four colors).
