Cat Mate C50 Automatic Pet Feeder

My cat suffers from Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD) and is unfortunately also toothless, both of which are due to his tough life prior to when I adopted him. Being that he is toothless, wet food is easiest for him to eat. Additionally, with the IBD, I have found he seems to do better when fed multiple small meals throughout the day. I work full time and I felt that this feeder would be a huge help. After more than a week of use, I am very happy with the product. That said, there are some things you might want to consider/know. The product itself is very large due to the 5 feeding compartments, each looks to be designed to hold more than a 5.5 oz can of of food. I would estimate that each compartment could hold about 8 oz. While it has 5 containers, it only has 4 time indicators which trigger the lid to slide clockwise to reveal new food. This means that the 5th compartment is for immediate feeding. The freezer blocks work well for keeping the food cool and fresh while I am at work. However, just like they keep your lunch cool and fresh, they are usually unfrozen by the time you get off work. That being said, this product is not suitable for keeping wet food fresh for four days. Given what I have said, this is a great one day, multi-meal automatic feeder for wet food This is only a great multi-day, once a day feeder for dry food. I have added pictures for you to get an idea of the size.

After scouring the web for wet food automatic cat feeders, I settled on this one because it seemed the most functional. Surprisingly, it works with wet food (the rotating lid keeps enough of a seal to prevent food from drying out), and is not all that difficult to set up. Using the ice packs in the base certainly helps, and is a nice feature. My only complaints about this product are: 1) It is made out of cheap plastic and feels flimsy when you are setting it up (I'm sure if my cat were motivated enough, he could break into it and get all the food he wanted). Mine actually broke when I first opened it up, and it took some creative fixing to get it working again (even though I hadn't even used it yet!). 2) The timer is designed more for dry food that can be left over several days, therefore the timer does not allow for shorter periods between feedings for a single day (minimum of 6 hours between feedings). 3) There is no battery cover, so I'm always checking to make sure the battery hasn't come loose and that it won't work during the day when I'm gone. Otherwise, it works as advertised and seems to be a reasonable solution to the "wet food dilemma" that most cat owners seem to have.

This is our third feeder. The first one lasted about 5 years, the second one didn't even last quite a year. I'm hoping this one lasts better. All of a sudden they stop working. This last one I tried two different new batteries from two different packs and nothing. :( The feeder is fairly expensive so I wish they had a better track record. Unfortunately we don't have many options. Our cat needs to have very small portions 5 to 6 times a day. I've looked and looked and this feeder is about as good as it gets, but that isn't saying much. Update: January 26, 2012 I added an extra star. This latest unit seems to be working well. The manufacturer seems to have made small changes. This is both good and bad. Because we have bought several units over the years, I saved certain pieces. The lid, the cap that covers the timer, the bottom; depending on what stopped working. I had tried to put one lid on another bottom and saw that minor changes made this not workable. :( In the lid there is a place where you pinch two pieces of plastic together to get the lid to come off. There is a piece of metal in there that when squeezed, allows the lid to be removed. The last unit this was nearly impossible to do, so I removed the metal and it worked fine after that. In fact, this was a major issue with the second unit, which I bought off ebay and the seller never responded back to my inquiries. The lid cracked when I kept trying to remove it. But, I had the lid from the first unit so all was not lost. All in all it is worth it, compared to how expensive some other feeders are.

Forget for a minute that this broke after two rotations. There are so many problems with this it's hard to know where to start. So in no particular order: 1. It's really hard to get the lid off. You have to squeeze the plastic tab and try to get the bottom to go in. It's not easy. 2. The unit does come with two ice packs -- and they do stay really really cold -- but they have to be used at the same time. So once they warm up, you have to wait until they freeze again before you can reuse the unit. 3. The closest together you can schedule feedings is 6 hours, which may not be enough for some pets. I was hoping to be able to feed my cat a treat with her medicine, followed by shortly by a full amount of food, but it's just too far apart. And the timer isn't really accurate enough to have two separate units. 4. The unit is hard to program and confusing to use. It's set up for 4 days, but that's kind of weird since the cold packs won't last nearly that long. You have to use a slider that is kind of vague to use - it's supposed to trip the mechanism that makes the wheel rotate. There are units on the market with digital timers that work much better. 5. Did I mention it broke after two rotations? I have an Aspen Lebistro that I use for dry food and it's totally reliable and easy to program. Not perfect, but at least my cat who eats kibble gets fed. (and it's half the price of this one, so unless you are feeding wet food, save your money). Sadly, the trip I bought this for got delayed so I can't even return it for replacement to find out if I just got a defective unit. But I still don't think I'd trust it.

My wife and I made an impulse decision to get a kitten over the Christmas period and we had not thought about what we would do when both returning to work (at the time, we didn't realise that kittens needed to eat 4-5 times a day!). Thankfully we found this item (and it was recommended by family) and it is brilliant! We personally prefer to feed our kitten Lulu wet food and this works well. All you need to do is set the time every morning and move tabs to the times you want the sections to open. I read many reviews about the product not working but I am sure it is just that it has not been set up correctly - But it is not complicated! I did tape the battery in however as it looks as though it could fall out, resulting in a hungry cat! We use the feeder on a daily basis and it is so simple to use. 1. Set the time to the correct one (it has 4 x 24 hour days, so you will have to twist it back to 'day 0'. 2. Set the times you want it to open (beware these HAVE to be about 4-5 hours apart) 3. Pop the freezer packs out of the freezer and put them in the base (fit into slots) 4. Fill the necessary compartments with food 5. Pop the lid on The only downside I would say, is that I don't believe you could keep more than two portions of wet food cold enough throughout a day - they are certain to get too warm and go off. And we once tried to put wet in one compartment and dry in another but the condensation made it smell bad. Overall I would definitely recommend the product to all cat owners!

Très bon produit pour un chat gourmand et "bricoleur" qui a tendance à dépiauter les appareils....Donc bon investissement, envoi rapide et emballage bien sécurisé. Permet de partir en week-end sans avoir à trouver quelqu'un qui se charge de la corvée "croquettes" pour un chat incapable de se réguler tout seul. Je le recommande vivement!

Ich bin ab un an arbeitsbedingt bis zu 16 Stunden außer Haus oder will auch einfach mal spontan nach der Arbeit ausgehen und nicht erst nach Hause Katzen füttern. Manchmal will man auch bloß mal ausschlafen;) Damit die Fellpopos nicht hungern müssen und regelmäßig zu den gewohnten Zeiten Futter bekommen, entschied ich mich zur Anschaffung eines Futterautomaten. Kriterien für mich waren: aufbruchsicher, leicht zu reinigen, keine teuren Batterien nötig, leise, mit Kühlung (wir füttern nur Nassfutter) Einige Recherche und Tipps anderer Katzenhalter brachten mich auf dieses Modell. Ich muss sagen, ich bin absolut begeistert und will den Automaten nicht mehr missen. Ich bin etwas flexibler und muss mir keine Sorgen um meine Kleinen mehr machen. Für längere Reisen würde ich einen Automaten nicht nutzen, da sollte schon jemand vorbei kommen zum füttern, spielen usw, aber z.B. mal über Nacht geht es damit. Hier mal kurz zum Überblick: Pro: + Kühlung vorhanden und nicht direkt unter dem offenen Fach (wie bei anderen Automaten - das macht null Sinn) + bisher hat ihn keiner aufgebrochen bekommen + lässt sich auf eine halbe Stunde genau programmieren und öffnet sich zuverlässig + preiswerte Standardbatterien, die angeblich auch eine Weile halten sollen + Gerät lässt sich bei Bedarf ausschalten Leichte Reinigung der einzelnen Teile + relativ schwer, also kein umkippen + macht einen wertigen Eindruck "Kontra" - keine Sprachfunktion (allerdings finde ich ist diese zu vernachlässigen. Die Katzen lernen das Geräusch des Drehens schnell und wissen, dass es zu den gewohnten Zeiten essen gibt, wenn der Automat dasteht anstelle der normalen Näpfe. Man muss sowieso üben, wenn man da ist.) - tickt etwas, auch wenn der Batterieschalter aus ist. Habe aber auch ein extrem gutes Gehör. Allerdings höre ich das nicht mehr, wenn er an der Futterstelle steht. - braucht etwas Platz, da sich der Deckel dreht und nicht das Innenteil. Die KAtzen müssen ja auch rankommen... Fazit: große Erleichterung, würde ihn jederzeit wieder kaufen

Je me suis servie de cet article pendant un moment, jusqu'à ce que ma petite minette en ai marre d'attendre que le système tourne pour manger. Pourtant elle est très très loin d'être goinfre, mais elle est juste futée. Du coup, elle n'arrêtait pas de tenter de soulever le couvercle ce qui faisait un bruit pénible la nuit. Cet article peut être pratique quand on part entre 2 et 4 jours mais pas plus, c'est pour cela que je le trouve bien cher (en plus il prend beaucoup de place en terme de circonférence). Si vous voulez investir dans ce genre d'article il vaut mieux mettre un peu plus et prendre un distributeur de croquette qui fait tomber les croquettes dans une gamelle toutes les X heures et ce tous les jours sans à devoir être re-programmé, ce qui peut nourrir votre chat même si vous partez un mois en vacances (ma soeur à acheté cela, avec réservoir de 2kg il me semble, pour 90 euros).

Das Gerät funktioniert einwandfrei und der Deckel konnte auch noch nie von meiner Katze aufgeschoben werden. Die Futterkammern bieten sehr viel Platz, da passt locker eine Portion hinein die zwei Katzen satt machen kann. Die Batterie hält auch schon ewig. Die Bedienung ist sehr einfach, allerdings kann die Zeit nur relativ grob einstellen (+/- 30min), was ich aber nicht als Problem empfinde. Dadurch, dass das erste Fach offen steht, können nur 4 Kammern/Portionen zeitgesteuert werden. Kontra: - die Zeitschaltuhr tickt sehr laut - für den stolzen Preis hätte ich doch eine bessere Verarbeitung erwartet, alles besteht aus recht klapprigen Plastikteilen und wie lange die Zeiger für die Uhrzeiteinstellung halten ohne abzubrechen ist auch fraglich Fazit: Ich bereue den Kauf nicht, aber für den Preis gibt es sicherlich bessere Systeme.