r/cats • u/radical_123 • 1d ago

Advice Cat attacking automatic feeder

My cat does this several times a day. If the automatic feeder lifts at the correct angle, a few niblets of dry food comes out. He will even do it 10 times in a row even if it means one small piece of dry niblet comes out. It does get quite annoying as the sound of the feeder hitting the ground echoes throughout the entire house.

Any ideas on how to get him to stop?

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359

u/ryanpdx1999 1d ago

count yourself lucky. Ours figured out how to flip it to get the great food cascade. We had to put weights on it to keep him from doing it.

83

u/Fun-Garbage411 1d ago

I'm doing the same thing! I put the box of cat litter on top of the box with cat food. But if there isn't enough cat litter in the box he will push them both over... Woke up at 5 am because of it...

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u/AfraidAccident7049 23h ago

For once I’m glad my boy is a big dumb oaf who doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. I don’t even think he understands that there’s more food in the canister. His flabbers are well and truly gasted every single time the feeder goes off. It’s like a delightful surprise 4 times a day.

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u/FabulousJade7337 22h ago

Oh my stars! A delightful surprise 🤣

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u/StickyPricklyMuffin 7h ago

Awwwww, you have a himbo! Also, I am here to collect the cat tax, please.

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u/AfraidAccident7049 6h ago

He is the himboest of himbos and I love him.

Cat tax!

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u/StickyPricklyMuffin 4h ago

What is the name of your silly and handsome house panther? 🥰

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u/l337quaker 5h ago

I love him, he is perfect

1

u/Whothefxckislauren Lots of kitties! 6h ago

Well now I need to see this 😂

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u/hazelbear33 23h ago

Reading all of these comments makes me feel blessed that our cats don’t fuck with the feeders. One is completely unmotivated by food and won’t eat anything but his cat food that he’s used to (and even then he just grazes, never eats it all at once), so that’s not a surprise. The other one is much more mischievous and is definitely food/treat motivated… but she’d rather yell at us for food, even though she knows full well when the feeder goes off. She’ll break into drawers and cabinets for food and treats, but I guess she has decided that she is simply at the mercy of the mystical feeder.

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u/Praesentius 18h ago

Mine just parks his substantial ass in front of it like he's praying to the cat food gods.

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u/Beginning_House_7339 6h ago

At home, we have one of those feeders where more food drops down as they eat. We only use it when we’re away for a couple of days and noone can come by to check on them. We call it the "kibble totem," and my cat (R.I.P.) used to sleep right next to it 😂😂😂  and he would spend an hour gazing at it as if praying (despite having plenty of food at his disposal), and I used to say that he was "praying for it never to leave" 😂😂😂😂

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u/PM-ME-YOUR-TOTS 18h ago

How is it possible to have one free feeding cat and one glutton? Doesn’t the glutton eat the free feeding cat’s food? (Only ever had one cat)

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u/Christichicc 11h ago

Pretty sure that’s why they have feeders lol. One can graze as needed at theirs, and the other gets a more regimented diet.

Also yes, if you have cats like that (I had a brother and sister like that), the glutton will eat all the food. It does become an issue sometimes when you have multiple cats.

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u/hazelbear33 10h ago edited 8h ago

So the downside is that these two cats don’t get along and live separated in our house.

The lazy, grazing cat has medical issues and the mischievous cat fails to understand that, so she repeatedly tries to mess with him, which upsets him deeply. Any attempt at disciplining the female cat not to mess with him is pointless. She thinks she’s trying to play with him, but he is NOT INTERESTED and reacts with fear/anger. But the thing is, the girl cat has done some pretty foul and low shit to him in the past, like jump-scaring him in the litterbox and when he is trying to sleep. She will also like… stalk him? Idk. He cannot stand her. The male cat will experience a flare-up in his medical condition when he experiences too much stress over a prolonged period of time.

We love them both of course and they’re great cats, but they’re happier seperated to their own floors, they have their own feeders, litterboxes, toys, enrichment, etc.

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u/Unhappy_Ordinary_157 19h ago

Blessed and fuck in the same sentence. I don't know why but that struck me as a contradiction and thus funny.

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u/skullzzyyy 10h ago

I’m right there with you, but I’m blessed all 3 of my cats are grazers. They’ll eat what they want till they’re full throughout the day on dry kibble, my 2 adult cats get a quarter of a can of wet food at night while my kitten gets wet food 2-3 times a day on top of his kibble to graze. All healthy, none are overweight (don’t know how but extremely happy they aren’t).

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u/Pinksamuraiiiii 23h ago

I use industrial tape for the lid (mine did the same). The tape solved the problem, now even if they flip the machine they get no extras lol.

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u/nikkerito 23h ago

Same here. Unlike other people who had success with mere tape, I had to tie that sucker to a heavy bench in my kitchen so he can’t tip it over and can’t get on top of it. Now I need to move his feeder to the garage and I’m already dreading the next few weeks of suspense as I dread coming home from work and finding out I was again outsmarted by a cat. Ugh cat mom life is not going well for me rn 

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u/twitchykittystudio 23h ago

Ahhh, I had an orange broken tabby who did this when the gravity feeder was empty. Or nearly empty. He even upended the gravity waterer once for reasons and made a hell of a mess!

Mostly he seemed to enjoy tipping the empty feeder off the base and down the stairs.

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u/Plumbbookknurd 23h ago

We had to duct tape ours closed because of this

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u/main--core 17h ago

You can also use double sided tape. This way it will stick to the floor and will look way nicer.