Automatic feeder for elderly cat with low appetite

A 16-year-old cat with a reduced appetite is something to work with carefully — at that age, keeping them eating consistently matters more than almost anything else. The most important features in any automatic feeder are portion accuracy, ease of cleaning, and mechanical reliability. Cheap feeders jam, dispense irregular amounts, and are often impossible to clean properly, which becomes a real hygiene problem when you're dealing with small, frequent meals of moist or semi-moist food. Before I point you in the right direction: is this just for the one cat, and what's the main goal — spreading small portions across the day to keep food fresh and appealing, or are you also managing times when you're away from home?

That makes a lot of sense — older cats often respond much better to fresher, smaller presentations, and having a feeder 'deliver' the meal can genuinely re-engage their interest. A few quick things to help me be specific: does she eat wet food, dry, or a mix? And does she have any housemates — other cats or dogs — who might try to get into the feeder?

Perfect — sole queen is the ideal feeder scenario. For a senior cat eating wet food in small frequent portions, I'd recommend the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder Connect. Here's why it fits your situation well: it has a sealed lid that only opens for her, keeping the food fresh between servings — critical with wet food, which goes off and loses its smell quickly if left open. The app lets you set a precise feeding schedule with controlled portion sizes, and importantly you can monitor whether she's actually eating, which is genuinely useful data at 16. The sealed environment also means the food smells concentrated when the lid opens, which tends to trigger more interest in cats with reduced appetite. It's not a rotating-bowl style feeder, so there's no mechanism to jam — it's a simple motorised lid, which is reliable and easy to clean. The bowl itself lifts out and is dishwasher safe. It's around £150, which is real money, but for a senior cat where eating is a health concern, the freshness control and intake monitoring are worth it. The cheaper timed feeders simply can't keep wet food appetising across multiple small servings a day.

Good question and a fair concern. The SureFeed Connect works differently from gravity or auger dispensers — you pre-load the bowl with the portion you want, and the lid simply opens and closes on schedule. So portion accuracy is entirely in your hands at loading time, not dependent on a mechanism trying to measure out small amounts. That's actually an advantage here: you load exactly what you want her to have, the lid seals it, and it opens fresh at the scheduled time. No dispensing mechanism means no jamming and no inconsistency. The trade-off is that you load it manually per serving, but for one elderly cat eating small meals, that's a minor step and gives you full control over exactly what goes in and how it's presented.

Glad it was useful. One last thought: the app will show you her feeding visits over time, so if her engagement with meals drops further, you'll have a clear record to show the vet rather than trying to recall from memory. At 16, that kind of data can be genuinely helpful. Hope she keeps her appetite up.