Microchip feeder vs wasted prescription food cost

Microchip feeders are one of the most genuinely useful innovations for multi-cat households — they ensure each cat gets only their own food, which matters enormously when one cat is on a prescription diet or has very different nutritional needs to their housemates. The maths on prescription food being stolen by the wrong cat can get painful very quickly. Before I help you work out whether one makes sense for your situation: how many cats do you have, are they all microchipped, and what's the specific reason you need to separate their feeding — is it a medical diet, a weight issue, or just one cat hoovering up everyone else's meals?

The maths here is very straightforward and firmly in favour of the feeder. If you're losing a third of a £50 bag, that's roughly £17 wasted per bag — and if that bag lasts three weeks, you're burning through about £280 a year on food the wrong cat shouldn't be eating anyway. A feeder pays for itself in well under a year, and that's before you factor in the vet costs that can follow when a cat on a urinary diet isn't actually eating their urinary diet consistently. So yes, it's worth it. The product I'd point you to is the SureFlap SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder. It reads your cat's existing microchip and the lid stays closed until the registered cat approaches — no collar tags needed, no programming complexity. It's the market leader for good reason: the seal is reliable, it's easy to clean, and it holds enough food for a full meal rather than just a snack. One unit on the prescription feeder is all you need, since your other cat can just eat from a normal bowl.

Yes — the SureFeed is compatible with all standard 15-digit ISO microchips, which covers the vast majority of cats chipped in the UK regardless of where or when it was done. You just hold the feeder's 'learn' button, let your prescription cat approach, and it registers their chip in a few seconds. That's it. If for any reason the chip scan ever missed a digit at registration, you can re-register — but in practice it picks up UK chips reliably.

Most cats do work this out within a week or two — they try a few times, nothing opens, and they lose interest. The lid closes the moment the registered cat moves away, so there's no window of opportunity while she's mid-meal either. Some particularly persistent cats will keep trying for longer, but the seal is robust enough that they genuinely can't get in. The main scenario where it breaks down is if a pushy cat physically shoulders the registered cat out of the way mid-meal — if yours is that determined, SureFeed also do a Connect version with a deeper 'moat' hood that physically blocks a second cat from getting their head in alongside. But for most households the standard version is plenty.

It runs on four AA batteries, and SureFlap say those last around six months with normal use. There's no mains option for the standard version, which actually works in your favour — you can place it wherever suits your cats rather than being tied to a socket. Keep a spare set of batteries somewhere obvious and you won't get caught out.