This is a thorough review of the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder from SureFlap that I included in the list of the best cat automatic feeders.
The SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder is an automated cat feeder with a collar sensor that can be programmed with your cat’s microchip. It works with embedded microchips or microchips that are installed on collars. The SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder is compatible with all pet ID microchips sold or available worldwide and works especially well with the SureFlap RFID collar tags
I am personally very excited about this review because the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder is a real life changer. Not just for me but also for my pets. Even though I switched over to Feeder Robot, I still think that SureFeed Cat Feeder is a decent option.
Ever since we got the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder, I have learned so much about the behavior of my pet cats as well as ways on how to make their lives easier and healthier.
Not just their physical health, but also their interaction with each other. You see, I live in a multi-pet and multi-cat house. I have two dogs and three cats. That is five different personalities and five different attitudes across two species, discounting my partner and me, plus other occasional visitors, my niece, and my nephews. If you can picture that out, that is one chaotic household.
Why I Bought SureFeed Cat Feeder
The main issue why we bought and got acquainted with the SureFeed Microchip Pet Feeder is my bigger dogs would tend to steal my smaller cats food. While one of my cats would usually fight back, the other two are not that brave and are quite timid. This lead to their food constantly being stolen by the other two dogs and sometimes my other braver, bigger cat. It is a problem that we have learned to live with for the past two years that we have had pets.
My partner and I would be on constant pet monitoring when it comes to feeding time to make sure that our cats get to eat their share. It has become quite a hassle and we simply can’t be there all the time to watch over them, this has led to serious problems, with the two cats constantly going to the vet because of malnutrition. It was that serious!
It came to a point where my cats were on a special diet, my bigger, braver one was on weight management while the other two were on heavy supplements.
READ ALSO: Litter Robot 3 Open Air HUUGE review: worth $550 or NOT?
SureFeed Cat Feeder Was My Solution
Then my vet introduced us to the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder. I was skeptical at first because, to be honest, I thought it was some kind of scam where my vet would ask me to buy three expensive items with health issues for my fur babies as a convenient justification. I quickly learned I was wrong.
The SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder worked like a miracle. Now each of my pet cats has SureFeed Cat Feeder of their own with their own special mix of food, one that only they can have access to.
It helped stopped malnutrition, diet issues, stealing of food, bullying, and fighting in the house and among my cats.
SureFeed Cat Feeder Description
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| Amazon Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 CHECK REVIEWS |
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| Price | CHECK AT AMAZON |
Like I said above, the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder is an automated cat feeder with a collar sensor, it is made of high impact plastic and is quite sturdy. Very light considering that it has a working motor and battery weighing in at more or less 2.2 pounds. It stands at about 13 inches high, 9 inches long and about 8 inches wide.
It has a high arch loop which doubles as a microchip reader, flanked by clear plastic coverings on the side to discourage attempts of food stealing. Whenever your cat approaches the feeding basin or feeding bowl the cat’s neck would pass by or be near the SureFeed arch which then recognizes if the said cat could have access to the food if it is his cat feeder, then the cover would retract allowing access to the food.
If a bully or a bigger cat would come near SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder while the right cat is eating, then he would have no recourse but to push the right cat away, thereby deactivating access to the food tray. A simple enough working contraption but it works.
SureFeed Cat Feeder Review
The positive
The glaring positive thing about the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder is the fact that it works, there is just no other way around it, it simple, and it works.
Like I mentioned before when we first got the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder we had a lot of apprehensions with it. I thought the machine noise would scare my cats, I did not think it would work, I did not like the plastic bowls, I thought the battery would quickly run out and I just wanted it to be plugged to a wall socket, I even thought I would have a hard time programming my cat’s microchips and the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder. But none of that ever happened, just one quick read through of the SureFeed Cat Feeder manual and were done. I literally took like 10 minutes for me to program all of my cats into their own bowl.
Except for one cat where I noticed that it would not record the cat’s tag, and so we thought that the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder was broken, but it would read the other cat’s microchips, and we later found out that our cat’s microchip was broken or was not functioning properly.
The negative
Photo Amazon
While I sing the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder praises, there are a lot of other things that I want it to improve on. First would be the bowl, I would much rather prefer a steel bowl over a plastic bowl, it is nothing big, it is just that I find that cleaning and overall hygiene is better with metal bowls for my pets.
Another thing is the power supply because it is battery operated I have developed this unfounded fear of my SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder suddenly running out of battery and my cats would have to go dinner-less for a whole day until I come back in the evening from work. Surprisingly, the battery life is quite long, but you can’t really blame me for fear that my fur family would go hungry right?
Lastly, it is not really that big of a deal, but I just wish they made the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder arch a bit bigger, I feel like my bigger cat needs to go down lower than my other small and medium-sized pets to have access to the food bowl.
Final Overview
Aside from these small negative things that I have listed, “nitpicking” as far as I am concerned – I love the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder. Do I recommend that you get one for each of your cats that same way that I did? It depends if you think your cats need it then go ahead. I got each of them one because they had different meals specifically designed for them. If you want, you can have your cats use one common SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder if they share the same diet and purchase separate ones for those with special diets.
I highly recommend the SureFeed Microchip Cat Feeder, it is a real life changer. They are often are on special on Amazon. Make sure to check the price today.
Thanks for reviewing this. Why did you change to the feeder robot? Does that allow controls for individual cats and help with weight control and special diets?
I described it in my Feeder-Robot review.
I read the Feeder Robot review for the answer to the above poster’s question and didn’t see the answer either. In this review, you have multiple cats you are trying to manage but in the other just sounds like one cat. You don’t mention the issues you mention above trying to control who is eating what etc. Honestly, seems misleading. At a minimum, you could have put as a con that it doesn’t manage multiple cats.
We purchased one and got the hub also. Neither worked. We wasted several hours speaking to Chewy’s, attempting to reach the maker, and trying to get it to work ourselves. It should have never passed their R&D department. It’s a low quality product. We need better ones on the market. A lot of owners also report that their cats are able to steal food while the designated cat is eating. I would avoid this product and use the portion pro instead, it also allows for another animal to take food but it’s much more reliable and a better build.
We have two cats, each on a special diet as well: senior supplements and weight gain, and weight loss and management. It was a similar situation where our bully cat was stealing food and her sibling was getting alarmingly skinny while she was bulking up to life threatening levels. We needed a solution and this seemed like the only option on the market. It worked fantastically…for about two weeks. Then our fat cat figured out she could wait until her brother accessed his feeder and sit on the lid so it wouldn’t close after she chased him away. I don’t regret buying the feeders, since we still use them with our skinny cat and our new kitten (no hesitancy there at all, the kitten took to it immediately), but they didn’t really work as intended until we switch the fat cat’s food delivery to Doc and Pheobe’s Indoor hunting feeders; now she has constant access to food, which is important to her, but she’s actually slimming down because she has to work for it. She’s stopped stalking the other cats’ feeders and oddly enough they have no interest in her mouse feeders. So I think this product can work if you tailor your feeding program to your cats, but it’s not necessarily a solution on its own.
I bought my first Sureflap Sure Feed 5 years ago. I have 3 now. I have three cats on separate prescription diets so this was critical to being able to ensure that each got the correct food at the correct amount. One of my cats did learn how to “steal” from another cat by forcing his head in next to the other cat while it was eating, I could help this situation by not having the feeders right next to each other. I also have the Connect version as one of my cats has early onset kidney disease and seeing slight decreases in his food intake really helped me identify changes in his health before any other symptoms showed up (he’d slow food intake).
I wish I could find this feeder now! I would love to buy it for the new pet I am adopting but it’s sold out everywhere. I will definitely be keeping my eye out for this feeder because of your review! (if you decide to ever get rid of yours, I will buy it off of you 😂)
Jessica,
If you’re still looking, surepetcare is who makes them, just add the dot com at the end. That’s where I had to get mine last time since everyone was out of them. The feeders aren’t perfect, but they are very good.