Hi,
I have done a big of research on this topic, and have found several different opinions. Just thought I would see what people's views are here...

I am going away for a week, and have arranged for a cat sitter to come round once a day to my flat to take care of my 1 year old cat Olive. I feed her wet food twice a day (150g x 2), but since the cat sitter will only be coming once a day I am a little unsure what to do.

Would the best option be to put the full 300g of wet food down once a day, and hopefully Olive will eat it all before it goes off?

Or should I ask the cat sitter to put out some dry food as well (and possibly less wet food)?

I have weaned Olive off of dry food so don't really want to start feeding her it again if it isn't strictly necessary.


It is helps, she is an indoor cat and since it will be the winter It probably won't get above 15-18 degrees in the flat while I am away. I thought maybe since it will be quite cool the food will be ok for a day at a time. I mostly feed her Bozita tins and Animonda.

On the odd occasion we aren't around, we set up the automatic feeder. It has an ice pack to try and keep the food at it's freshest.

Can your cat sitter not set one up each morning?

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automatic feeders are your friend. Mine get fed by me in the morning - auto feeder for lunch (unless I'm working late in which case they get fed earlier in the morning then I leave more down and time the auto feeder later) then me feeding them dinner then sometimes auto feeder again if I'm going out.

I wouldn't leave it exclusively on if I'm away but certainly for an extra feed they are a god send.

I have to say that if it was my cat I would want him/her to be visited more than once a day if being left for a week.Could the cat sitter visit twice rather than just once.24 hours is a long time between visits.

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Hmm, I have considered an automatic feeder but wasn't sure if it would be necessary if it is safe to leave a day's worth of wet food out at a time.

I would be concerned that the timer would fail, or the freezer pack would keep the food too cold for Olive to eat it (she tends to pick at food for a few hours when it is out of the fridge).

Since she is a very shy cat I am sure she will be happy with once visit a day: usually the cat sitter doesn't see her at all unless she is running away to hide under the bed.

My main concern about the length of time between visits is that if she was unwell or had an accident soon after the sitter left she would have a long wait until they came back.

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