Great Feeder! Here's an Easy Weather and Raccoon Resistance Solution for Outdoor Feeding. I purchased the VOLUAS 4-Litre feeder to feed a few of feral cats who also invite their rowdy friends Mr. Opossum and Rocky the Raccoon. Rocky in particular has really bad table manners as he will eat the entire bowl of food, with nothing remaining for the cats or the poor little possum. Feeding multiple times over the course of the night with the VOLUAS automatic feeder elegantly took care of that. I manually fill the bowl at dusk when I put the feeder out, and then the feeder is set to dispense 4 meals over the course of the night, so that even if the raccoon consumes a whole meal, the cats and possum will come by later on and still get fed. (I set up a wildlife camera and found that this process works very well, with the whole menagerie well fed and happy.) I had but one problem: It rains a bit here in South Florida, actually it rains a good deal, in fact, it rains so much that I'm building an ark in my spare time! I couldn't find a feeder that was weather resistant, but came up with a very easy and inexpensive way to remedy that. A five-gallon bucket from either the blue or orange big-box store is easily modified to cover the entire feeder, with only a small opening for the bowl to protrude. It's like the engineer who designed the feeder had this in mind; that's how well it fits. The feeder is both protected from rain, and protected from the destructive effects of direct sunlight. If you set the feeder up in a remote location, the bucket makes it very easy and comfortable to carry the feeder and bowl back and forth to the house. Note: This works for the 4-Litre style, the larger feeders won't fit. If you'll examine the photos, you can see that the only modification to the bucket is to make two small vertical cuts with a hacksaw from the rim, then score horizontally with a utility knife. The piece then easily snaps off, and the modification is complete. I suggest placing a heavy weight (The concrete frog in my case.) on top to prevent the bucket and feeder getting tipped over, and to further secure the food storage compartment. The VOLUAS automatic feeder works great, I can only think of one wish, and that would be to add a "Bypass" Button so that if I want to skip feeding for a day or two, I can just put the unit in Bypass until I want to begin the feeding cycle again. This is a small nitpick, not a complaint, just a wish for the future. Bottom line: I give the VOLUAS automatic feeder a full Five Stars for both price and functionality.
