Is it okay to leave cats alone for 3 days?

[mapper]

My husband and I are taking a long weekend vacation in about 6 weeks. We are leaving very early (probably about 3AM) on a Friday and will probably return home around mid afternoon on the following Monday. We have 5 cats who are indoor/outdoor. They have a pet door and a couple of them are gone for 1/2 the day sometimes only coming back in for a nosh and heading out again. Only our oldest cat uses the litterbox and the rest go outside. We have two 5lb gravity feeders that we can fill for them before we leave and they have a water fountain inside to drink from that keeps the water circulating. The only problem with the gravity feeders is that once the bowl part is getting empty, it doesn't really bring any food down unless you shake it a bit.

Our daily routine when we are there is to give them wet food in the morning and then again in the evening and we keep one gravity feeder out all the time with dry food. We don't really want to pay someone to come and feed them twice a day and we don't really know our neighbors well enough to ask them to stop by and do it.

Do you think it is okay to leave them alone for 3 1/2 days with just the dry food?

 

[piano cat]

I wouldn't.  I found mine got SO lonely.  They did not have a cat door but were used to going outside a lot.  I restrict them to the house and a friend comes over once a day to play with them and give them some cuddles.  I do leave lots of dry food and water but she makes sure it's still there and fresh and gives them some treat food.  I'd be afraid that with no people at home and access to the outside they might not be there when I got home.  That said, one of mine wasn't here when we got home anyway.  We searched high and low all over the house and finally found a screen she'd clawed a hole in and had been freely going in and out anyway.  Maybe yours would be fine, maybe not.  Could a neighbour drop in to do as my friend and I do?

 

[kittensncoffee]

I think that's a bit too long personally.

 

[mapper]

We have next door neighbors that we say a friendly hi to once in a while and maybe engage them in chit chat for a minute, but I just don't feel comfortable asking them to come over twice a day for 3 days and feed 5 cats. When we do talk to them, they always seem like they are uncomfortable and don't really have a lot to say. Our other neighbor on the other side of us we simply don't trust and we barely know anyone else around us. I feel like "Well I barely speak to you during the year, but would you come into our house twice a day and feed our cats?" And we are already spending a lot of money on this vacation so I don't want to hire someone for $20/day to come over and feed them.

 

[piano cat]

What about shutting the cat door, keeping them in, leaving many, many litter boxes (no one will clean them so lots of them) more food and water than you think will be needed.  The food is a bit scary to me, they might gorge and be sick.

 

[mapper]

 
What about shutting the cat door, keeping them in, leaving many, many litter boxes (no one will clean them so lots of them) more food and water than you think will be needed.  The food is a bit scary to me, they might gorge and be sick.

Well they gorge and throw up the dry food occasionally when we're at home too, but it's a quick throw up and then they are fine. I don't want to keep them inside the whole time though as they love to go outside.