It would probably be easier to power it via a wall-wart (voltage adapter) and an off the shelf plug-in timer.

Just cut off the end of the adapter and wrap the wire around the battery terminals.

> unfortunately it is battery operated

Seems short-sighted on the manufacturer's side. What happens if you go on vacation and the battery dies?

It should have a wall plug, and a battery to fallback on for when there's an outage.

The feeder only contains room for a day's worth of food, it doesn't have a "hopper" and isn't designed for unattended use. It's (unhacked) purpose is mostly for multiple pet households to prevent food theft or enforcing special diets.