my fish do not touch my feed during the winter - so my feeder goes empty but I let it still spin every day - I have dealt with years of deer corn feeders and learned to let them continue to spin (assuming it is solar powered) and that gets the longest life out of the batteries.
I have owned a number of Texas Hunter fish feeders and they are the best there is IMO - totally coon proof and reliable
I like the idea of letting it run a little thru the winter, Snipe mentioned above that he does too, I have a 20 yr old Sweeney feeder that someone gave to me and it still works like a brand new one, the original solar panel is still charging the battery great, but leaving it sit thru the winter I did have to buy a new controller this spring. I think i will let it run thru the winter next year.
Coons are a mess, they cant do much with it but they try hard, I retrofitted a plastic chute to direct the feed out a little more then up and they chewed it off right even with the metal, the bottom had a few rust spots and pretty thin and they ripped it off but I replaced it with a piece of aluminum so no problems anymore.