Our small outdoor cat enclosure

[Prairie Mom]

We prefer to keep our cats indoors. I know indoor cats can be quite the debatable topic among cat owners, but it is what we have always felt was best for our brood. This weekend, my husband finished building a small outdoor cat pen with a pet door located in a back window. It was so cheap to make! My husband used spare wood and chicken wire from other building projects and "Frankensteined" them to make a nice little enclosure. We hope to keep expanding this once other projects are done, but wanted to put a little something together that they could use now. It has been so fun to see the cats enjoying the pen the past few days. This morning it was warm enough for my tortoise to be out a little and they thought the combination of tortoise + tree squirrels was pretty awesome. I hope to plant some catgrass and catnip inside their enclosure




Wanting tree squirrel for breakfast...

 

[Yvonne G]

Aw. What a nice thing to do for your kitties. I have one indoor cat, fairly new to being indoors, was previously an outside cat. And she spends a lot of time sitting in my bedroom window looking out.

 

[ZEROPILOT]

Bless you!!! I have a sore spot for cat owners that let their cats use the rest of the world as their litter box! Mostly on my property it seems. It's a great idea and it looks very well done.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

Nice job on the catery. My dad made one for his cats in Arizona, up off the ground. He's worried about rattlesnakes and his cats.

My cat is an indoor cat too, his outside time is on a balcony. To many mean people, cars, parasites, predators, as a danger to the cat and small native fauna the cat is a danger to.

He even made one for when he was a full time motorhome person, so the cats could have outside time when they were parked. Good example to follow.

 

[Prairie Mom]

Nice job on the catery. My dad made one for his cats in Arizona, up off the ground. He's worried about rattlesnakes and his cats.

My cat is an indoor cat too, his outside time is on a balcony. To many mean people, cars, parasites, predators, as a danger to the cat and small native fauna the cat is a danger to.

He even made one for when he was a full time motorhome person, so the cats could have outside time when they were parked. Good example to follow.

Those are really good examples to follow! I completely agree with everything you said about the dangers to outside cats. In addition to those dangers, I also have two cats that are FIV+ and really want to avoid fights with other felines. The trouble is that keeping them inside leaves us with the task of trying to keep our very safe cats happy and entertained, and this has been a bit of a struggle with one or two of my beasties. I'm really hoping that the outside pen will help this, especially once we build onto it a bit more.

Your Dad's enclosure up off the ground makes perfect sense in rattlesnake country. There are rattlesnakes here too, but they're not extremely common particularly smack dab in the middle of town like we are. I think the portable pen for the motorhome is absolutely brilliant and exactly what I would want to do if I got to drive and camp around the country

My sister's cat loved her old balcony. Cats bask more than tortoises on those things! Balconies can be GREAT places for cats as long as the feline is not a crazy kamikaze like my parents' cat, who jumped off of an exceptionally high second story (it was HIGH -more like a 3rd). The cat did it right in front of me, and I can still remember the whole thing as if it happened in slow motion...."Nnnnoooooooo!" I looked down horrified expecting to see a CAT PANCAKE, and instead he was standing there on the grass looking up at me and calmly blinking like "what?" Litter stinker!

 

[Levi the Leopard]

I really like this!