Designing Safe Outdoor Cat Enclosure

[Sobriska]

I am looking for ideas to keep my outdoor/barn kittehs safe from predators.
We have lost 2 in 6 months. Believe it’s a bird of prey that snagged them.
BOTH always stayed fairly close to the barn. We knew immediately they had been killed, as we knew where they were, at any time. They were just that habitual.

I have an empty stall that was actually dismantled, meaning stall front removed. It’s used for storing stuff that we can easily store elsewhere. Thinking we can make a couple “safe houses” in that stall.

Two remaining cats don’t really get along. One has lived in barn. The other stays up by house. I don’t think housing them right together is wise. Snide by side, maybe, but with some barrier in between.

Don’t want to spend a fortune.

And PLEASE don’t say “bring them indoors”. There are 4 in the house already!
We can’t have more inside.
We don’t want more outside, but cats keep getting dumped, and we can’t not feed them???

[saje]

I built my cats a yard based on the Purrfect Fence concept.

I found a supplier for the mesh they use that has holes big enough for most songbirds to fly through. I used 8’ t posts, the 7’ mesh, rabbit wire on the bottom in an L shape to prevent digging, and large shelf brackets for the overhang. The mesh is hel on with zip ties, I connected the wire to the mesh with a hog ringer, and used landscape fabric staples to anchore the wire. They now have a 40’ x120’ outdoor space with access through a cat door in my office window.

Since i have 10 cats in a 1500 sq ft house, this is a good thing!

Ill see see if I can get pictures, hold please…

Fence project

I think that’s a public album so you should be able to see. If you want more details on the mesh or construction give me a shout

[BasqueMom]

saje,

Nice job! We have a large front porch, like 6 by 35 or so, and enclosed it with
1/4 inch welded wire, coated in black. Bugs can get through but it’s tough enough the cats can hang from it. We “cross fenced” it to make two separate
areas if needed. Faces east, good overhang so not in glaring soon plus hedges
on the outside of the porch. They access it through a cat door in the laundry room window which is rarely closed. 11 cats in a 1600 foot house–a real life saver.

[saje]

Yep, in our previous house we had a big screened porch but no yard access for the cats. I put hardware cloth all around the lower half to keep cats in and possums out! The cat food was out there, and I did get visitors until I put up the heavier barrier The cats did love that porch, though they like the outdoor yard better.

[beowulf]

As a kid I had a neighbor who made a cat paddock. It actually reminded me of the raptor paddock in the Jurassic Park book. But it worked really well for them. They had a lot of cats, I am trying to remember how many it was.

What they did is they sank posts every couple of feet and then ran hardware cloth through it. I am not a construction maven so forgive my lack of correct terms, but they then nailed posts at an angle from their house to the sunk posts in the ground, and ran chicken-wire over the top as well, effectively enclosing the entire thing from birds. It ended up looking like a mix between a screened porch and a paddock run, and was quite big - went the length of their house and then some. We have a lot of cat casualties in that area, mostly from hawk and owls, so having a wire/cloth roof is imperative.

Cats can pretty much defend themselves from most things on the ground but aerial strikes they are pretty hopeless. I’ve seen quite a few picked up this way including one of our own - it’s horrible for the cat and horrible to watch, so definitely put a roof/barricade of some type over them.