I agree. I manage a local TnR colony and only 2 will let me put flea treatments on. Colony cats are a mixed bag. Some are feral, some are dumped pets who would love to get bs k inside if given a chance. My post was more a response to the OP regarding personal pets who are indoor/outdoor.
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100%, which I think is where most of us are on this page! I admit, though I do get concerned with the articles proclaiming ALL OUTDOOR CATS ARE KILLERS OF WEE BABY SONGBIRDS might actually backfire and cause people to act cruelly to feral cats (which is already a problem).
Mice and rats can be really hard to control, not just at barns but at recycling places, outside restaurants and such, and I do think feral colonies that are properly managed can do a good job.
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That is genius!
I have a little Juliet balcony out my back door, that I had stairs added to years ago.
Maybe 8’ square.
I’d love to have it screened in like that to not only give my 2 Indoors the chance to see if Outdoors appeals, but to give me a bugfree place to sit.
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@Mosey_2003, I am lucky that my small animal vet does quite a bit of community service stuff and she feels that keeping the TNR cats as healthy as possible is a good thing. I pay for the products, she assigns the prescription to some community resource account she has.
It was much easier when I had a cat that I brought in. We just bought lots of flea products for that cat.
They also euthanized a very sick feral cat that I trapped once, no charge. They truly are a blessing!
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Gorgeous catios, people! As for indoors only, we can do a lot to entertain and comfort cats there. The shelves mentioned earlier, where a cat can circle the room, probably high on the wall, are great. For bunches of good ideas, check out an episode of My Cat from Hell, a show on the Animal Planet TV network.
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For the health of both cats & wildlife, cats belong indoors only. I love cats, but they are little serial killers, even if you don’t witness it, & the data is clear on the massive amount of damage they do, they are a very real threat to many species.
Catios & other type enclosures are awesome if you still want to give them outside time or if they just can’t figure out the litterbox thing. Or you can walk them on a harness (I did this with one gregarious fellow). All mine have been rescued strays, so they have been perfectly thrilled to stay in the climate controlled box full of toys, food, laps & “kitty tv” (big windows).
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Can you share a picture? I would love to see how you made yours.
I’ve made the ones I have had with used wood, chicken wire and staples…very temporary. When I buy I want to make a better built one but easy move when wanted.
I ran across an interesting article that gives a more nuanced discussion about the effect of cats on wildlife. Here’s a link: https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-cats-for-destroying-wildlife-shaky-logic-is-leading-to-moral-panic-138710
I’ve long thought that the discussion about cats’ impact on wildlife ignores the very large elephant in the room–humans and their wanton destruction of wildlife habitat. We cause far more damage than cats ever could.
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I don’t want to derail the thread too much but the “humans do bad things” argument doesn’t discount the damage that outdoor cats do (and it’s not just songbirds, although the impacts there are very high). I don’t blame the cats themselves, it’s just what they are, the humans are the ones at fault. We have decades upon decades of data, there are reams of research papers you are welcome to Google. Those are just the facts. All our native species are suffering deaths of a thousand cuts, which it is my job to both document & try to prevent where possible. Any steps that can be taken to reduce ANY of those cuts matters. Keeping cats indoors or otherwise contained is a very easy one, which results in better outcomes for both wildlife & cats.
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Derailing and rabbit holes are welcome. Please do share. Appreciate you contributing.
For those who say they are against outdoor cats under any circumstances, does this mean no TNR, managed feral colonies, or barn cats who have failed out of indoor homes?
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I am not a cat person, but have a friend who has 7-9 indoor cats (and a dog) at any time. She also fosters kittens that need to be bottle fed! Anyway, their room when not given free range of the house is a porch off the back with a door. It did become an issue making sure that nobody was near the door when a human wanted to use it. So she had a screen partition put up with a locking screen door. So now the cats can have a slightly smaller “catio” with an extra door between them and outside. Also gave her more places for cat shelves.
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Agreed. And are they in favor of killing any cats found outside with guns, poison, traps, etc?
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That would be perfect! I had one try to dart out the door this morning. They can be quick!
When I moved a bunch of cats to a house in town for a few years I had a porch that worked well to build a screen door inside. It looked bizarre but we basically screened off the big doorway to to the front porch that had the front door with chicken wire and a screen door in it. Yes, I had a wall of chicken wire and a screen door in my house. It created a buffer zone between the cats and the front door that opened into the unfenced front yard and it worked perfectly. We were eventually able to take it down when the cats learned the drill but it also served well to keep dogs away from the front door when random people showed up. Looked weird but it worked and the cats are all still alive and well with us today.
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I agree with you, I have six cats and they are all indoor cats with an outdoor enclosure on our 2nd floor deck. Three of them sat in their enclosure today and watched a neighbourhood stray playing with and mauling a mouse right under their noses. Then the stray approached our house and sprayed the deck beams before leaving. There were five strays running around until just the other day when my son saw the black one dead on the busy road 3 blocks away. He checked it for signs of life then moved it to the grass area next to the road in front of the townhouses where it probably lived. Then he called AC to come pick it up.
It’s also our non-native birds like the very invasive and overpopulated European Starlings and English Sparrows. I have to say that I don’t have all the answers and I am a fence sitter in this area. If there weren’t abandoned/feral cats or the annoying neighbour’s cat running all around the neighbourhood, these birds would be way beyond overpopulated and causing much more distress and damage than they already are, as well as spreading disease to other birds and possibly to humans. If we didn’t have outdoor cats to keep these bird populations down, what would happen?
Humans introduced both the European Starling and English Sparrow to North America and they also tamed and domesticated the cat, all three of these animals have become a big problem and humans are the sole cause of it.
How do we humans fix these mistakes? How do we protect the underpopulated and dying out songbirds while at the same time keep the overpopulated birds half-arsedly in check?
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I don’t belong in the headstrong group that are against outdoor cats under any circumstance. As long as the ferals and barn cats are spayed/neutered I am good with their roles in this world. It’s the cat owners that get a cat, feed and care for it, then let it roam outdoors that I take issue with.
But it’s not so black and white. I have two formerly-feral cats that have never (after years) adapted to an entirely indoor life. I don’t want to deal with them continually scratching and yelling at the closed door, darting out when I walk the dogs despite being sprayed with a water bottle, and knocking plants and antique pottery down from windows when they try continually to escape through the closed glass.
Then there was Cowboy, who lived to 19, who was never feral, but was smarter than the average bear. He could rip a hole in a window screen in minutes, and when I replaced the screen with heavy duty pet screen, he promptly figured out how to knock the screens right out of the window.
I’m lucky to live a good distance from the road, and I let my current two ferals out during the day. Like most cat owners, I’m doing the best I can, but absolutes don’t work for everyone.
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I realize that it’s not entirely black and white and that it isn’t easy for some owners to change the way they do things in order to keep their cats inside.
I have one(John Coltrane), that used to rip holes in screens or popped them out in order for him to get outside. One day I was out back hanging the wash and he came trotting around to the back yard meowing excitedly at me, like he was saying, “look at me, I’m outside too!” He had popped a 2nd floor screen out and jumped down to the front porch roof then down to the ground. He was the main reason I built the outdoor enclosure and once he could get outdoors inside of it, he stopped messing with screens. He’s only wrecked one screen in the several years we’ve had outdoor enclosures. It was when one of the neighbourhood cats got up on one of our window ledges on the outside, Johnny went into full fledge attack mode.
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I do try to make up for my two semi-outdoor cats in a small way by keeping all my bird feeders full through baby bird season to encourage as many clutches of babies as possible. Then in July I remove them one by one until they’re gone. They’ll go back out in late fall.
It seems to be working based on the number of fledglings I’m seeing.
As for the voles that are the cats’ preferred prey, they’re on their own!
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