Animal Welfare Professionals

As a shelter volunteer I finally convinced staff, that feral cats should not be housed indoors among the general cat population (stress, temperature differences, liability, to name a few problems!). Management granted a small part (4'x11') of the roofed porch behind the cat building for barn cats. The whole porch is already screened in (painted wood studs and galvanized screen stapled on) and being used as storage and to house rabbit hutches. I built a 11 ft wide matching divider wall with a door in the middle. Want to use a spring controlled gate latch. I also plan to install some wind protection on the west side, hoping to find good and cheap material. Shelter has no funding for this, so far everything I built has been leftover and scrap material. Would love any input, dos and don'ts, ideas, photos!

We started with a shed that was already on our property, then Rescue Rebuild and Greater Good adapted it to house our working cats.

Photo of shed before (below)

Video of new kitty bungalow:  https://www.facebook.com/PimaAnimalCareCenter/videos/1629508457168788/

Attached is directions written by Bob Breeze, I think originally done for APA!

Attachment(s)

PostFile-1ca6a57f-bdbc-4f7c-9d0c-883d694cfb32.pdf   7.13 MB 1 version

That is beautiful! What kind of door latch is this? Any special hinges to make the door close automatically?

Not sure exactly which ones we have, but there are several options. 
https://www.hardwaresource.com/truclose-heavy-duty-spring-hinge.html?--0k7sRoCdvwQAvD_BwE

Just put a cat door in the bottom of the door.  Our guys love it

We are talking about a barn cat enclosure at the shelter! We don't want the barn cats to leave! But since in this specific case the habitat is not accessible to the public, I think we are good. Staff should know better than to leave the door open.

Sorry, we have a 6 ft fence around the area with a cat fence attached on top so they can go out into the yard and be safe.  Then we have cat nip, mint and peppermint plants around for them.   We dug a 3 foot pit and put fine gravel in there for the litter box.  Also have litter boxes inside the sunroom for them

We do have a barn program and have found relocating feral cats is not easy.  If at all possible it is much better to release them back in their territory.  Most of the reclocated ferals have left the new place fairly quickly.  We have had good success with cats that are aggressive in cages and cats that have been outside cats but are pretty friendly.  I personally am very happy the ferals do have a chance and are not euthanized upon arrival.  The public has been pretty receptive to our TNR program and the cats are put back in their territory and become very happy Community Cats.  I do wish we had an outside area to house them until we can release them back, maybe in the future.  For those of you that have that, I envy you and am glad you have made such a difference for feral cats.

Pat, TNR is my main job as a volunteer. The cats I trap, go back where they came from. But some home owners bring a cat in their own trap, and refuse to take them back. The enclosure will house these cats until a barn home is found.

Thank you.

Pat

I am not quite done yet, but ready enough to move the two feral cats that have been waiting for me to finish the habitat. 

Hi Dorian - I really like what you've done (especially without funding!!).  I'm curious how this area will be cleaned while cats are inside or in between cats (I can't tell if that's a wood cubbyhole or if that's a feral den on the ground?).  Where will you place a litterbox?  thanks, sandy

Not sure about the cleaning protocol, as I am a volunteer. The floor is concrete, with a slight slope, and there is a faucet on the porch next to the enclosure. The box on the floor is cardboard, one of the cats had it in his cage. The two other boxes on the shelf I made out of plywood, and I  designed them to double as carriers,  and go with the cats to stay at their barn home. I hope to find a retired guy to build the boxes in the future.