Can anyone help me out with a plan/ plans for a easy to make/ build shelter for barn cats. Preferably not something too expensive. The kitties do have access to the barns, but some of the females have kittens so tempers are a little frayed. I'm mainly concerned with one little male, he's been kicked out of the main barn by his mother and aunt, but have yet to follow his cousins lead and move into my washroom. So now he hangs out under a tree in the orange grove. Today we're having our first rain of the summer season and i'm sitting here wondering where my poor little Toulouse is. I've thought of buying him a little plastic dog house, but my finances are a little tough at the moment.
Bed it with straw. I had a cat in the city named Custom T. Eddy (the T was for Trouble). He lived in the dog house with our dog, really didn't like coming in the house much.
Was also very good at intercepting passes of treats tossed to the dog. LOL
What I did for my barn cats, even inside the barn, is I would take a cardboard box fill it with straw, cut a little door way in the side and push the straw all around so they could curl up in the center. I put enough straw in to give a good insulation around the sides and top. When I would go to the barn on cold days they would all be in their individual boxes and come out to say good morning.
I also made the same thing then put it in a plastic bag so it was waterproof and left it outside the barn for a cat that wouldn't come in, at least he had a place to curl up that was dry and warmer. I shoved him in it a couple of times so he knew what it was for and he did use it occaisionally
We've used old rubbermaid totes and the Styrofoam coolers. Both worked great! We had both out on our porch a few winters ago. The majority of the cats seemed to favor the coolers over the tote.
I love these shelter designs. It doesn't get cold enough around here for them to really be necessary, but folks I know in colder areas use them for their feral/barn cats:
Thanks a million guys. I'm trying to gather cardboard boxes. A few cats have taken to sleeping, and I suspect hide kittens, inside old self feeders that we stuffed a bunch of feed bags in. It being summer here in then good old RSA the majority hunt till the early morning hours and then just fall asleep under a tree or a bush. I have found an old half drum, put it under a tree and just lifted the one end onto an old car tyre. Shadow already went to take a look and deemed it usable. At least now Toulouse has somewhere to go in a rain storm. He has either moved out or were kicked out of the big barn where his sister Marie and mom Oreo still lives, he now hangs in the orange grove next to the house with the washroom cats, but he has yet to set foot inside the washroom. I will set up some more half drums, found some in the barn that already have one end cut out, and also found an old canopy lying around, might also make a rain shelter for those who choose to not come inside during bad weather.
A male cat showed up one winter so I loosened some tightly stacked bales to allow him to tunnel down and keep warm. I left him food and water daily. He left in the spring and I never saw him again.
We unfortunately don't have as much bales of hay as we did at one time. A lot of previous barn cat kittens were born and raised in between hay bales. @Saddlebag, one of our males also recently disappeared, I suspect that at just over a year old and summer in full swing the call of the wild became too great. His brother also disappeared for a week, but he came back.
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