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Home Made
Cat Enclosures:
Many people enjoy
designing & building their own cat enclosure. The benefit of
this is it is custom designed by you, to suit your individual
needs. Once designed, the cat enclosure can either be made by
yourselves, if you are handy people, or put together by a
carpenter, handyman or builder.
Specially designed
cat run netting from a commercial supplier or you can use
products from your local DIY shop.
Marianna's stud
has his own specially built house in the garage, photos of his
stud house will be included on our "Stud Houses" page, the
picture below is his play area which leads off the stud house.
This play area has a tunnel which runs across the centre of the
garden to a cubby house.
The next cat
enclosure belongs to Hilde.
It is enclosed
with timber trellis and the cats love it as they can climb up
and down the trellis. There's even a hammock they can only get
to by climbing. It's high enough for the cats to be able to spy
on the neighbours. The roof lets through light but is heat and
UV resistant.
The following
photos were sent to me by Adrian:
The cat run was
originally built for two longhair tabbies one ginger and white
(Tim) and one tortoise shell (Tam) Brother and Sister
respectively. The shade clothed fernery was originally installed
to keep the sun of the house in the afternoon but was easily
converted to a run by installing a gate at the southern end (as
seen in the photo's). The northern end currently has a cat door
into the garage which in-turn is attached to the house via a
standard door (no cat door due to the house alarm). From that it
has grown to a caged run along the fence which also consisted of
two small cubby style house one of which has now been replaced
by a large Avery style caged area (as seen in the photo's). This
came about due to a recent addition to the family a Birman by
the name of Rascal. There are more plans to redo the back yard
which will include some more
extensions to the existing run.
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Sheila recently
sent me the following photos of her cat enclosure along with a
description. It measures 32x16 and the area under the house with
the lattice work is enclosed and has a concrete slab with
electrical outlets and warm beds for the wilder ones in the
winter. It measures 43x24. They also have an indoor room that is
climate controlled. The more tame cats will come into this room.
The litter tray consists of a 5x5 ft area filled with cypress
mulch and about
10,00 Texas Red Wrigglers. (worms) The cypress kills odours, the
worms break down the stool and the whole thing is changed out
3-4 times a year. The old "mulch" is put on to my flower beds.
No odours. Below is the enclosure Jan had built by enclosing her pergola.
She had a carpenter do the uprights & attach the wiring. Jan is
doing the painting & landscaping herself.
The approximate cost for this enclosure is: $574.00 for the
carpenter, $120.00 for the pond and plants around $100.00.
The next
enclosure was sent in by Marina who has explained the
procedure...
We used treated
pine pieces of wood to hold the netting up and then placed shade
cloth over about half of the length of the whole cat enclosure
(over top of the netting underneath). A hammer drill was used to
fasten wooded pieces to the house to use as a bracket for the
wire to attach to on the ends of the enclosure and for
the gate to attach to. The furniture was added. Logs, shelves
attached to the fence with book shelf brackets, tunnel made out
of left over wire and covered in left over shade cloth, and
cubby house built at the end with a litter tray in it.
This enclosure was
sent by Sarah who says:
They
started the platforms based on our ideas and we added
on to it. Without them putting in the platforms we
wouldn't have been able to extend on it. They put in
the "v" area and two long walkways. We put in the
steps in the "v", we added the two major ramps, the
walkway above the "v" and the small walkway across to
the large shelf.
The
ground was cement and we laid marine carpet which can
get wet and makes a softer place for them to lie and
play. Also it stays cooler in summer and warmer in
winter.
In
hindsight though, we wouldn't have used shadecloth on
the top but rather tinted Perspex to make it
reasonably weatherproof. I hate seeing their little
sad faces when it rains and they can't go into their
enclosure.
Part 1
(cat proof fences & enclosed gardens) &
Part 2
(home made cat enclosures)
Part 3
(commercial cat enclosures)
If you
would like to share your cat enclosure designs & tips on
this page we'd love to hear from you. Please submit your
images & details via our
contact form |
