It was a beautiful day, so Charlie and I went for a walk. Just outside our door:
Up the drive a bit:
I said, “I’ve never seen the cat house!” So we walked up to #1 Daughter’s to see it. Charlie put it together in pieces in the basement and he and #1 Daughter finished it off.
#1 Daughter has a pod of semi-feral outdoor cats (now all spayed and neutered). This is the pod Chickie came from. Because it gets so cold in the winter, #1 Daughter wanted a solid shelter for them where they could all be together, not just the individual heated houses that won’t hold all of them.
Doors?
There’s a red heat lamp inside for winter use.
Nice.
Thursday Doors is the brainchild of Norm Frampton, photographer extraordinaire. Visit his site, enjoy his photographs, follow his instructions, and enter a world of doors.
A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about a cat house of any description.
MA
Dan antion
June 13, 2019 at 1:18pmThat’s a pretty nice cat house – please don’t tell Maddie!
Marian Allen
June 14, 2019 at 8:49amYou mean that isn’t your next project? 😉
Dan antion
June 14, 2019 at 9:05amNo – Shhhhhhh. I don’t even want her to know that there’s a room behind that door. I’ll be fighting her for access to my shop.
joey
June 13, 2019 at 6:30pmSo sweet!
Norm 2.0
June 14, 2019 at 11:34amCool (actually warm) idea. I was perhaps mistakenly under the impression that feral cats were territorial and wouldn’t want to share close quarters like this.
Any idea how many tenants it attracts?
Marian Allen
June 14, 2019 at 4:53pmFeral cats will share territory, if there’s a regular food supply. I’ve heard it called a colony or a clowder or a pod. My best friend, Jane, had one in her back yard. Usually, two of three of them would form a clique and hang out together, but they all pretty much tolerated each other. #1 Daughter’s group are mostly family: A mother, her last litter, one of her previous daughters and the daughter’s last litter. And Simon, the male who isn’t the father of any of them but has attached himself to them as everybody’s friend and protector. #1 Daughter says only about four out of the ten of them will use the house.
Joanne Sisco
June 20, 2019 at 1:29pmLike Norm, I too thought feral cats couldn’t easily coexist. I love the idea of feral cats being taken care of over the harsh winter weather. Even more, I love that they have been spayed/neutered.
Marian Allen
June 21, 2019 at 9:21amMy friend Jane had many cozy places set up for her “outdoor” cats. My late friend, Peggy Cox, set up outdoor shelters in her back yard. Our #1 Daughter feeds a colony that lives behind a restaurant in our little town, sharing that task with a woman who drives over from another state to do it a couple of days a week. There’s an organization in Louisville called Alley Cat Advocates https://alleycatadvocates.org/ that will help you trap them, will neuter/spay them, notch their ears to signal that they’ve been done, and re-release them where they were trapped. Increasing the percent of non-reproducing ferals decreases the overall feral population.