Keeping them inside at night - practicalities!

[hanette]

Hi - I am the recent (and very proud) owner of two 14 week old boys. I will be keeping them inside until they are neutered at 6 months.

My previous cats have all had 24 access outside but due to foxes, cars etc I would like to keep them in at night this time round (I have moved). I have heard that people manage this successfully and have seen other posts of people having curfews of 8pm say, then inside til the morning.

But please could someone advise me as to how this is actually achieved? Do you have one meal in the morning, then withhold a second until they are in? I am feeding them Royal Canin Kitten at the moment, but have a supply available to them all day so they can feed as they like.

Also once they have daytime access, do they use the litter tray at all at night?

Many thanks

I've always fed my boys more than one meal - but smaller amounts at each. For the outside going boys, it's just a case of 'in at dusk and the door is closed' - but I make sure that inside is nice and welcoming for them and they seem to adjust very quickly. You've got a head start in that yours will be allowed out (if my mental calculations serve and you're in the UK) when the weather is still pretty lousy and there's not too much going on outside - so getting them in to a nice meal and a warm fire should be much easier.

I'd always have a couple of litter trays for them. I've been blessed with a few cats who've preferred to do their duty inside despite the fact that they went out. (Although they might have been caught short outside and used a flower bed occasionally - who can tell?) Otherwise you might have accidents - and it's a darned sight better to have trays which aren't used frequently than to step in something unfortunate on your way to the loo at two in the morning.

My cat has food down all day.
I just call her in at night, about half an hour before it gets dark then shut the door. Done.
She has a litter tray that she uses, a room of her own (well it is the playroom but by the time she comes in the DCs are either in bed or settling down) to use if she wants her bed or to play on her cat tree or she co es in the living room for cuddles.
She isn't allowedin the living room on her own so at bedtime we say 'time for bed' and she goes into the back of the house and has the run of the dining room, kitchen, utility and playroom.

My cats come to a call or a whistle.
They are fed in the morning and after school. They then have to wait until they are in for the last feed.
We also used to have a play session about an hour before bed to try and avoid the 11o'clock whizzies!!
2 litter trays should help if you have space.
They are gorgeous BTW!

Thank you all, great advice. I'll hold back on the second meal then and keep the litter tray in case they need it. It's a nice covered one so it isn't too much bother to keep in place

My cat has dry food down all day and wet food at breakfast and about 6pm. She goes out all day, pops in for food and then comes in when it gets dark for the night.

What adorable little boys!

We've only had ArchCat 5 weeks, and of those he's only been going out for the last 10 days, but we're trying to get him used to not going out in the dark. As an ex-street-cat rescue boy he's not too thrilled with the idea of this - I think you have better chances of your kittens accepting it if they've never known different.

We feed him small amounts 3 to 4 times a day, and his early evening meal is around 6 to 7 pm, so we just don't let him out after that meal at this time of year. In high summer I'd be happy with him staying out until 9 or 10pm. Our secret to success is a 4-way cat flap (a microchip-recognising SureFlap, so no other cats can get in, although the recent BBC programme on cats showed one moggy circumventing this). Overnight it's on completely locked, then after his morning meal at 7am it gets switched onto completely open in either direction, then when his evening meal is due we put it on 'in only' until he turns up, then he's not able to get out again. So far he's never stayed away from home for longer than 2 hours. However, he's got quite canny at slipping out the front door at night when one of us goes out, but he then returns within the hour.

Foxes and cars were two of our main reasons for keeping him indoors at night, but also to try and keep his total of kills to a minimum. So far he's already brought a (still live) sparrow into the house and nearly caught a frog, and apparently cats are far more effective hunters at night. I don't want him to be single-pawedly responsible for decimating the local wildlife.

Litter tray - I like to scoop it out soon after it's been used every time, which is possible because I work from home. When he was in all the time I was scooping on average 4 times a day. Now he's allowed out for 12 hours a day (but only spends a total of 3 to 4 hours of those actually outside) I have to scoop twice at most. Essentially, he goes outside during the daytime but uses the indoor facilities (we have two trays) once in the late evening and once or twice during the night, one poo and one or two pees. Good grief, how do I know so much about my cat's digestive habits?

Mine is in at night. She gets breakfast and supper (wet) when the kids have theirs. Then a snack when she's called in at night. She's trained to come when I call and shake the box of food. This happened because I did it at every meal time from the day I got her. Though she seems to turn up naturally at about 10pm anyway.

I don't leave a tray out over night. Used to but kept forgetting to get it out for her, and she rarely used it anyway. So she goes about 9 hrs over night and has never had an accident.

I have 3 cats - 2 indoors, one outdoors. It's tricky. I've had to tape the catflap in such a way that the outdoor boy can lift in to get out, but the other 2 haven't figured out how to do this yet...!
He just knows to come in for his dinner - he gets a meal at approx 5:30am when I get up, then nothing until I get home. He usually comes in at 6ish (but isn't home yet, the git.)
Last night he came home in the middle of the night and decided to shed the bin bag I'd tied up and not taken out. Tins, food scraps and shredded pheasant carcass all over the floor greeted me this morning.

One of ours is an ex-street cat so no idea where this behaviour comes from but in the summer he spends most of the day outside apart from when he rushes inside to use the cat tray (cue much scraping of litter) and then rushes straight back outside again

The Lodger was an ex street cat (after being abandoned as a kitten and bringing himself up) and he decided that he'd rather use his inside tray - which was fine by me. I suspect that he thought of home as his safe place (peeing and pooing being acts where they feel vulnerable) and being only too aware of the dangers outside felt that he'd rather be able to bring his full attention to bear on those and also have no smelly poo/pee around to signal himself to all and sundry. It certainly became a clear preference.

You can get four way locking cat flaps, so that once the cat comes in, it can't get outside again.

It's really important to keep them in overnight. Both mine are. I've lost three boys due to them being overnight hunters. Two knocked over and killed and one is still missing

You can lure them in with Dreamies too.

If you have a garden and don't want them to leave the confines of it, there are things you can attach to the top of the fence to prevent them from getting out.

Thank you all, great advice. I am having a catflap installed in December, will make sure to get the 4 way one.

Am definitely going to do this, this time round. Feel v lucky my other cats never came to harm letting them have 24 hour access in the past. Won't be taking any chances this time round. Just saw a notice this morning for a missing kitten which made up my mind!

Yes, it's just not worth the heartbreak.