How to seal off a doorway from a determined escapee cat

[AintNobodyHereButUsKittens]

Planning to foster a mum with some kittens for a rescue centre later this year, but the room which is an obvious place to keep them doesn’t have a door in one doorway.

How best to catproof it? Mum will presumably be able to jump quite high, and eventually be pretty motivated to escape, and kittens will be teeny and able to squeeze through minute gaps.

I was thinking of fitting a large sheet of plywood across the opening, but because there’s a skirting board at the bottom it won’t be completely flush with the wall. We don’t really want to fit a permanent proper door.

Why do they have to be confined to one room? Can the kittens not be confined in a playpen and mum cat be free to jump out and wander?

They have to be confined because they can’t mix with our own cat (mostly for the mum’s mental health).

You won't be able to do it without fitting a door. There really is no other way. Is that the only possible room? Have the rescue seen your set up? I'm surprised they gave the go ahead if they have seen it.

Can I ask why you are fostering the cat? Being confined wont be good for the mums mental health, knowing there is a cat on the other side of the door wont be good for the mums mental health or your cats mental health.

We’ve fostered several times before but have had building work done since so the dining room we used last time has an open doorway (it has one normal doorway which we’d use to go in and out). We could use the spare room but for various reasons that would be a total PITA - I just want to solve this DIY issue. I hoped that there was a fix known to cat people but if there isn’t I’ll go to Chat or AIBU and ask for lateral thinking ideas - I can’t believe it’s impossible, because it’s otherwise the perfect room.

I’m sure it would be ideal for all newborn kittens to be fostered in homes without other cats but since most people who want to volunteer are cat lovers there simply aren’t sufficient volunteers who don't have cats of their own. With a large house and only one other cat we’re by far the best available option - the alternative is in a cage at the rescue centre which really would drive mum insane.

Could you pin some tarpaulin over the door gap with something heavy at the bottom to stop cat going underneath.

You say there is another door which you'd use to go in and out. Do you have any tall items of furniture - wardrobe, tallboy - that you could put in front of the opening on a temporary basis to block it off?

Actually a large ugly bookcase from British Heart Foundation probably wouldn’t cost much more than a new sheet of plywood. It’s kitten proofing the edges above the skirting board where it doesn’t quite meet that concerns me but maybe possible with blankets and towels or insulation foam. We have a microchip cat flap so an escaped kitten would be a crisis to be avoided if at all possible but not a total catastrophe - existing cat is a placid old lady and wouldn’t actually be aggressive to an escaped kitten, previous cat was much more of a worry.

If you go for a bookcase make sure you weight it well at the bottom, as a persistent cat could probably push it over if it was empty.

We could put it the wrong way round and also weight it at the bottom.

Sounds like a plan!

I would discuss this with the rescue before going to any expense. As a fosterer I’m inspected annually. For me it’s very light touch because I’m a “whole home” fosterer with no cats of my own. People who have foster rooms have to meet much higher standards, especially around how they clean between cats and how they prevent contact with their own cats (in terms of direct contact and infection control).

We only foster once a year in kitten season so cross-infection isn’t such an issue. Cat and kittens would be dropped off in a cage where they’d stay for the first couple of days, so we’d have time to sort out any small issues spotted at drop off which we’d missed, but we’ll continue to think about the best solution - as I said, I might ask the larger pool of thinkers of Chat/AIBU for additional DIY insight.

There is a DIY topic with some known expert regulars - might be worth a try.

When I said it's impossible that was on the assumption that you would need to use it as a doorway while the cat was there. If it doesn't need to function as a doorway then of course plywood, or chicken wire or any number of things would be possible.

And of course it's fine to confine a foster mum and kittens - that's what you're supposed to do.

But really, if you have a spare room, that sounds like the ideal solution. It surely can't be more of PITA than plywood-ing a big hole.

And I really must stop skim reading - you'd said it didn't need to function as a doorway in your OP - doh!