What time do your cat's play out till?

[Mumdiva99]

Inspired by a thread on AIBU as well as the fact we have a new cat flap.

Just curious what time do your cat's have to come in at night?

I set it for 8pm then last night it was still really light and they were asking to go out again after 8pm so I changed it till 9pm. DC2 is still out.....she is only 11 months old......am I bringing up a delinquent cat because I am letting her roam the streets till all hours?

(At 9:20pm last night my daughter and I were out calling and calling and shaking cat food to try to lure her back in...she isn't food motivated so we were calling for ages and ages....)

Mine have free access - I'd hate for them to feel stressed if they needed to go out for a wee! They have different rhythms on different days. I like that they can decide for themselves.

At the moment they play out until 4pm but they're only little and have just started going out. They get to go out from 6am and we also have a litter tray.

To those asking why we keep them in overnight, there are several reasons - less chance of hunting presents, less risk of animal attack and less chance of being run over. Night time is statistically more dangerous for cats and in the day we are around so notice if they've been gone for a long time.

We have a cat flap so ours come and go as they want. They are generally in overnight but often out very early in the morning.

I don't think it's strange to keep cats in overnight at all! Ours has a litter tray and her bed in the kitchen, and water, and gets moved through there if she's in at bedtime. If she's out, she hops straight into her bed when she comes in, and is usually settled by the time I've brushed my teeth. On the rare occasion she's flatly refused to come in on a summer's evening, she's wailing at the bedroom window at 4am. (Right now she is lying on next door's garden furniture in the sunshine - there is nothing coming over her.)

10pm latest, earlier in winter
No cat flap, and he doesn't hunt. Too many people wanting to harm cats and I'm not happy for him to be out at night

My older cat can come and go as she pleases. I lock the younger cat in the spare room overnight. I call her in anywhere between 7pm and 9pm for dinner.

God I feel like I’m doing this all wrong now! My 2 wander in and out of a window as they please all day but come midnight (or whenever I go to bed), they get booted out and the window closed because I can’t be dealing with cat litter...

They tend to be hanging around for breakfast in the morning.

I’m CREATING delinquents...

Mine comes and goes as he pleases. I don't have a cat flap though, so he has to wait for us to answer the door to his meow or his clambering up them! In winter he spends most of his time inside, in summer he'll only come in to eat and spend all night outside. We live on a quiet road so virtually no traffic at night, and apart from occasional shouting match him and the foxes in the garden ignore each other.

@UnFringed

God I feel like I’m doing this all wrong now! My 2 wander in and out of a window as they please all day but come midnight (or whenever I go to bed), they get booted out and the window closed because I can’t be dealing with cat litter...

They tend to be hanging around for breakfast in the morning.

I’m CREATING delinquents...

You shut them out at night? Yeah, that is pretty bad.

@nancywhitehead

Cats are nocturnal.

Of course they want to go out at night.

You have to judge your own neighbourhood situation as to whether or not your cat will be safe if you let them go out late.

Some people let their cats roam free whenever, other people put a lock on the cat flap after a certain time, but if you do this to keep them safe you do have to recognise you are denying some of their natural instincts to be out hunting at night.

Cats aren't nocturnal

I keep ours in after they’ve come in for supper both for safety and to stop them hunting the local wildlife. Statistically most cats that come to harm do so at night. They get let out after breakfast. Because they have always had the same routine they mainly accept it. I think shutting a cat out at night with no access to shelter is a bit harsh to be honest. They hunt dawn and dusk not nocturnally.

There's no curfew. They come and go as they please.

@UnFringed

God I feel like I’m doing this all wrong now! My 2 wander in and out of a window as they please all day but come midnight (or whenever I go to bed), they get booted out and the window closed because I can’t be dealing with cat litter...

They tend to be hanging around for breakfast in the morning.

I’m CREATING delinquents...

I sometimes kick them out if the day is nice and I've just cleaned the litter tray but I'd never make them stop out all night if they didn't want to

Shutting cats out at night sounds really brutal to me, unless they have a safe heated outbuilding they can hang out in.

My catflap is open 24/7 (no access to roads), but in practice my cat goes out briefly following her late-night snack then comes to bed with me and doesn't go out again until after breakfast at 7ish.

We might be acquiring one, I'll put the things on the fence to stop it getting out the garden but let it have 24/7 access to the garden. It's tiny it will get bored

We dont have a cat flap, only sliding patio doors, so if they dont come , they have to be out for the night

Mine mostly come and go as they please, but when I go to bed, I set the cat flap so that they can come in, but not go back out again

This is the first house I've lived in without a cat flap. Our old cat was used to coming & going as she pleased, but since we lost her & got our precious Tortie baby I'm much more protective. We didn't let her out at all until she was almost a year & now she'll wake us up when it gets light & comes & goes as she wishes until its dark. Then she is in all night until its light again, so winter days she has much less time outside than summer. She is used to this now & is usually waiting at the door when it gets dark, bless her.