Outdoor cat enclosure DIY

[lukiebebe]

Hi guys,

I have a 7 yr old indoor cat! He's been indoors because we used to live in a flat on a very busy road! My older cat was run over on a quieter road, so this road freaked me out!

Now we have moved into a house which is on a very quiet road, but I'm just too anxious because of his age and never being outside. Plus he loves humans so may end up setting up camp in other peoples houses 😂

I really would like him to have the fresh air and freedom to be outdoors, so I'm thinking to build a catio/outdoor cat enclosure. I'd love for him to have high places to sit, things to climb, scratch and cat grass to nibble on etc!

Has anyone else built one before ? Have any advice etc? Many thanks 🐱

I built one a year ago! I bought a pergola frame and then added some extra side supports. I then built wire covered panels and affixed them to the sides so it's enclosed up to about 3.5m high. It's been the best thing - our cats love sunbathing outside and I built it on the patio outside our living room so we can now have the patio doors open on warm days. I'm actually sat in it right now

@SIHastingsLiketheBattle how awesome!! Would you be able to send pics? Totally understand if you'd rather not but would be cool to see and get inspo! Xxx

My husband built one for our cats it covers the french doors and one window from the living room. Our cats get sunshine and fresh air but are protected from a busy road and cat fights with our neighbours animals. Also no birds are in danger from them. Then have a cat tree and various climbing levels/beds and all of them love it

Loads of cat spaces on Pinterest if you’re looking for inspiration. ( although I do think cats are happier outside)

Thanks to this thread dh is looking at pergolas & extra paving slabs 😃.

I've attempted to attach a few pics from when it was built (excuse the mess!). Realised I need to take some more now its a bit tidier and lived in ((& I've got my solar fairy lights up )

@SIHastingsLiketheBattle oh wow !!!! That's huge!!!! Lucky little ones!!! Mine will be much smaller 😂 but I'm so excited drawn up a rough sketch etc going wickes tomorrow woo!

Love hearing some of you have done this !

And lol @Fluffycloudland77 you're welcome 😉

That looks fantastic @SIHastingsLiketheBattle and if you ever fancy growing soft fruit trees in tubs it's a perfect fruit cage too!

I assume a large aviary or chicken coop could also work. Keep an eye on freecycle/next door etc.

Thank you it's been a real game changer for our cats (we have 5!). The mesh panels are screwed in so if we moved or wanted to remove it for whatever reason we could change it to a normal pergola.

They all seem to be softwood so I’m looking at owatrol yacht oil to preserve it. I’m going to experiment on the steamer chairs first.

I’ve ordered Owatrol Deck cleaner & yacht oil D1 (Matt finish) to use on my steamer chairs. The oils solvent based obviously.

If you want to use the oil on new wood you need Owatrol AquaNet wood cleaner to strip the mill applied wood preserver off & then apply oil to the sanded wood. If yacht oil can protect wood under the water line on sea faring boats a wooden garden structure should be no problem. This countries quite damp so softwoods going to suffer with water based wood protectors, also my back garden is south facing so mines going to be in full sun.

I used a company called Fox’s Chandlery.

Here is ours. Made of metal grid style panels. Half has a solid roof for shade

@Fluffycloudland77 our timber is pressure treated so hopefully should last a while before we have to worry

Amazing all your pictures of your enclosures! Looks like some of you have tons of space for your cats love that! We have come along way since I posted this haha! I'm well chuffed with what we created yesterday. It is smaller than what you guys have posted as we only have a small garden, but we can't wait to include high places, shelves, grass inside etc! He's going to love it. We used treated wood some 2 by 2s some 2 by 4s for the door. Today we are adding the mesh and then I can get excited designing the inside! 🐈

Oh you’ve cracked on!. There’s a Bengal on Instagram who has a thick length of boat rigging rope on two brackets to climb up & walk along. She loves it & it’s excellent exercise for them.

If anyone wants to use wire you need 16g so they don’t hurt their little paws climbing it.

I know it’s all pressure treated @SIHastingsLiketheBattle with guarantees but I will never hear the end of it with dh if it starts to deteriorate over a winter.

Ours has a rope ladder from a boat, secured in several places. They like to walk or run up it and sit at the top where they can see over our fence and watch the birds (we have a lot of seagulls)

@lukiebebe WOW you've been busy!!!! That's amazing well done!!! Please post pics once it's finished!

Wow, that's amazing. I am watching with interest as my husband has been putting off letting our cats out for ages and now is pushing for them to be indoor cats. Looking into cat proof fencing now....

Why is it always the men 😹?. My dh was wildly overprotective over our boy, my dn is the same with their cats but people blame me & dn’s partner.

When our old ndn saw dh going out at 12:30am in the car to look for ours dh said he had too because “She loves that cat” 😲.

*To.

Can spell, honest. Just not then.

We've got a fabric mesh one on metal framing. There's a high catwalk opening from my study that they can prance down.

catmax.com.au/product/super-caboodle/. Yikes it has gone up in price. We're also in Australia so I am relentless on keeping the cats indoors.

We were lucky enough to have a tree we were able to enclose and they climb that. DH made a hammock for them this weekend and they are pretty dubious about that so far.

Hi guys!

This is it so far! Bought a few plants today that he can nibble on that's cat friendly! He's okay in it for about 10 mins then he goes nuts and wants to escape! I do hope he gets used to it!
Bought some rope today so I plan to make a few hanging rope games and eventually will put shelves into it.

He's tried climbing it and thought oh this isn't going to work! He continues to try but he will soon understand it won't work lol.

He’ll be better in it when it’s got exciting stuff to climb on. You can buy tree boughs for aviaries for catios. Years ago we used a cattery that had cat trees made from tree boughs with faux fur hammocks to sleep in, it filled the pen but the cats all loved that cat tree.

I had taken my extra tall cat scratching post with me for his stay but when I saw the massive 5ft tall cat tree with hammocks I decided to leave it in the car so as not to embarrass myself. Suddenly it didn’t look so extra tall.

Looks great op! Is there any way you can attach it to the house so he can choose to go in or not?