Oyf you lock the cat flap at night ...

[MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]

What time do you lock it?

**IF not oyf 😂

We don't have a cat flap, but act as butlers to our cats' demands to be inside or outside.
We call them in at (our) bedtime, they usually all appear but it's not unusual for one or two to decide to be dirty stopouts now the weather is warmer.
@7catsisnotenough Love your 'NMH' 🦔

Dusk. Then open it again to let cats out... repeat...

But it has got them habituated to being generally in and asleep at night so if we're away we just leave it open and assume they don't notice

Our cat brings herself in between 8 and 9 scratches our leg and wails to be given her treat for coming in 🤣 it is locked by 9pm in the summer.

We have a lot of foxes and badgers so it is safer for her to be in at night. She sleeps in "her" room (the guest room) all night and then asks to be let out about 7am ish.

9pm. Which is also the time when they get a bedtime snack….. not a coincidence hahaha. So they are always in, get wet food, and that’s that. 99% no drama.

I only let them back out when it’s hot, both because I’ll have the widows open and because I want them to get some ‘fresh air’ when it’s cooler.

8pm in the summer but I do let them out individually if they are at the front door and it's before 9pm. We have a very fancy cat flap with an app so I can keep an eye on who is in and who is out as well as setting lockdown curfews.
They have always been kept in at night and seem fine with it, though occasionally one of them will decide to stay out till 3am at this time of year. This means I wake up every hour to check the app and see if he is back yet 🤣

When I go to bed usually. Actually the only reason I lock it is to stop the cat from next door bringing his kills in overnight. 😅Before I moved to my current address it was open all night.

Depends on the time of year. 9pm at the moment. 6.30pm in the winter. I'd prefer earlier but they just fight and get restless. Although one now goes out at 20.58 and doesn't return until the early hours so I'm not sure why I bother!

Dh got up at 4.30am for a drink and let him out . He's under strict instructions not to open the cat flap before 6am!

Cat is out and about which is unheard of at this time , food- he can get nice and tired for tonight 😉

Whenever he happens to come in and I'm planning to go to bed soon (bedtime varies a lot). I put the kitchen bin in front of the cat flap, so there can be no scratching at it.

There was no scratching at the flap last night, he settled right down and slept until 7. He actually seems more settled now he doesn't see it as his job to take on every fox and cat in the neighborhood!

Good idea!

In the summer we don't - our boy cat tends to be out all hours. In the winter we get them in by about 8.30.

They usually get in the routine and come running anyway.

I lock mine to in only when I go to bed, she's usually in by then anyway but does sometimes disappear again out an open window. She's always there in the morning when I get up though, but we live in a cul de sac backing on to fields so I'm not concerned about her being knocked over

We don't have a cat flap, but all my lot are locked in at night from about 9pm.

After tea time (5ish) the door to the porch where the flap is gets shut if she's in. Sometimes she stays out later, but rarely later than 9ish. We do 'cat playtime' after tea (a leftover routine from when she first came and was in one room for a few weeks) and she gets quite upset if she misses it. The day after a late night she's always in and ready and shouting by 4 😹

We don't have a flap but the boy is shouted in when it starts going dark with a rattle of a treat bag.

When it starts to get dark, so we can find her in the garden. Never locked it before but she is rescue cat who has no traffic experience and starting to get braver about what might lurk beyond the garden gate.

No cat flap but ours are shouted in around 8-9ish, depending on the weather. In winter it's earlier but they don't go out as much then anyway.

We have a busy road near us but he stays away from that ,it's the scrapping I want to avoid, he rules the neighborhood and sees it as his mission to take down every bloody cat within half a mile of us 🙄

6 pm after her tea. We had to impose a curfew because she stopped coming for the rattled biscuit box at dusk - she was probably too far away to hear it - and i got fed up of rescuing her from the top of the neighbour's tree in the small hours when she got chased up there by our other neighbour's cat. The cat screeching would have woken the dead!

I assume if your cat is in at night, he/she has a litter tray for overnight use?

We don't have a cat flap. They ask to go out and come in again randomly during the evening, and once they are all in, that's that. There is often one reluctanct customer, but I break out the chewy sticks or the Dreamies and they come running. DH goes to bed about 10.30ish and me about 11, and we try to get them all corralled by then. Sometimes it means a late night for me if one is being stubborn!

Now they're older, around 9/10pm in the summer, earlier in winter when they're in anyway. Lord Arsehole can bust it open so we balance a ukulele against it which stops him 😂

Turned to in-only at around 9.30pm this time of year. Got 3 of the buggers to track down but they're pretty good at coming in for lickylix. Girls tend to come in together, the boy could be up to an hour later but they're usually pretty reliable now.
It's very age related. Right now, it's exciting out there after dark.
My old boy could go out for a plod round the garden at midnight and be trusted to come home in 5 mins.