Feral Cat House

I stumbled across the idea of feral cat houses by accident on Amazon of all places. I then saw some examples of houses people constructed on their own. Since we're getting our first freeze tonight, I decided to make a prototype.

Time: 30 minutes
Cost: $13 per house

Materials

• 30 qt. foam cooler
• 18 gal. storage container
• straw
• box cutter
• marker

I used the basic idea of the "Roughneck Homes" on Rubbermaid's website. It's a good, simple idea. The one change I made was to invert the foam cooler lid so that I could add more straw insulation on the top and so the storage container lid fit better. I bought enough materials to make two more, plus I have an entire bale of straw if I want to make even more.

I put this first one out front of my house to see if I get any occupants. I'll put additional ones in the back yard.

Prototype feral cat house 

Donation for Mr. Cat

Today marks the six-month anniversary of the death of my wonderful "Mr. Cat" Ziegen. I still miss him very much and keep this picture of him in the living room.

My Cat Ziegen

He's the second cat I've lost to feline leukemia (FeLV) only his illness came on very suddenly and he was gone within a week. His initial test for the virus when he was a kitten came back as a false negative. As with the first cat I lost, the lovely Cobalt in April of 2005, I decided to make a donation to the Cornell Feline Health Center at Cornell University where they do research on cat-related diseases. I hope one day they are able to cure this horrible form of cancer in cats.

Cat Personalities

Cats definitely have personalities. I think people who don't like cats must either a) be allergic b) never spend any time with the cats they've had or c) somehow got scarred for life by some truly angry cat (who was probably pissed it never got any attention). My cats 'love' me as much as cats can, I would think. They miss me when I'm gone. They come to see me or are waiting at the door when I come home. They come in the bathroom when I take a shower and get up on the bed with me at night.

And they each have very distinctive behaviors and habits. My baby girl, Copper, has this thing for sleeping on a certain plastic bag, is nuts for any kind of string or cat nip and is always wanting in the garage.

Copper sleeping on her baggie

Ziegen, my Mr. Cat, is the only one who is at all vocal. He has this habit of having to go eat after any time that I pet him or give him attention. He freaking loves to drink from the tap in the bathroom. He sleeps on his back when he's not sleeping on top of my cabinets.

Ziegen playing in a box with Gavin

Gavin, well I haven't had as much time to learn her eccentricities but in so far, she is crazy for crumpled up paper. She's always going into my paper recycling bin and stealing paper balls. If she hears you crumple up paper, she is all over it.

Gavin sleeping in my paper bin

Mercy Killing

My cat, Copper, woke me up at 3:30 this morning by scratching on the metal blinds (her favorite method).  I called to her but she was in one of her crazy cat moods.  I got up and she started running around and jumping on counters, very hyper.  I think noticed that my other cat was looking at something on the ground.  I poked it and it felt...squishy.  I picked it up with a paper towel and took it into the kitchen for a look.  It was a skink.  A very mutilated skink.  I thought it was dead but then I saw its little lungs breathing.

I looked it over and thought that maybe it had a chance if it was still alive.  It didn't appear to have an puncture wounds or broken bones (as much as I could tell).  But I watched it for a couple minutes and it really didn't move and it seemed to be in pain.  I decided that I should put it out of its misery.  That's a lot harder to do than I thought.  I took it over to my cutting board and got out my sharpest knife to cut off its head.  I tried several times to do it but I just couldn't.  It was too upsetting.  I don't think I could stand to see its little head decapitated or even worse, if I didn't get it done the first time.

I then remembered a story my mom told me about a bird she found mutilated by the cats.  She couldn't kill it either so she came up with the idea to put it in the freezer.  So I put the skink in the freezer.  I hope it was not a harsh death.  Poor little guy.  Very sad.

stuff on my cat

This is one of the first few pictures we took of Copper--Baby Girl :D I'm posting this to try out Google's new Picasa picture program that has a 'Blog This!' button and just uploads stuff...I guess? I'm trying it out :D