Feral Cat Shelter for Cold Winter Months

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Winters in Wisconsin can be much too cold for cats to be outdoors. Feral cats may get frostbite or even succumb to the frigid temperatures without help from their people. This post is about creating shelter areas, and we will discuss winter food and water in another post. 

In my first year of feeding the ferals, I had no idea what I was doing and attempted to make a shelter using two plastic containers and straw. I will include a link at the end of this post to show what they look like and how to make them. None of my cats entered it, so that was a total bust! Thankfully, they must have had somewhere enclosed to survive the cold because I only saw them at mealtimes. They came, ate, and left. They all seemed happy enough.

In April, Kitty a young feral female) gave birth to four boys, and everything changed. I fed her extra food while she was pregnant and nursing, and at eight weeks, she brought the litter to my yard. I immediately started calling shelters to inquire as to whether they could take the kittens to foster for adoption. Three shelters turned me down. Since those are the only local shelters, I begrudgingly accepted that I would probably have to keep the kittens. I placed an ad on Facebook to see if any friends wanted a kitten, but no one did.

One of the kittens, Jackson, started to follow me everywhere I went. He was charming! Then, one day, when the boys were ten weeks old, Kitty took them elsewhere. Jackson stayed behind. When I found him in the yard by himself, he climbed all over me and purred. My heart melted. I felt that he chose me!! I brought him to the vet, and he became a house kitten. I considered bringing all four boys in, but I couldn’t afford it, and I didn’t want six cats in my small house. I liked the two cats I had adopted in December – Kipper and The Muffin! But now I had three because I had fallen in love with Jackson.

I socialized the remaining three boys and called the shelters again, but they all turned me down. By now, they were twelve weeks old and MY boys, so I was getting picky about where I would take them anyway. 

When winter started approaching, I had to decide how to keep the little family warm during the cold months. I decided to cut a hole for a cat door in the side of my garage (it isn’t a fancy garage) to get them out of the wind, which is imperative, but the bitter cold was another matter. I researched heated cat houses and made my decision based primarily on internet reviews, the fact that they have an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, and they are US-based businesses. The houses I purchased are rated for sub-zero temperatures, can fit up to four 10-pound cats, use a low amount of power (40 watts), are safety certified, and are very sturdy!  

I got a few small pallets from work, covered them with a few layers of cardboard (the boxes the houses came in were handy!), and placed the cat huts on top of the cardboard. The pallets and cardboard added an insulated layer between the heated bed and the cold garage floor. The following link is for the huts that I bought. I can’t say enough good things about these cat shelters.

I had to remove the plastic door flap from one side of each hut because the cats wouldn’t go in with the flaps on. On cold days, when they came out to eat and get some attention, they were nice and warm! When the temperature started to dip near zero, I draped heavy blankets over the huts (not the doors) to help retain the heat. This year, I will drape cardboard over them because it is such a good insulator. If necessary, I will put blankets over the cardboard. 

I highly recommend these heated cat huts if you have somewhere to keep them out of the rain and snow. They do go on sale now and then. I bought two last winter and got one over the summer, so now we have three!

If heated cat shelters won’t work for you, here are a few links for how to make DIY feral cat shelters: How to make Feral Cat Winter Shelters by Neighborhood Cats.org and Alley Cats.org