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A warm, dry shelter, access to drinkable water, and good nutrition can make winter much easier for feral cats. Photo by Meredith Weiss Winterizing for Feral Cats by Bryan Kortis, Neighborhood Cats (Reprinted from the December 2004 issue of Out of the Cage!) By providing warm, dry shelter, ensuring access to drinkable water, and improving nutrition, you will have made the winter a much gentler season for the feral cats in your care. Now that winter is approaching, it's time to take the necessary steps to ensure that your outdoor feline friends make it safely through the cold and snow. During the autumn season, cats' coats thicken in anticipation of frigid temperatures. In fact, sometimes you can tell how harsh a winter will be by how early their coats develop. While cats' fur will keep them warm even in severe conditions, they do need your help to make it through the winter healthy and risk-free. There are three areas in which you can greatly ease their lot: shelter, nutrition, and water.
Styrofoam and straw lining this cozy shelter, designed and built by CSM Stray Foundation, trap the cats' body heat and offer protection from winter wind and moisture. Photo by Carole Milker Providing Effective Shelter Feral cats need warm, dry shelter to weather the snowstorms and blustery, icy winds. On the "Winter Shelter" page of the Neighborhood Cats website, you'll find a number of simple, inexpensive ways to build an adequate winter shelter. You can even download easy-to-follow plans for converting an eight-by-two-foot piece of styrofoam into a cat's home away from home. (Or, for those who would rather pay someone else to build a shelter, go to www.FeralVilla.com to order them and have them shipped to you.) Two key elements are present in any good feral shelter. First is the material used. Material with excellent insulation qualities, such as styrofoam, works best. Styrofoam traps the cat's body heat, turning the cat into a little radiator. Second, the shelter's interior should have a minimal amount of air space, thus reducing the amount of heat the cat's body must generate to keep the space warm. Both elements must be present to provide effective shelter. For example, a large doghouse constructed using excellent insulating material will have too much air space for a cat, or cats, to heat. On the other hand, a thin cardboard box might be the right size, but most of the cats' body heat will pass through the walls. So you want to use good material, and you want the interior space to be appropriately cozy. Additional insulating materials, such as straw (the best choice) or shredded newspaper, can be placed inside the shelter. Avoid using blankets, towels, folded newspaper, or anything on which a cat would lie on top. These materials only warm when a body is beneath them. Lying on top only draws body heat out, and will actually make the cat colder. Visit the Neighborhood Cats' "Winter Shelter" page for additional ideas for extra protection against cold, such as Purr-pads and Mylar blankets.
A volunteer caulks the seams in the insulation in one of 36 feral cat shelters built at a Slope Street Cats workshop in October 2008. Photo by Karen Oh Winter Feeding & Watering Small bowls of dry or canned food can be placed inside the shelter, tucked into a back corner. The cats' own heat will slow the freezing of the canned food, and can even defrost it. But never put water inside the shelter — it can easily spill and cause the cat(s) to get wet. Getting wet while it's cold outside and then not having a dry place to go is one of the greatest threats to a feral cat's health during the wintertime. Because canned food left outdoors will freeze quickly in chilly conditions, using mostly dry food can become a necessity. Normally, a healthy cat drinks very little water and can acquire most of the water he needs from the moisture content of canned foods. However, when dry food becomes the staple of the cats' diet, their need for access to water increases. This can be a problem in winter, when water left outside quickly freezes. To prevent, or at least significantly slow down, the process of the water freezing, try some of our many suggestions featured on the "Preventing Water from Freezing" page on the Neighborhood Cats website. Whether you use an electrically heated water dish or a little styrofoam vaccine-shipping container lined with a plastic bag, you can make a difference for the cats. Nutrition is especially important for outdoor cats during the winter because the cold and difficult weather conditions create additional stresses for their immune systems. Feeding them a higher quality brand of food, if you can manage the additional expense, will be beneficial to them. Also, supplementing canned food with extra Vitamin C is an excellent way to boost the cats' health. Cats manufacture their own Vitamin C, but in the cold weather, this naturally occurring nutrient can be quickly depleted. For the type and amount of Vitamin C to provide, read "Vitamin C to the Rescue," an article by Anitra Frazier (author of The New Natural Cat), which you can find on the Neighborhood Cats website.
Specially designed by Queens TNR volunteer Ashot Karamian to blend into their surroundings, the "Camouflage" and "Urban" feral cat shelters are available for purchase from the Urban Cat League. Photo by Meredith Weiss
More Information & Resources Preventing Water from Freezing by Neighborhood Cats by Neighborhood Cats and CSM Stray Foundation How to Build a Feral Cat Winter Shelter (PDF) by Neighborhood Cats Winter Shelters for Feral Cat Colonies by Urban Cat League Build an Inexpensive Cat Shelter (PDF) by Alley Cat Allies Shelters and Feeding Stations for Feral Cats by Feral Cat Caretakers' Coalition Purchase an Outdoor Cat Shelter from FeralVilla
About the Author Bryan Kortis is co-founder and Executive Director of Neighborhood Cats. A graduate of Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, he has experience as both an attorney and a filmmaker. He began working with ferals when he saw firsthand that the situation for street cats in New York City was dire and a new approach — TNR — was needed. |
