How to keep the cats outdoors and wild in winter

The weather is becoming colder, with an arctic explosion in full swing. You may worry about the cats you see wandering outside in your neighborhood. They could be wild cats, cats that sneak from home and lost, street or even abandoned animals.

It is possible that they do not know how they got there, but it doesn’t matter how ingenious these cats can be, everyone could use some help survive winter. That is especially true if you live in a colder environment where it snows.

Helping these cats will not take long, and the felines will be grateful for their efforts. Here are some tips to keep the open -air cats safe in the cold winter months.

Give the open -air cats an place to stay hot for a cold front

Almost anything can become a shelter for an outdoor cat in winter, provided it offers a safe shelter of the elements.

You can go simple or elegant. You can buy an online shelter or in your local pet store, or you can even do your own. Whatever you finish using, make sure it is dry and well isolated.

Tips:

• Bigger is not always better, since a smaller enclosure can do a better job to catch the heat that comes from the cat’s body.
• For the largest colonies, cats often curl together, so plan the shelters that can contain between three and five cats each.
• Lift soil shelters to help keep heat.
• Place shelters in safe places away from cars and pedestrian traffic.
• The doors should only be large enough for a cat to eliminate threats from predators such as dogs or coyotes.
• Use isolation! Be sure to use only non -absorbent materials that keep dry cats and replace them when they get dirty or get wet. The straw, not hay, is often used, because it repels water and allows cats to be buried. Making your refuge outside a polystyrene foam cooler or your wallpapers with its walls with Mylar are good options to protect against extreme climate.

Help outdoor cats to find food

During cold weather, outdoor cats require additional calories to stay hot. Many will have difficulty finding enough food to survive to spring.

Be sure to feed them with more food or feed them more frequently.

Tips:

• Water bowls can spill, so do not place them inside the shelter. Instead, place food and water as close as possible to the shelter. He Human society It recommends placing two shelters at several feet away, in front of its doors together. You can create a canopy ensuring the ends of a long table on both ceilings. Then the food and water can be placed under it.
• You can also build a separate power station. Similar to your shelter, you must have a roof and stay away from the ground.
• It is less likely that dry foods freeze, but wet foods are easier to digest, which helps cats to preserve their energy to stay hot.
• To prevent water from freezing, use heated bowls with solar or dark color, they are made of thick plastic and are deep with a small opening.

Trap, castration/sterilization, launch programs can help

Winter is a good time to catch street cats and marry them or sterilize them, then release them again in the neighborhood once they have recovered.

Each spring, shelters and bailouts are full of adorable baby kittens of these cats in the street neighborhood that have not been sterilized or castrated. It helps to finish the kitten season forever by marrying or sterilizing street cats.

This is important because wild cats can have a purpose in our neighborhoods, but a cat of street mom can give birth to 24 kittens in a year, and that is many cats that roam the neighborhood.

Tips:

• Configure your trap in a closed area to protect the cold cat.
• If possible, trap as far as I can of the shelter you have built. This helps maintain privacy and a sense of security for other cats in the colony.
• Use magnetic ventilation covers instead of newspapers to align the lower part of your trap. Newspapers can place in the wind, scaring wild cats.
• The microwave heating pads will help keep the bait hot and smelly.

Following these steps and be in tune with the needs of cats in their area, it can help cats outdoors or street survive comfortably during the cold winter months.