We live in a rural location on a remote Scottish island, but even here traffic can easily exceed 70 mph. Cats are often killed on our road and this may be because the traffic is very intermittent and they therefore get no chance to get acclimatised to it. We also live in an area where there are quite a few ground nesting birds, including skylark and snipe that we wanted to protect. Because of this we set about designing a cat run almost as soon as we moved in.
We marked out the cat run to take in a 40 X 20 metre area that included a willow copse, fallen trees and a pond – part of the boundary would be the wall of our garage and office. This ensured the cats would have lots to do. As it would run along the wall of the house and shed, we would have to make some provision for stopping the cats getting out over the top of the shed.
We had to go for a very permanent solution because our location is battered by hurricane force winds and gets wind driven salt spray. The only choice was concrete, steel reinforced security posts with 45 degree top sections that we angled inward. Concrete stays prevented the corner posts from being pulled inward by the tension of the fence. You can have the concrete mix dyed and in retrospect we should have had some green dye added to the mix, but the result doesn’t look that bad in an Orkney context. As we are on Devonian mudstone only a few inches down, we had to have a contractor in with a powerful 4X4 tractor with a PTO driven auger to drill holes for the posts. Although the contractor was expensive, having holes drilled for each post meant we had to use a lot less concrete to set each post in place. We strung three galvanised wires between each post’s vertical section and five along each overhang. Raddles (wrench operated tensioners) were used to hold the wires taut. A special gun was then used to attache the chain link to the three horizontal bottom wires with hogrings.
Green scaffolding protection netting secured to the ground by stainless tentpegs prevented cats getting under the wire and small ground dwelling animals from entering. This was soon made a permanent fixture by plants that grew into the mesh, blending it in and tieing it down. For the top overhang we used bird protection netting attached with cable ties. This was a lot less successful. After one winter it was torn in many places. Galvanised mesh secured by hogrings proved a worthy replacement. Hogrings are an excellent way of securing mesh or wire and can be taken off with bolt cutters. Along the top of the wall of the house we secured a length of treated 100 X 50 cm pine into which a number of overhanging hanging basket bracket holders were attached – we strung wires between these to support more galvanised mesh.
We then added an ‘Orkney gate’ which is was just a section of chain link that was only permanently secured at one end and which could be peeled back to let us in when we had to mow the lawn etc.. We intend to replace this with a proper gate soon, but it has served its purpose well. All that was left to do was to create a tunnel through the wall of the office into the cat run. This opened out into a small plywood porch with a sloping roof covered in roofing felt. This had an entrances at either side to prevent one cat blocking off access and prevent rain having a direct route into the house. This was carefully sealed and roofing felt used to prevent water getting onto the top of the tunnel itself.
The cat run was a roaring success and prevented any cat escaping for a couple of years. However, after two years we adopted a pair of very young Toms from a nearby farm that proved to be incredible escapologists. They were incredibly acrobatic and no amount of strategically applied mesh could stop them. The only option we could come up with was an electronic fence. We ran a radio frequency ariel in the form of a wire all the way round the perimeter of the run, connecting both ends to the control box in our office. This control box can determine how close cats are allowed to get to the wire which we set at a minimum 1 metre distance – thus they could be right under the fence peering through it and not set it off until they attepted to climb. The two young toms were fitted with collars that gave an audible warning if they got too close followed by increasingly uncomfortable electric shocks. In two years not one cat has managed to escape whist the system has been activated. Turn it off and Sparky is gone. Every day we shut the hatch and take the two toms’ collars off to give them some respite.
The issue of how to stop a cat from urinating in the house was resolved by putting a huge heap of sand in the run. So keen were the cats to use this mound that the poo soon fertilised the mound and plants started to grow, covering it. As a result we have to dig it over periodically. Our main worry was that they would poo indiscriminately all over the run and tread it back into the house as well as having this act as a reservoir of parasite infection. The cats didn’t let us down and confined most of their pooing to the mound or the indoor litter trays. The cat run has been a great success for four years now. Plants growing into the fence have mellowed its contours and made it look part of the surrounding terrain. The cats confined to the cat run haven’t suffered a single injury, let alone a death. Our one other cat suffered some injuries in a fight – possibly with a dog – but fortunately soon recovered. The investment of approximately £4,500 is the best money we ever spent.