If you’ve read my cat blog for long you know that we have an ever-changing number of outside cats (who we love to distraction) and a diva inside cat (also loved to distraction). Alexa, the Diva, doesn’t see any reason to welcome any of her siblings indoors with her (and traumatizing an aging cat isn’t something I’m looking to do), so our “outdoor babies” remain our “outdoor babies.”
A “colony” of feral cats has joined our family and they are as much a part of our family as the rest of our whiskered cuties. This would actually be the perfect type of blanket or cat bed to provide to feral cats – one they’d appreciate a lot! It could be placed inside a huge crate or box out of the wind and rain/snow.
Fortunately, contrary to what many humans believe, cats love the outdoors! So much to see, do, and explore – they never get bored. We live out in the “boondocks,” so to speak, so they’re perfectly safe from dogs and traffic.
They’re actually as spoiled as any indoor cat.
- We buy new blankets for them when their’s get worn.
- They have two “cat houses” one of my sons-in-law built for them.
- We call our carport “Kitty City” and this is their domain. There are chairs with throws, blankets, and even a few “tents” they LOVE getting inside. Naturally there’s an ever-rotating colony of Amazon boxes for them to explore as well.
- They have a huge old shed they can get into when it’s raining – IF, that is, they consent to leave “Kitty City” and their wooden houses.
The only time I get concerned for them is when it’s really cold outside. One of their smaller houses is “heated” as in it has a great heating pad that’s plugged in and activated from inside. We’ve used it for three winters in a row and the cats love it. This particular house sits up off the ground – on top of a much larger house.
I told you they were spoiled.
The larger house is really big, so we’ve been trying to decide how to provide warmth to it. It’s actually so big that if all the cats simply got in there and huddled, they’d keep each other pretty warm! I was looking on Amazon earlier for “thermal warming pads” – the safest heating pads imaginable, since they are “heated” by the cat’s own body heat.
I found the Thermal Warming Mat pictured here (available in Brown Suede and Giraffe Print).
I love the size of this mat – I think three would be ideal for the larger house. I also love how pretty they are because I’d also like to get one for inside for Alexa. Inside cats would love these mats year-round because, very often, our idea of a reasonable “summer thermostat” setting is like a blistery winter day to a cat.
Speaking of summer, there’s even a cool gel insert for the mat (sold separately) that you can buy when the weather warms up.
See Thermal Warming Mat for more information. At just a little over $15, this is a really great deal.
