Help feral cats Saturday at shelter workshop
If you're free tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, maybe you could take a hour or two to help feral cats.
Community Cats Maryland is having a shelter building workshop where they'll teach people how to build winter shelters for feral cats. You can help the group build shelters, or build one to take home for feral kitties in your own neighborhood.
Here's what the group says about the event:
We'll supply the power tools and expertise, we just need volunteers to supply the manpower!
These cat shelters are made out of plastic storage tubs, which can be purchased at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. The 18-gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck bins like these work well.
So how do these bins become cat shelters? We cut a door in them, weight them for stability, line them with insulation, and fill them with straw. The 18-gallon storage tubs can house 1-2 adult cats (depending on their size and how well they get along); larger tubs can be used as well.
If you want to build a shelter of your own, please bring your own tubs, or you can make a monetary donation and take one of the tubs we'll make home with you.
No special skills required; we'll put everything together assembly-line style!
In addition to tubs, we'll also need:
* Reflectix foil insulation
* Sheets of styrofoam or egg cartons for insulation
* Rolls of duct and aluminum tape
* Bricks or paving stones (about 8" x 16" or so) to weight and stabilize the shelters
* Bales of straw
Meet Saturday at 2 p.m.
Comments
How about posting a video on making these feral cat shelters? I'm sure there are folks out there who would like to help feral cats in their neighborhoods who can't make tomorrow's workshop.
Posted by: Sue | November 6, 2009 4:55 PM
For those who can't make the workshop, I think Alley Cat Allies has instructions posted on their website for making a shelter. They also have lots of terrific resources for those who would like to help the furry members of our community. Find that at .
Posted by: Cat Person | November 6, 2009 5:41 PM
We had a pretty good turnout of about 20 people there today. For more info:
Alley Cat Allies' main page: http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=191
15 various cheap shelter ideas: http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=631
The same Rubbermaid container based shelter we made today: http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=348
Posted by: Josh | November 7, 2009 5:18 PM
Thanks, Jill, for posting and thanks Josh for coming!
CCMD has a brochure with really detailed instructions on how to make the shelters we made today : http://www.communitycatsmd.org/files/cat_shelter_brochure.pdf
And on the "Resources" page at www.charmcitycats.org, you can find links to a few other basic designs, as well as some really nice pre-fab ones that can be purchased and shipped.
Posted by: Erin | November 8, 2009 12:56 AM