These little fur bodies can always use our help, especially during the winter, I try to provide for them warm food and water, but I can’t always build a shelter or take them to pet shelters and rescues, what do you guys do to help stray cats have a warm winter?

Hello. I live in a neighbourhood without so many strays/ferals, but a thing we do is make sure there is a box of some kind (even cardbord if sheltered properly) with an old Tshrt of towel in it. Also, we have a spare building in our yard that we use for garedening tools storage and stuff, so we make sure that the window is always cracked open so cats can come and go if it's too cold or snowy for them outside.

Rubbermaid containers stuffed with straw are cheap and easy to make.  Just be sure to provide an exit and entrance so the cat doesn't feel trapped.  Straw is an excellent insulator and will not mold like hay.  You can often fit these containers under decks or behind bushes. 

If you need to provide shelter on your own property there are more sophisticated shelters you can purchase.  Some are even heated if you have an outdoor electric outlet. 

Also being sure to provide food and water.  I have a heated water bowl and put out fresh wet food when I know the cats are around.  You can also use microwave heat discs to keep the pet warm in shelters or also to put under wet food bowls.

The main thing is to provide food, they use a tremendous amount of food to provide the energy to keep warm. I use Tupperware too with straw and a spare garage has three heated shelters in it for our old timers! The heated pet warmers can be picked up pretty cheap in the spring on close out. Bless you for caring for these babies!

I have a heated house for three ferals that are willing to live on our patio.  I have a Styrofoam container for an old feral that lives in the woods.  I have a feeding station with a heated water bowl.

Feeding Station:


Styrofoam Shelter: The bottom is lined with linoleum tiles and when I put outdoors I stuff it with straw.


 It took the old feral in the woods about a month before he would use it.  I figured out he loves freeze dried raw food so I put some in the entry way and one morning there he was coming out of the house!

If you have the financial resources, you can purchase a pet house and fill it with straw (not hay). I fill my feral's house with straw and use a thermal, heat reflective cushion (you can purchase one for about twenty bucks on Amazon). You will likely need a house with an entrance and an exit so the cats don't feel trapped inside if a predator comes. When it gets cold, I drape blankets and even a sleeping bag over the house, allowing enough room for the cat to crawl under it to get into the house. Just don't leave food out overnight beside the shelter, though, because it will attract wildlife. As others have said, though, there are cheaper alternatives. As long as the cats have a warm enclosure with straw to snuggle into, out of the wind and elements, they will survive. And they do need more food in the cold weather.

Everything required - til I run out of money.

Food & water twice a day & as many insulated houses as I can make.

LIFOAM[emoji]8482[/emoji] Thick Wall Coolers.

• Super Thick 1.5" Walls
• 2" Corners

with a heated pet mat inside -- a K&H Lectro-Soft

I get styrofoam medicine shipping coolers from a friend, cut them down & fit them inside totes.

I then fill the seams & around the entry hole with spray foam, but it takes days to dry & out gas.

Made 6 or so this season so far, but my smallest Feral will not use one. The quicker double shown first before foaming..


Older style - plastic in & out, before lid & doorway awning was installed.

Maybe when there are more houses than alpha cats he'll get one!

This first design was a luxury version, 2nd two - grey pics, tote in a tote with blown styro between, but takes over a week.

Now in a hurry I put the medicine coolers in the tote & use a lot less foam, just enough to seat the boxes & fill seams.

I don't like exposing them to the styro, but 10 degree days warrant the quicker build. I'm still 2 cats short & its cooold!

I can do these 2 coats 1.5"  foam in about 2 days drying time, if there's no caulking & no awning involved.

Also about the food - I find it much more erratic in winter, they eat more, but less often & don't eat at all on windy days.

But since the wet food is freezing before they can eat,  it dry kibble is a necessity now.   Keep warm kitties!

cstPost: Your shelters are great - they look nice and cozy.

I use the two totes and fill the gaps with Styrofoam shipping peanuts. I always use the non-biogradable ones.

I use only one can of spray foam around the top and opening to keep the peanuts in. I also use a 10 inch length of 6 inch PVC pipe in my entry. This "porthole" provides a protective entrance and keeps the the foam dry.

Actually, all these shelters are great! Blessings on you all.

This is my first post on the feral board. I'm no expert but just wanted to share what I have been doing so far, and how I would change it in the future. One feral cat Jess got got me started on this venture a couple of years ago, and I soon discovered there were many ferals in the neighborhood that took over the shelters, requiring me to build more!

With the help of Feral Fixers I got 8 cats cats neutered, 2 ferals re-released, 6 kittens adopted....3 of them to me . I have built 4 shelters of varying complexity and now my kitties mama Jess..... who is the one I built all the shelters for..... currently sleeps in the simplest shelter made out of cardboard in our garage most nights!

Shelter 1: Just a rubbermaid container with an entry hole in it and a few small drainage holes in the bottom. I filled it with straw and surrounded it with straw bales and covered with a tarp. Super cheap. Cats also appreciated just a nook in the straw under the tarp with no container.

Shelter 2: I thought I would build one big enough for several cats to huddle together for warmth. I got a very big rubbermaid and made an internal box with insulation board, gorilla tape, Reflectix insulation, and foil duct tape. I used some old metal shelf standards to hold the lid up to the inner box on because I didn't have a big enough piece of foamboard to span the top. I used an old cookie container and gorilla tape to span the entrance gap between the outer and inner box. I filled the air space between the boxes with packing peanuts. I drilled some drainage holes in both boxes and then screwed the outer container to some wood to slant the box (to help with drainage) and get it off the ground a little. Then I filled it with plenty of straw and put it outside under the tarp with the other shelter and some more straw around it.

Shelter 3: Jess was soon evicted from both shelters by larger cats, and decided she wanted to sleep in the garage some nights. I took another rubbermaid lined it with some of the Reflectix, some foam padding and plenty of straw. I hung some towels over the opening to keep the chill out. I kept this shelter in the garage and that kept the other cats away. Jess had her kittens in this box!

Shelter 4: Jess started bringing her friend Handy into the garage some nights. So I built another shelter out of an old printer box, some styrofoam packing boards, duct tape, more Reflectix, and straw. I threw some old blankets over the top since they like to sit on top. This is the shelter they prefer. Possibly because it usually sits on the hood of the car along with their food dish to keep the dog away from it. They probably feel safer higher up.

For water they have three things. One is just a plain dish I clean out and refill often in the garage. I also have a heated birdbath that is plugged in all winter. We already had that, otherwise I would buy just a heated water dish. I use a resin lawn furniture ottoman next to it for the cats the access it. I also put some rolled up fencing under the ottoman to keep the cats from hiding under there and getting a bird. I also keep the birdbath well away from anyplace the cats can hide and hunt. We also have a ground level birdbath at the back of the yard. In the winter I direct the sump pump discharge into it. The overflow just goes into dug out areas around the birdbath for my rain garden. Lots of wildlife and cats like to drink here. This is Jess and Handy at the raised bird bath.


One of the things that was most helpful in figuring out if the shelters were being used was a Busnell "trophy cam" that I got as a gift. I don't hunt, but it works well for monitoring the cats. It runs on batteries and has a motion detector and infrared for night vision. It can do video and pictures and saves it to an sd card that I can swap out to review on the computer. They are not high quality pics, but good enough for monitoring. It helped me see that other cats were in the boxes at night and had evicted Jess. I saw a good 10 different cats at the boxes and water areas. I could tell that some had already been TNRed by someone else by the ear-tips. I could also see that others were pregnant already. From the video I also could even tell when they were in heat by their posture and calls.

It is also just kind of fun to see what is going on in the wilds of our suburban yard while I'm sleeping. In addition to all the cats I got to see the family of six raccoons come and eat every last grape off my vine right before they were ready to harvest! Here's a funny picture of a raccoon and Handy at the bird bath. In the full sequence of photos you can see that Handy won the stare down and the raccoon ran off.

In the future I think I would prefer to build a wooden shelter with proper building materials. After the first season I leaned lightly on the lid of the rubbermaid shelter and it cracked. The plastic containers and the tarps don't hold up well to the elements for very long. I think I would also prefer a camera with wifi and real time feeds and motion detection alerts. I can't find a cheap one yet that runs on batteries though so that I can put it anywhere.

Forgot to add that I also sprinkle some food grade diatomaceous earth in the boxes and the surrounding straw. It is supposed to kill fleas. For a while I added it to the wet food I was giving them as a natural de-wormer as well.

Hopefully that didn't get too off topic, or tooooo long. Those are just some things that have helped me help out the kitties recently.

Your shelter is wonderful.  I have 2 small clear Sterlite containers that I have used and lined with Reflectix.  It does such a great job of insulating.  This winter I have shelters all over the place.  Two of my ferals will share a shelter with the 3rd wants his own space.  I also have an owned cat that some how is let out or escapes outside during the bitter cold.  He will often use one of the shelters too. 

I have used a trail camera as well and they take great pictures.  I have several wifi cameras on my deck that I could never live without.  Yet they do take electricity. 

Thanks for sharing your setup.

Insulated Feral Housing Units

Update: I stopped making porthole or windbreak tubes as they always broke or came unglued.

The duct tape rain gutters rotted away after less than a season so now i have been setting the IFHU's

into a rectangle and placing a sheet of Ondura corrugated roofing across the top which makes a nice veranda, which they love to bask on the black top side in the sun.

Bigger boxes on the back & smaller on the front open end (wind direction) to keep the water running off & the smaller opening just tall enough for entry.

A few cinder blocks keep it all together in 60 mph wind and even survived our recent 2 feet of snow, showing me how many of these groupings were being used, all of them.

I also found out that day that even the older non-insulated straw only totes in the open were still in use by at least 1 of my 16 ferals in the woods so i shoveled a path to

that group of 4 as well. I was surprised to find them in use as there is enough IFHU's with veranda covers to go around.

Maybe it's fat-butted raccoons since the old totes don't have my patented upside down tear drop opening that helps keep the straw in & 'coons out!

Also shown is the custom waterer I finally got to keep water liquid overnight in 25 degree weather - what joy it is not to make 3 trips into the woods to chip ice out of the bowl!

As you can see by the muddy paw prints they figured out how to drink from the small conical hole after the small dish had frozen. Smart Kitties.

Also the holes are different sizes to keep the bigger aggressive cats out of the runt's boxes, now all have a home. When I feed in the morning they all come out stretching.

P. S. The pics came out a bit large if a moderator wants to shrink them feel free to edit - I couldn't figure out how to make them smaller after upload.   Happy caretaking all.

That roofing idea is a great way to cover multiple shelters.  I have a friend who can use that idea!  Thanks.

Good work!

Yeah, It's kind of expensive at $ 24 a sheet at Lowes, but it should last forever & it comes in green, grey& brown with black undersides I put on top to draw heat.

csiPost said:

Yeah, It's kind of expensive at $ 24 a sheet at Lowes, but it should last forever & it comes in green, grey& brown with black undersides I put on top to draw heat.

Click to expand...

Well worth it. Can it be cut with a jigsaw?

Never tried to cut it.

I don't think a jig blade will be long enough to follow the Corrugation valleys, circular would be better.

Also my Lowes would not cut it on their panel saw so you have to fit 8' length in vehicle.

I can be rolled a little to about a 3 foot wide tube though, or cut with hand saws & utility knife.

http://ondura.com/pdfs/OnduraEnglishInstallationGuide2015.pdf.

Thanks!