condos/trees

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this... and I thought I'd posted this once before, but I couldn't find it, so I must not have!

PJ needs a cat tree (and Teddy would probably like one too). She loves going up on things, and I don't care about her sitting on top of most furniture, so it's not an urgent issue, but I like to make her happy.

How do you go about choosing the "right" tree? I'd like to get 2, but we don't really have room for that right now (or the $ necessarily). We'd make them, but we live in an apartment complex and don't have room to build anything, unfortunately. Since both cats love to jump, obviously a high one with platforms would be great. But there are so many choices - round top, moon shaped, flat and square, cushioned, not, holes, tubes - how do you choose? I don't think things like that are really returnable if the cat doesn't like it, since it would be covered in their hair and litter (at least from my kitties)!

I don't really think there's a way to choose the right condo/tree, but hearing your experiences about choosing them for your cats might be helpful!

My 1st stop was ebay!!! I ended up buying 2 of them for a combined price of $78 and that INCLUDES shipping!!! One is about 4ft tall and the other is almost 6 ft tall. If u dont like ebay u can still look there just to see all the styles they sell. I got mine from amarkat sellers on ebay . I dont have my kitten yet so i dont know how sturdy they are but they do look nice in my house lol

Good luck

P.S. Im on a new laptop and i dont know how to right click to load pics yet so i cant show u which ones i got

I have a condo or platform in just about every room of my house, with 11 cats to fill them. The ones they spend the most time on are the ones that have a platform with sides that come up from the platform. They nestle onto the platform and while away the day.

The next favorite platform is one that looks like part of a very large tube cut down to 1/3 of its original height (e.g. curved up platform). Again, with the curved sides, it nestles them in.

The third chose are platforms with no sides, but mine use them more for play than for hanging out.

I have 2 with enclosed boxes built into the condo (with holes cut out for them to access). None of the cats spend anytime in those boxes - I personally think they are a waste of money.

I had hammocks hung from a couple of windows once - they loved them but I removed them when I put in cabinets under the windows (now they have beds on top of those cabinets in place of the hammocks). Another option for you!

I also got a large 7 foot cat tree from Amarkat on Ebay, it is extremly well constructed and holds our many large furbabies on it. They love all the toys and hidey holes.
I have caught my 5 year old son climbing it and though he didn't like the time out he got for doing so, it didn't fall or buckle under his weight.
There are many scratching posts that allow the cat to stretch to his/her full potential as well.

I need to get Bear a tree. He loved the christmas tree.

I don't even have a cat tree (though, I ordered the small cat gym that was the subject of a recent thread in Care and grooming). They can climb on whatever they want. I don't have any precious breakables or anything that would harm them out in this place. I'm a pretty neat and orderly person.

Just hiding 3 large litterboxes in my 450 sq. foot convertible apt. was a considerable feat!

I also got a cat tree from Ebay. It is 6'-6" tall and has many levels. It also has a small condo on it. Most of the cats have slept in that condo at one time or other. The only cat has not been on the tree is the older cat.

This tree only cost about $80. If I wanted to buy a comparable one at a pet shop it would cost over $300. If fact, the ones I have seen at PetsMart seemed very shoddy and poor quality.

you can always put up some shelves for them to climb on or clear off any tall surfaces you already have.

Originally Posted by lionessrampant

I don't even have a cat tree (though, I ordered the small cat gym that was the subject of a recent thread in Care and grooming). They can climb on whatever they want. I don't have any precious breakables or anything that would harm them out in this place. I'm a pretty neat and orderly person.

Just hiding 3 large litterboxes in my 450 sq. foot convertible apt. was a considerable feat!

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They can climb on whatever they want except the kitchen and dining tables, and PJ pretty much does! The problem is for some of the high places she'd like to go, she can't get there even with cleared off areas. We're not picking about were our cats go.

Perhaps I'll checked out ebay...

I got mine from ebay as well. Here is a link to the sellers store http://stores.ebay.com/Armarkat-Cat-Furniture-Store Just make you see what the shipping is going to be. My cat trees were aroun $50 and the shipping was $68. So even with the shipping being a lot, the cat trees are still at least $100 cheaper than in the store.

Here is a picture of both of them, when we had them in the cats room together. These were by far the best purchase I have made, my cats love these!

Wow, that's an amazing cat tree for $118! Those ones you see in Petsmart are really shoddy, IMO. They look cheap and feel tippy, I've never been tempted to buy one. This Armarkat place looks great however.

Originally Posted by Luvmysphynx

I got mine from ebay as well. Here is a link to the sellers store http://stores.ebay.com/Armarkat-Cat-Furniture-Store Just make you see what the shipping is going to be. My cat trees were aroun $50 and the shipping was $68. So even with the shipping being a lot, the cat trees are still at least $100 cheaper than in the store.

Here is a picture of both of them, when we had them in the cats room together. These were by far the best purchase I have made, my cats love these!

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The one on the right looks like something my cats would love! Thanks for the link - I'm going to take a look there!

As another related question, I know lots of the trees have sissal (spelling?) rope on them. Both my cats were declawed and I have little history on them before I got them, so I don't know when they were, or if they've been around sissal before. They both love to paw things (PJ loves boxes, Teddy loves a chair we have) as if they still have claws, and I bet at least PJ would paw the rope.
Can those ropes hurt their poor declawed toes? I guess I'm envisioning something like rope burns or papercuts on their pads or between their toes.

Originally Posted by shambelle

The one on the right looks like something my cats would love! Thanks for the link - I'm going to take a look there!

As another related question, I know lots of the trees have sissal (spelling?) rope on them. Both my cats were declawed and I have little history on them before I got them, so I don't know when they were, or if they've been around sissal before. They both love to paw things (PJ loves boxes, Teddy loves a chair we have) as if they still have claws, and I bet at least PJ would paw the rope.
Can those ropes hurt their poor declawed toes? I guess I'm envisioning something like rope burns or papercuts on their pads or between their toes.

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I'm not educated on caring for declawed rescues, but...can they even still climb those tall trees?

Originally Posted by lionessrampant

I'm not educated on caring for declawed rescues, but...can they even still climb those tall trees?

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my cats are jumpers... I think that's how they compromised losing their claws. As long as they have platformed areas where the areas are a little staggered, my cats seems to be able to jump on anything! I find PJ in the oddest places - places I thought she couldn't get to without claws. Their abilities to scale heights have made me think they were declawed at a young age (they're 11 and 8 now) and were able to figure out how to get around by doing some major jumping. PJ is particularly funny to watch, and she's the older one!