Large cat enclosure help for 65 cats?

[luvfelicia]

We've thought about that but there's so much red tape that comes along with it. And we've decided to go another way with the construction. We'll be building an earthbag house for them as well as a half earthbag/half wood & wire enclosure wall. And we'll still be enclosing the top. So excited. I'll post a picture of what I'm talking about so you can kind of see what it's gonna look like. Of course ours will be tweaked some to fit the cats' needs. I would love for us to become an actual rescue because financial & volunteer help would be amazing but I would think we'd have to become a nonprofit & there's strict regulations that come with that

 

[luvfelicia]

building-earth-bag-home-in-belize-shed-950.jpg

• luvfelicia
• Jul 27, 2015

This is sort of what the cat house would look like. Of course there will be some differences between this & what our final design will be

 

[Norachan]

I just had to Google earth bag houses as I've never heard of them before. The Hobbit style ones look amazing. Are you planning to have the house partially underground so that the roof of the shelter is like a little hill? That would be a great way to make the most of the space you have, go down as well as up.

It would be lovely and warm for them as well. I stayed in a thatched wooden house for a weekend once when it was really cold out and even with just one heat source the house stayed warm and cosy. I'm excited to see what your final shelter looks like now.

 

[luvfelicia]

Exactly what I'm planning to do I've been in love with EB houses for years and while I was playing around with ideas last night I happened to think of it again and it was like a light bulb went off lol. This route gives me so many ways to construct this for them. Plus, hopefully, it will save money if we can use our own ground for the bags, plus free rice bags from restaurants. We actually came up with a plan not only for the cats but also for our chickens & dogs and us. We're hoping that with the money we could potentially save by doing it this way that we can construct a little village type of deal with the cats having their house & run, the dogs having an EB house & run, the chickens having an EB coop & run and us having our own little house as well. The plan is to build a half EB/half wire fence and then building all of this inside the fence. It would sort of be like we're all in a little compound/village and connected. I'll be drawing up a floorplan for it all later today & I'll upload a pic of it so you can see it laid out how it's in our heads. We're so excited & if I scrounge around & find as many natural building materials as possible we're hoping to build all of this for about $5000. *fingers crossed* plus this type of house is so strong, stays super cool due to the ground as well as warm--like you mentioned--and we can install little pellet or rocket stoves inside them for extra warmth when needed. A lot of options

 

[dandila]

Just want to add that we used corrugated metal roofing for our enclosure and if you insulate it  with those foam sheets that have a foil side facing up, it helps to keep it nice and cool on 100 degree days.  Metal roofs are hot without it.  The kennels are insulated with the foam sheets as well with the foil facing in.  Bless you for taking care of these cats.

 

[luvfelicia]

Thank you!! I might try that