THEN ... (at 6 weeks old) Archie on the left, Kimba on the right in both photos. and NOW ... (at 2 years old)
Having moved out to the country 10 months ago, we determined the cats would not run free on the property for a lot of reasons with protecting the wildlife on the top of the list.
The wildlife here consists of a myriad of birds (redbreast robin, swallows, crows, fairy wrens, european goldfinch, parrots, eagles, kookaburras, spotted pardolot and more for us to still discover and name), small brown frog, blackfish, protected species turbo chooks, a platypus, a resident tiger snake, wallabies, blue tongue lizard and again, so much more to discover. my you-tube channel is a hold-all place for the many videos i am taking rather than posting 3 times a day here.
you can see the platypus video here - wait for it at the 1.09, 221 and 3.03-3.15 minute mark.
and the gorgeous little echidna is here.
So, the cat run - due to a variety of reasons it took 9 months before we got started and during that time we walked around the house discussing where and how large it may be and how the cats access it to and from the house. We were cognisant of the aesthetics of the structure and how it may affect the look of the house and the yard. Once time had opened itself up it got put up quite quickly - for us it was about 3 weeks but certainly could have gone up in a weekend - say 30 hours.
The cat run was videoed (a lot) mainly with the cats using it and their early forays into the outdoors plus the escape run Archie made. He is our resident Houdini and has always escaped his confinement areas. We finally had to resort to electricity .... poor thing got a zap on the nose and all is well now - he is not trying to get out any longer. I accidentally 'tested' the electric fencing as i backed into it whilst planting a plant - it zapped my bum and although it was unpleasant and i moved quickly ! it was not as bad as i imagined it could be.
here you can find the Video playlist of the outdoor cat run being used.
THE Gallery of images below shows as follows :
image 1 - the run to go down the side of the house/garage across the gravel drive to the trees on the other side.
image 2 - shows where the run has to come out of the bedroom window to reach the section of the run down the side of the house/garage.
image 3 - trials in setting up the panels and how they may be attached to each other.
image 4, 5 & 6 - the putting together of panels with V making a big statement on how they may work.
Materials used were:
16 sheets of Rapid Mesh
6 sheets of silver wire mesh panel something like this with around 4cm square holes
6 x long planks
a large diameter poly pipe and the hiring of a mini digger (similar to this one) to create the underground tunnel
heavy duty rubber matting
heaps of cable ties
lots of cups of tea or coffee
Our you-tube channel has a Video playlist of the outdoor cat run being used. Lots of short movies by this amateur trying to capture #lifestyle in country #Tasmania whilst working fulltime as an #artist. Millie got the use of the outdoor pen for 2 weeks on her own as Archie kept escaping and on the fourth time we could see how he did it. the ratbag. we did solve it and they are all out in the outdoor cat pen these days.
A few milestone videos include :
1. earliest days - a walk through showing the run created out the window, down the side of the garage and the polypipe laid down under the gravel road going into the outdoor cat run.
2. Millie coming out the bedroom window into the run for the first time.
3. V&I in conversation in the evening discussing the outdoor cat run and its building still in progress.
4. A wallaby feeding on cabbage leaves in front of Millie in her outdoor pen.
5. the final cat run good to go March 2023
6. V explaining the top section as a barrier to keep the cats in (did not work for Archie)
8. the day we saw Archie get out for the fourth time.
As i say, the whole thing can be put together in a weekend and without too much trouble (apart from digging up the drive and getting a huge poly pipe in place) ... overall the building of it came together very nicely and quite quickly without too much hassle. The fiddly bits were the actual run out of the window to create it out of the silver mesh, cut to size and holes drilled in the planks to fit the mesh. Most of the whole structure and run through to the polypipe is held together with cable ties.
And now we head into winter so we begin the whole thing of getting the cats out into the pen in Spring. Each beautiful day we get we send them out into the pen - getting them out the window all together and into the pen is a whole other story! frustrating fun.
