Building A Cat Run

If you’re keeping a cat as an indoor cat, it is often nice to provide them with an outside run. Not only does this offer them extra space in which to exercise and a taste of outside life, while keeping them as safe as possible. A cat who has never know the outside will not miss it and as long as you offer your indoor cat plenty of love, attention and playtime they will not only do as well as a cat who has time loose outdoors, but better! They are highly unlikely to go missing, get themselves stolen or worse and yet far more common, get themselves run over or bitten by another animal - maybe even one who is carrying a disease.

Since Abyssinians are highly friendly and inquisitive the chances of them being hurt or lost if allowed to roam go up significantly over those of many other breed types, hence it is more often found that Abyssinian breeders ask that the kittens they breed remain indoor cats all their lives. However this doesn’t mean not taking them out in a harness and lead, or trying your hand at DIY and building them a cat run. Here we find we use the cat run as a place to sit and hang out with the cats on a summer afternoon or evening, as well as a place they love to climb about in and run round. We have a cat condo in it for shade in the summer or a little added shelter in the wind if they still wish to have some outdoor time. Shelves for them to sit on and this summer we’re planning on adding a climbing tree too, plus of course a few cat friendly plants they can help prune if they feel like it!

Run building Diagram - side wall with door gap02

Cat runs can be of almost any size, but here we found that about 8-9 ft long, by 6 ft wide and 7ft high worked well for us, and fits in the space we have available.

Once you have an idea of what size best fits your own location, you can make one pretty easily if you think of it as a “flat-pack” and it’s always best to consider where the door out of it will go, before anything else. Doors need to be about 3ft wide.

Once you have worked out the rest of your dimensions, working around the size of an average door for ease of access, you can start making your basic door.

Run building Diagram - door frame02

The diagonal cross bracing is put in to add strength and rigidity to the piece. After all it needs to remain square to fit properly and is likely to be the most used panel of the whole construction.

Once this is done you need to add a sneeze guard to the bottom 2 to 3ft of the door frame as well as the runs frame. This helps cut down the chances that your cat will come face to face with another cat entering your garden - a cat that could easily be carrying one of the viruses that cause cat flu or similar.

You also need to add weld mesh (16 gage) to the top 2/3’s of the door and run side. This gage makes it possible for your cat to climb it without hurting it’s paws.

Run building Diagram - door frame, mesh and sneeze guard02

Once this has been accomplished you can fit the door in place with a set of reasonably heavy duty outdoor hinges, adding a sliding bolt to shut it. If you are keeping a stud cat, you really should use a double door system for safety, as well as security. In face a double door system is always advisable if you have breeding cats. Although if you only have a single door system like this, you can cope, as long as you are careful and aware of where your cat(s) are.

Run building Diagram - side wall with door gap, sneeze guard and mesh02

Letting a calling female out is always a poor idea as even if she can’t get out or the local tom get to her, you’ll still have a garden full of tom cats, quite probably spraying your new cat run!

Run building Diagram - side wall, sneeze guard and mesh02

Once you’ve managed the side with the door the other long sides are easy in comparison. As soon as you have all 3 sides completed (or 4 if you wish to make this a free standing structure), it is time to check your measurements and make the roof. Remember you want your roof to sit on top of the top beams of the side panels and not between them. Having the roof’s weight supported like this makes it more structurally sound.

Doing it this way round also gives you somewhere to rest the roof’s weight as you fix it in place, which is rather important if you’re working with little assistance!

Run building Diagram - roof frame02

Run building Diagram - end wall, sneeze guard and mesh02

When constructing the roof, remember to make use of the way the wood is cut for added rigidity - that is use it 1’ wide by 2’ high. Add in plenty of bracing too as this structure really helps tie the whole run together and needs to support quite a weight of weld mesh.

Run building Diagram - roof frame with weld mesh attached02

Finally, cover the roof with weld mesh, once that’s done you can start putting the walls up in place. Use “L” brackets to secure the the sides to the masonry of the wall, these give you room to adjust for a perfect fit. Using more “L” brackets attach the base to the patio slabs, concrete base or decking - this keeps the very bottom of the run out of the wet (only a very small gap is needed to achieve this). Use a spirit level to check for true and then attach the next side in the same way. The end panel gets screwed onto the end of these with good quality wood screws, making it both firm and solid, but also keeping it easy to dismantle and move if needed. Now that you have the basic run structure all you need to do is lift the roof into place and fix that as you did the end panel, but with “L” brackets to the brickwork above your patio door or similar.

It is easier to paint this structure with animal safe wood stain or preservative prior to putting it together, again this will help it last longer.

While each cat run will need to be different to fit your given location, the above hopefully will help you see it in simple steps rather than as a huge job you can’t possibly manage. If you have any questions about building your own cat run, we will always do our best to answer them, if you e-mail us here at Lovelynx - subject: Cat Run