Catruns

Fresh air and daylight is important for the health and wellbeing of both humans and animals. But just letting a cat out to run free outdoors is a very risky thing to do! Depending on where you live, the risks for your cat range from being hit by a car - your own included - or being accidently locked up in a neighbour's garage or being injured by someone who dislikes cats to being killed or injured by other animals - foxes, lynx, other cats, carnivore birds. If you have a cat that is not yet injured, you have to add the risks of accidental matings, diseases being transmitted at matings, and in case of a male that the cat is chased away by other entire males. The average lifespan of an entire male who is allowed to roam free has been shown to be less than two years!

So what are then our alternatives here? One option is to walk your cat on a leash every day. That usually works very well if you have one cat only. Cats easily learn to wear a harness and to be on a leash.

If you have several cats, or if your cat wants to be outdoors more than you have the time to give him, you had better build a catrun for your cats. A safe enclosure, that will allow your cats to be outdoors when they want to, without any added risks to the cat's life.

Here you can see pictures of how a catrun was built. We plan to add pictures of other types of catruns as well eventually. We hope these pictures will inspire you and give you ideas to build a catrun that suits you, your house, and your cats!

Ylletrollet's catruns in Sweden

Silveronyx's catruns and enclosed balcony in Sweden

Honeysuckle's catruns and studhouse in Sweden

Flying Eagle's catrun in Sweden

E. Spakman's catrun in the Netherlands

Arioska's catrun in Switzerland

 

Ylletrollet's catruns in Sweden

Pulling the heavy net up on the roof.

Trying to make the net more flat...

The separate run for one of the studs (about 3 x 4 meters)

 

Silveronyx's catrun Sweden

Silveronyx's enclosed balcony in Sweden

 

Honeysuckle's catruns and studhouse in Sweden

 

Flying Eagle's catrun in Sweden

 

E. Spakman's catrun in the Netherland

From the house there is a corridor for the cats, all the way around the house, into the attic of the barn.

The attic is cat proof, and the cats can only leave the attic through the corridor,or they can go into the catrun, on the other side of the barn.

 

Arioska's catrun in Switzerland - (the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of the owner)

Our chalet’s location being in the swiss alps, we really wanted our cats to be able to go out and enjoy the fresh air. We had first a net on the second floor balcony but wanted to give the cats even more space. We had planned a catrun for a long time but had problems both with how to cope with a lot of snow in winter and how to connect the house and the catrun(the opening was on the second floor). A wooden structure of 6 meters was too heavy and dangerous in winter with snow load. After much thinking, here is what we came up with!

Chalet before putting the wooden structure.

Chalet after putting the wooden structure.

Wooden balcony before going down into the catrun.

Wooden structure with metallic net.

Footbridge.

Catrun.

Footbridge and arrival platform into the catrun.

Cat in mid-air.

View into the catrun.

View from far.