Ceiling fan

[Szewan]

I know it sounds really silly - but my excuse is I only started to become a cat mom 6 months ago.

I am thinking of replacing my ceiling light in the bedroom with a ceiling fan with light. It’s right over the bed.

My adult ginger cat is quite a good jumper and despite him being ~7 years old now, he is still a very inquisitive cat. He likes to sleep on my bed. I don’t know how he would like a fan above. I am only concerned if he tries to jump from the bed when the fan is running and hurts himself.

Am I being totally paranoid

 

[ArtNJ]

Probably. We have seen posts with cats jumping on light fixtures like chandeliers - rare but it can happen with the most athletic and curious kits. But I've yet to see one with a ceiling fan and strongly suspect the "big moving object" would be a big deterrent. Certainly I've never even thought about it with our ceiling fans, but its been years since I had even a top 25% jumper, and have never had an olympian-level cathlete so I guess we'll need to wait for others similarly "blessed" with true athletes to chime in.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Have you ever seen him jump up almost vertically as he would nearly have to do to get to a fan over a bed? I don't know the height of your ceilings or how low the fan would hang, but the odds are he would have to be able to jump at least 5 feet, again almost vertically, to reach the fan. And, as stated above, the movement - along with a bit of a hum that most fans make when running - would likely be a deterrent. Unless he is oblivious to noises and impervious to trying to jump on moving targets, I would think the opposite might be true and he would actually leave the room when the fan is running, at least initially. Cats have better hearing than we do, so any noise coming from the fan is louder to him that it would be to you. Also, if you bed has any 'give' to it at all, that would make it harder for him to get a good jump because of the 'play' of it underneath him.

I never even gave it thought when I added fans to several of my rooms, but Feeby was closer to 10yo when I did that, and she was already not prone to jumping very high - certainly not vertically! Thankfully, she was also not bothered by any noise or movement coming from the fan!

I think you have to gauge your cat's true jumping ability and go from there.

 

[rubysmama]

I've seen threads where the cat is afraid of the ceiling fan, but doing a quick search found these 2 threads:

Mooch & the Ceiling Fan
cat on ceiling fan lol

Here's all the search results, btw.
Search Results for Query: ceiling fan

 

[ArtNJ]

Well . . . I suppose a ceiling fan that is OFF is no different from any other lighting fixture . . . except more surface area to land on. And we have had a bunch of posts about cats and chandeliers and such. But I still think almost all cats would leave it alone when its running!

Then again, there is no denying that cats can freak us out by being surprisingly uncautious. When I use the treadmill, the kitten likes to stand at the back of it and paw the treadmill surface as it rotates. Needless to say it freaks me out as I worry it is going to catch her nail and rip it off, so I started excluding her from the room. Anyway, just a random example of it being hard to predict what is going to scare a cat.

Edit: Apparently there are a bunch of cat + ceiling fan youtube videos. And the first one is horrifying (hopefully fake!) cat ceiling fan - Google Search However, there are a lot of cats and a lot of ceiling fans, so this could still be a very unlikely thing!

 

[Hellenww]

Most cats don't like air blowing at them so that may be enough deterent when it's running.

When Yoshi was about 6 mt and probaly 6 or 7 lb he tried to get to the light fixture above the bed. My ceilings are low so there is only 4 1/2 ft from the bed to the light. He'd run in circles on the bed until he'd build up enough speed and shoot straight up. I got a kick out of it until he almost reached the light. After that I'd take him out of the room and play a different game until he forgot about the light.

It's not paranoid to wonder. Even when the fan is off it's unlikely a 7 yr old will be able to jump that high or still have the kitten fearlessness to try.

 

[susanm9006]

No reaction at all from my cats when I have installed ceiling fans and my current cat who was afraid of pretty much everything in the house when she arrived has never noticed or cared about the ceiling fans. As far as jumping onto it, unless there is a high place, like a bookcase or tall cabinet nearby the cat won’t be able to get to it.