Need Catio Advice

[graywing]

I want to try to turn my back porch into a catio. I wish I had pictures I could post but I'll have to just describe it best I can. It's a covered back porch that's vinyl with mesh screens. I think I have to use wire fencing or something before I let any cats onto it because the mesh screen could be torn. (There's already some previous damage to it from squirrels that chew through to get bird seed that was left on the porch.)

Two sides are the outer part of the house so they don't need reinforcement. There are two sides with the screens. The long side is 23.5 feet long. The shorter side is 13 feet long. The screens are 7 feet high with vinyl parts above and below.

One way that was suggested to me was to get rolls of wire fencing that are 3 x 25. Use a staple gun to staple the the fencing to the vinyl going every other square. Overlap 2 inches when starting a new sheet and then use aluminum wire to tie the overlapped areas together every 6 inches so a cat couldn't try to squeeze through. Does this sound like a good plan? If so what sort of staples should I use?

My biggest confusion is in regards to what wire fencing to use. I heard that chicken wire should be avoided because a cat's claws can get caught in it. The 3 x 25 rolls I saw at Lowe's were roughly $48-49 which is unfortunately outside my budget. I did see rolls at wal-mart that were much less expensive but they were also different. I could have sworn they were about $15 but I can't seem to find them on the website. They look a lot like this that I found on Lowe's website. Shop Blue Hawk (Actual: 25-ft x 3-ft) Rolled Wire Galvanized Steel Hardware Cloth Rolled Fencing at Lowes.com I don't know what the deal is with the diagonal wires going across? If chicken wire should be avoided, should this be avoided as well?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately I'm inexperienced and just not sure how to proceed.

 

[Kieka]

We have a bird aviary with chicken wire, I haven't had any of the cats get stuck on the sides and they truly enjoy climbing up and down that aviary (much to the birds disdain). I would say that you want to sandwich the wire or netting with pieces of wood to add strength to the construction. Once you staple the wire or netting to the wood, take a thin piece of wood that goes the whole length and nail that over the whole thing. It gives you a cleaner appearance and will keep staples from popping up and the netting/wire from coming loose. The staples themselves are the industrial staple gun staples, I don't know what they are called honestly but I have three or four of those thingies we've used for projects. I know, I am horrible. I can build a basic structure that won't collapse but I couldn't tell you what the parts are called.

Here is a photo of our aviary that might give you an idea of what I mean. The aviary has double chicken wire with an inch gap to prevent hawks from killing birds, you wouldn't need that in a catio:

20170214_172728.jpg

• Kieka
• Feb 14, 2017

20170214_172737.jpg

• Kieka
• Feb 14, 2017

 

[kitty chew]

Hi there! I don't see why wire should be a problem, cats climb all sorts of things. There's always a risk of your cat injuring itself, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Is there any way you can attach shade cloth? My husband used it for our catio and cat run. Much cheaper, and safe. He used a thicker, stronger one. We have a concrete fence between our house and the one nxt door. He put wood along the top of the fence, and then bolted the shade cloth to the wood. It's quite a long run, so he joined the shade cloth with cable ties. Very hard to describe things without pics! Put this pic on a couple of posts now. There should be a few articles on catios if you search them. You can kind of see what he has done here if you zoom in. Hope this helps.

 

[Margret]

I thought chicken wire had hexagonal or octagonal holes? Or am I showing my age?

Margret

 

[kitty chew]

Kieka Looks great.

 

[Kieka]

Kieka Looks great.

Thank you. We are actually building a catio in the next month and my Mom is using your pictures as the "this is what I want" guide. lol

 

[kitty chew]

Kieka You have a tough job ahead of you then! Was a lot of work. I wish you luck!

 

[Kieka]

I thought chicken wire had hexagonal or octagonal holes? Or am I showing my age?

Margret

I think it depends on the area. Hexagonal is the traditional type, but I live in an urban setting so pretty much an wire in a tight grid gets called chicken wire.

 

[1CatOverTheLine]

I thought chicken wire had hexagonal or octagonal holes? Or am I showing my age?

Margret

I think it depends on the area. Hexagonal is the traditional type, but I live in an urban setting so pretty much an wire in a tight grid gets called chicken wire.

Kieka - This is hardware cloth.
.

 

[Margret]

I suspect that the warning about cat's claws getting caught in chicken wire was actually about the hexagonal chicken wire; if you look at the way it's made it does appear that that's a possibility. I suspect it would also be a possibility with the kind of hardware cloth that has the wire squares on the diagonal, rather than horizontally. I.e., this: Diagonal Hardware Cloth could be dangerous, as could this: Chicken Wire, where this: Horizontal Hardware Cloth wouldn't be.

Margret