Been a week, so must be time for another cat house update!
Firstly, the gray alien cat has continued to visit every few days; I’m unsure if it’s a neighbor’s roaming pet, or feral:
We’ve also had a black cat visitor, which has been near our ferals without conflict. I wonder if one or both of those will join our colony in time; if so, we’ll have to try to trap them to get FCCO to check them out:
We’ve also still had the occasional possum visit, which doesn’t seem discouraged by the feeder light (but was disappointed to find no food on this occasion):
And raccoons, though they are a bit more discouraged by the light; only the parent is brave / desperate enough to go inside now (but did luck out in finding freshly dispensed food; I’ve since moved the schedule back half an hour):
One of our ferals sitting on a rock. That’s a favorite place to wait for food, and keep an eye on things:
A screenshot of my iPad, showing the four cat cameras in the LiveCams Pro app that I use to watch the cameras throughout the day:
It rained a bit last night, so here’s a damp cat, diappointed to find no food (breakfast is now dispensed at 05:00), but did have fun chasing a moth:
Since it is getting cooler overnight, and it rained for the first time in months (and might again tonight), I decided to switch the shelter to winter mode, a little earlier than originally planned. So I opened up the maintenance door, closed the vents at the back, and plugged in the two heating pads on the lower level:
Here’s a shot of the open shelter from further back:
Closed again:
I also held open the front door again, to encourage them to go inside. I was hoping they’d figure out the door when it was closed, but none did. If they start living in there, I might try closing it again after a while, when they’d have a stronger motivation to get back inside. If that doesn’t work, I may have to leave it open permanently, which wouldn’t be preferred:
Lastly, I also cut the feeder tube a couple of inches shorter, since I noticed them finding it a little difficult to get their heads under it to eat food directly under the pipe. This should give them plenty of room:
I hope you’ve enjoyed this update!