My mother collected the ferals when they had a house in town. Daddy built wooden houses much like a little dog house and they sat it in their window wells where the heat radiated out of the basement and then filled them with soft rags. They were filled every night with strays who got a meal the next morning. Slowly but surely they either ended up taken in to the household mix or spayed/neutered and left outside. When Mama was alive, the stray cat population of that street diminished to nil. It's exploding again.

Your idea is great!

I want some cute cats and i am searching for them.

@rachel I tried your link its a good link but it will take my time to get to a decision because they have so many cats with them.
Thanks for such a nice post.

BTW, if you are on FreeCycle in your area, you can ask for these styrofoam coolers ---- people keep them because they are just too neat to throw away and possibly you can get them through that forum. I know that here, Freecycle has posts offering them every now and then.

We also have 2 outdoor semi-feral cats. My Bf brought home 2 large boxes, that he taped together cut out an opening and I put a Fleece pad in it, they just love it! Living in WA State, it rains alot. I read somewhere, that you shouldn't use towels or blankets because they hold moisture, use straw instead. Our other cat that we have is the son of the other 2 cats. He comes inside to sleep and eventually I'm going to put a Catbox in the laundry room, even though my Bf is against it. We live on a very busy street and Patches likes to cross it. Eventually he won't make it across and that would just devastate me.

Love Kitties!!!

My feral barn cat has a computer box in the barn, up high, that I closed up, taped and then cut a hole in for her to enter.

I put a blanket in there and when it gets colder, will find an old down coat to put in there also.

Saw that she was sharing the box with her little friend she brings home occasionally. 2 cats in the box will definitely be warmer than one.

If you're in a very cold climate, you can also line the box with a foil heat reflector blanket-basically a soft foil sheet, only costs a couple bucks. We got ours at the local army surplus store. It does help hold the heat.

I only use straw in our feral cat's house, they say any fabric can hold fleas, moisture, etc. We have a small kennel heater in our feral's house, cause our feral, Baby, is getting up in years (6-7) and the cold is really hard on her even in a well insulated house. We turn it on when the nights start getting under freezing, Oct/Nov here in Detroit.

It's nice that so many care for the ferals, and we have minimal feral traffic with Baby claiming our house and 2 houses in every direction as her territory. There are lots of ferals in our neighborhood :(

Here is a link that might be useful: Winter shelter ideas

I, too, have an outside kitty. She is a neighborhood kitty that decided I had the best food service in town, so she came and stayed. I took a hooded litter box, completely surrounded it with quilts used by moving companies and made a sort of tunnel to get into it. It sits on a chair on my covered front porch facing away from wind and weather. I put a heavy towel on top of it that hangs down over the opening. She has fleece in there and is quite cozy even on the coldest nights. She gets fresh water several times a day and two to three meals a day too. She is at least 12 years old and seems to enjoy living here.

I clicked on the above link and those are great ideas. We have the solar pool cover over the top of the tarp that covers the hoop house --- they last lots longer in the sun than a regular tarp and are very inexpensive.