Need advice for moving a purely outdoor cat

[Rae D.]

We had a stray show up when she was a kitten. We fed her and she decided she was ours. We later had her shots done and had her spayed.

My husband is highly allergic and so she is purely an outdoor cat. I figured being a fed and cared for outdoor cat was better than being a starving stray. She was pretty feral at first, but now we can pick her up, she comes and sits on our laps, and loves to be petted. We live in Texas, so we don't have harsh winters and we bought her a heated cat house for the nights it does get cold. She seems pretty happy.

We're getting ready to move to a home seven miles away. We're taking our 2 sheep, 8 chickens, 2 pigs, and 2 rabbits with us, but she tends to hang out in our front yard and not in the back with them. We want to take her with us, but we have concerns about moving her.

We have a neighbor that would probably take her over (our hood has a lot of outdoor barn cats), but I have no doubt she'd keep coming back to our house looking for us (and we're not sure how tolerant the new owners may be of her) and frankly, we adore her and want to take her with.

That said, keeping her in the house for a while at the new place isn't an option. When I say my husband is allergic, I mean BAD. If we take her we,d have her microchipped, would bring her heated cat house and the other animals would be in the yard, but I'm concerned at how we'll get her to realize she has a new home.

The new house has a garage, but it has no windows and I'd feel terrible keeping her in there.

Any ideas or suggestions? We really want to bring her with as she's family, but we also want to do what's best for her.

 

[Baymule]

An English lady told me how to move a cat, I tried it and it works. Take cat to new home and rub butter on all 4 feet. Cat will immediately go into full groom mode, licking feet and cleaning all over. She will relax and be at "home." It might help to put her in the garage for a few days also. Butter her feet when you get her there and do it again right before you let her out of the garage. Good luck with moving your cat!

We moved a cat and buttered his feet. he jumped out of my arms and ran off. It got dark. No cat. It got late. No cat. My daughter began to get a little teary, 10:00 at night, we heard the cat meow. Opened the door, there was our cat! He came in and move was successful!

 

[AClark]

You might try keeping her locked up in the garage for a couple of days until she's used to the new place. When we moved from TX to OK, we kept ours locked up in the barn for a couple of days and then let her out, she figured it out pretty quickly. Especially when you bring things that are familiar to them and smell like them. Fingers crossed she figures out the new home.

 

[greybeard]

Ya'll must have better barns than I do. Keeping a cat locked in a building is akin to keeping water in cupped in your hands.

We moved an inside cat with us, from Louisiana to West Texas one time. Put it, it's litterbox and squeeze toys in the bathroom while we were unloading the rental truck. First time we opened the bathroom door, it flew out that door, straight thru the house at warp9 and out the front door, never to be seen or heard from again. Gone like the wind. Welcome to Texas.
...never had that problem with a dog.

 

[Southern by choice]

We moved 2x with 2 cats.
We built a 4x8 kennel out of 2x4's 1x3's and hardware cloth.
At the time 5x10 kennels (the 2x4 fencing) wasn't available easily...
We put the hardware cloth on top as well.

Just us feeding and caring for them in the new location taught them this is where we (people) are and this is the new home.
Worked for us.

When we move again I will just use my kennels and put a top on.

We interacted, fed, cleaned litter boxes (which our cats had not used before but got use to it)... maybe 1-2 months I guess... we would take them out on long leads as well.