How to keep Cats out of birdhouses
Be it your own cat or a neighbors, cats in and around a birdhouse isn't a positive thing as a cats presence alone can lead to adult birds abandoning their young.
How to keep Cats off birdhouses is to mount a 2 by 2 feet wide plank of plywood on top of the birdhouse - with spacing to avoid the cats sitting on top of this cover whilst disturbing the occupants. You can nail in spikes on the original roof, cloak the birdhouse in a cage - or cover the entry hole in a wire cage guard.
When considering how to keep cats out of birdhouses, its more important than ever to try and keep cats ever coming into contact with the birdhouse in the first place.
For one thing, cats being present on top or near a birdhouse at all the times can lead to nervous adult birds leaving the box all together. Now, imagine if there are unhatched eggs or fledglings in the box, unfortunately the parents will abandon them.
With that to contend with you must never put a birdhouse on a fence or wall that is busy with neighborhood cats.
If a birdhouse like a Bluebird house can go on a single wooden post only, then do so.
Similarly, to hang a birdhouse isn't quite as easy to attract birds too, but if its singled out whilst hung off a length of thin wire - then cats stand no chance of accessing it.
Let me just say, if you can say for certain cats will be attracted to the birdhouse ounce its up and running, then forget it - whilst instead focusing on putting out bird feeders.
How you can keep cats off a birdhouse all together is by protecting the birdhouse by deterring cats who descend on the box who always sit on the roof.
You'd mount an extra wide sheet of wood above the birdhouse, so cats are unable to reach beneath it any way possible. Better still, nail in spikes on the original birdhouse roof or this wooden plank to avoid cats sitting on top.
Cats mustn't be allowed by the birdhouse entry hole, of which they can claw inside the box or try and catch birds who exist the box once in a while.
With that, you can surround the birdhouse in a ground squirrel proof bird feeder cage, re-purposed to cover a birdhouse. Less hassle though is to utilize a predator guard cage over the birdhouse entry hole only.
Mount wood plank on top of birdhouse
How you'd go about stopping cats even getting on top of a birdhouse roof, would be to mount an additional roof or cover above the birdhouse, in which I am calling a cat baffle.
What this plank of wood will do is create a gap between the birdhouse below it and the sheet of wood mounted above it - of which the spacing would avoid the cat who can climb on the extra plank... but won't disturb the birdhouse occupants in the process.
How you will achieve mounting what can be a 2 by 2 feet plank of wood above a birdhouse, is to first create a new birdhouse backing piece of wood.
Screw this backing to the birdhouse itself then an extended part that goes up to a further 6 inches or so can allow for the additional wooden cat baffle to be screwed on tightly.
You may need to add brackets to support the 45 degree angle, yet no extra support or footing must be created in the process to give cats better access to the birdhouse.
What is more important than that, is never mount a bottom or below the birdhouse wood plank guard to prevent cats getting on the birdhouse in the first place, because it simply won't work.
Cats can be allowed to get on top of a birdhouse as they waste their time, whereby to utilize a bottom plank will only see cats get on it then proceed to claw inside the birdhouse via the entry hole with ease.
Nail in multiple spikes on roof
Actually, you don't have to give cats free reign over the birdhouse roof if you don't want, and I'd admit the presence of a cat can scare off nesting birds for good.
With that to consider, it won't hurt to put an anti-cat roof in place by making it yourself.
What it requires is you basically hammering in dozens of the pointed ends of nails only, upside down on the roof - now cats will simply hurt themselves in the process of settling down on the roof of the birdhouse, and would therefore have no choice but to retreat.
Not a simple trick I grant you as you'd need to find a way to chop the tips of thin galvanized nails off, via an electronic grinder or use handheld cable cutters.
Now its a matter of spacing out the spikes on the roof every half inch or so in a grid like pattern - as to avoid cats carefully placing their feet in-between - which would of course render this technique useless.
Where you place your birdhouse in the yard or outside your property, can in fact lead to this trick not working as intended... as a cat simply uses a nearby fence or branch to sit.
Nail in a bunch of nails with the sharp end facing upwards then, whilst not being too concerned about safety; it won't hurt cats as they'd know not to bother, whilst you or other people are unlikely to cut themselves on normally blunt nail tips.
Cloak birdhouse in cage
How else you can keep cats out of birdhouses is to keep them at a foot or so distance at any angle when they attempt to reach the house.
What this idea involves in actually mounting what is a squirrel proof bird feeder cage that normally goes over ground bird feeder on the ground. Only we are going to re-purpose this quite big cage, to be secured over the birdhouse instead.
Not above it but on a sideways angle as the birdhouse is mounted on a wall, fence or even a thick tree trunk.
Position of the cage will center the birdhouse in the middle, yet the cage will be mounted on to the backing of whatever the birdhouse in screwed on to.
Not at all heavy but its not easy to handle so you may need an extra pair of hands.
But first, you'd need to make sure the backing the birdhouse is mounted to, is big enough for what could be a 2 by 2 foot cage mounted to it.
No issue at all if you begin by securing the birdhouse to an equal size or larger sheet of wood, probably made in treated exterior plywood.
With the birdhouse hooked or screwed on dead center of the plywood; proceed to mount the squirrel proof cage on the wooden backing by using stables or nail in similar galvanized staples with an hammer.
Cage of this type can allow the birdhouse occupants to go and come as they please, all whilst they slip in-between the gaps in the cage to enter or exit the birdhouse.
Affix long wire guard to entry hole
Last but not least is the simple solution of mounting what is a predator guard on the entry hole of any birdhouse in use.
Predator guards can be a steel metal plates or a bulky piece of wood that goes over the entrance hole, yet an equal size hole is made. What that leads to is doubling the reach of predators who intend to hurt the occupants via the entry hole.
However, for my idea to work we are not going to utilize this kind of predator guard.
No we are not... this time we are going to use the effective - although I will say ugly - use of an extended wire cage guard surrounded the entry hole.
In fact, this long cage type wire will appear like a re-purposed suet cage feeder; its a square or rounded wire to stop all predators accessing the birdhouse via the roof - or if predators are able to cling on the birdhouse sides.
It would be hard to make such a device, whereby the option to buy it will make it easy on you to mount to the front of the birdhouse.
Bear in mind all birdhouses utilize all entry hole sizes thus this metal wire cage predator guard must be well out of reach of the hole.
Who's to say a cat can't simply claw at the entry hole, when a fair distance can keep cats and other predators out of range.
Don't worry, while birds can come and go down the length of the wire guard outside the birdhouse - cats won't be able to get on the end of it.
To sum it all up
Not only are you going to have to keep cats out of birdhouses in a way to prevent cats disturbing the occupants so much, they decide to abandon their young. You're going to have to keep cats away from birdhouses all together.
Why keep cats far out of reach of a birdhouse is for the simple fact, birds won't nest in a box with cats present
Similarly, current birdhouse nesting birds won't put up with a predatory cat just outside waiting to pray on them or their young.
What you can do to both keep cats off the birdhouse while keeping them at a distance at the same time - is to mount what is a cat baffle above the birdhouse.
You'd need to make this plank of wood yourself whilst also finding a way to mount this minimum 2 by 2 feet wide sheet of plywood, half a feet above the birdhouse. Not so high cats can get under, but not so low the cats is within range of the birdhouse still.
Leave the cat baffle as is, but what I will ask you to do is take the idea of keeping cats away from birdhouses seriously - by preventing cats getting on top of the this DIY cat baffle all together.
What to do then is cut up the sharp ends of galvanized nails to then hammer them in on this sheet of plywood facing up at a space of half an inch to prevent cats standing on top.
Not up for any DIY, then no problem as an extended out wire metal cage acting as a predator guard can be mounted to the birdhouse entrance hole.
But why not consider mounting what is used to cover up ground bird feeders in a cage, whereby the cage will now shroud the birdhouse mounted center positioned inside.
Share this article:
