It may not be necessary to completely cover the top. There are proprietary fence systems with overhangs that cats can’t get over. Or a cheap but ugly DIY alternative is to attach plastic drainpipe to the top of a 6-foot fence, attached to overhang the inside. The fence is too high for the cat to clear in a clean jump, and the smooth pipe prevents the run-up technique.
Cats are so sneaky, though, it needs to be perfectly arranged, and I think you need to watch the specific cat for a while until you are sure that it has given up on attempting to get over.
Aluminum window screen will work, but they will climb it and damage it. Ask me how i know. Hardware cloth or chicken wire would certainly work if you affix the edges well enough that they can’t slip through. Cats will easily climb those, of course. I wouldn’t trust bird netting, but some of the plastic fencing designed to contain or exclude dogs and deer would work. Just make sure the holes are small enough. If a cat can get it’s skull through a hole, it can get its body through.
Make sure it’s heavy weight enough not to be tangly; and, indeed, that openings are too small to get a head through (which is smaller than you think; I’ve known a grown cat to get her whole body through a space that I’d thought was way too small to fit more than the tip of a paw. Yes, she was in heat; but still.) You really don’t want a cat strangling themselves in the stuff.
I’m trying to visualize that; but the issue’s not only jumping, the issue is climbing.
The pipe is not just sitting on top of the fence. It is attached to the inside top, like guttering attached the wall of a house, so it overhangs. The cat cannot get purchase with its claws on the smooth plastic to climb out and around the overhang.
I could see it working sometimes, but that’s not going to stop all cats. My cat that could fly could also climb a large window pane by jamming his claws into the insulating strip on the side of the pane. Just one side of the pane. I’m sure he could get over that fence with the pipe on it, it’s made of wood and he could climb it vertically.
At one point in the video I see a shelf structure up against the fence; I’m pretty sure there are cats who could just jump it from that point. It is going to depend some on the cat. – are any of the ones in the OP kittens? Kittens have a lighter weight compared to their claw purchase, and can be astonishing climbers. I’ve seen six month kittens climb a vertical cinderblock chimney; not to escape, just for the fun of the climbing. I don’t know if they could have gotten around that pipe; but if it really mattered that they didn’t get out, I wouldn’t have wanted to count on it.
Plastic lattice comes in large stiff sheets. Perhaps you could use that instead of wood. It would look nicer and you could still see out into the yard.
Most cats aren’t stupid, though and more than just the fence needs be taken into account. Eg in the photo gallery picture above, what’s to stop the cat from climbing up the tree and following branches and telephone lines?
It depends on the cat… some are climbers and really intent on getting past barriers. Most will try, fail, maybe get hurt, and then decide it’s not worth it next time. I think that’s what the pipe does; discourages the normal climbing/landing method rather than stop it for most cats.
Every cat I’ve seen either climbs or finishes an upward jump by hooking their front claws on whatever they are scaling and pulling themselves up; even shorter jumps they could launch right over. It would be hard for a cat to do this on the pipe because the claws would slide off and they’d get no grip… I’d picture a bunch of failed blooper attempts where they either slip back down or fall over the other side uncontrolled. Kind of like a person avoiding a really slippery patch of ice: it’s not that you can’t walk across it with enough effort, just that it’s less painful to avoid it instead.
Yeah, if that works initially a cat might just live with it. My ‘flying’ cat was a bit more adventuresome and determined than the average cat, and he definitely would have looked for alternate escape methods if simple jumping wasn’t working. The average well fed housecat could give up sooner.
I realize she may have been a rare specimen, and you may not have seen one like her, but I did have a cat who, as I mentioned, could jump straight to the top edge of a door. She would alight there without scrabbling or hanging by her paws.
Most of the cats I’ve had had some level of jump that they do the same with agility as that – no pulling up with the front, or pushing off with the back paws. There will just be different heights of that for different cats.
Don’t know if it is “rare”, but for sure I have also witnessed cats jump from a standstill and perfectly alight on the top edge of doors, open shelves, tree branches, refrigerators, human shoulders…
The two best examples I could find in around 30 mins of looking. My own car, Brett, has been dead for something like 27 years, so I did not have any form of video camera when she was alive.
Hardware cloth or chicken wire would certainly work if you affix the edges well enough that they can’t slip through. Cats will easily climb those, of course. I wouldn’t trust bird netting, but some of the plastic fencing designed to contain or exclude dogs and deer would work. Just make sure the holes are small enough. If a cat can get it’s skull through a hole, it can get its body through.
