"dgk" wrote in message
...
It isn't below 0F in NYC right now but it is pretty close. The outside
cats always disappear when we get a big snow and show up again in
three or four days. After the snow from last Friday they didn't show
up again until Monday, when three of them came to eat. The fourth one
had been spotted a day earlier.

But this cold is something else. Buddy, the grey feral, spent the
night in the heated box that I had built for Baby. I think Baby and
her mom, Jet, spent the night under the porch of a neighbor a few
doors away. They go there when there is heavy snow and just stay under
the porch. It's shelltered from the wind but there is no insulation of
any kind.

There are also several cats that live in the backyards, but one of my
neighbors has some crude shelters for them and I guess they stay
there. I'll have to ask her.

It's interesting how they manage to survive these temperatures. I
mean, they do have fur coats but still, it's cold.

Nearly 0F is * very cold* it rarely gets that low here.
You're having such awful weather over the pond.

You do such good work by providing a heated shelter for the ferals. If your
neighbour who has the crude shelters is interested maybe they could put one
box inside another. stuff the space in between with insulating material and
make sure to keep if off the ground.
A cat who is always outside can grow a very thick coat, I guess this is how
the remaining population of Scottish wildcats survive. It's more than cold
in the wilds of Scotland (which is where they are) and there's a lot of
snow.
http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/wildcat.html

I've noticed that Boyfriend, who goes out regularly, has a really thick coat
now compared to a friend's cat who isn't allowed out and spends her life in
a warm, centrally heated house.
Although even if I kept him in, Boyfie would grow a big coat in the winter
grin
So I guess the answer is the colder it gets the more coat they grow. Not
longer, but thicker and that's how they survive.
Nature is a wonderful thing.

Tweed