On any given day in the United States, there are an estimated 70 million homeless dogs and cats struggling to survive (https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/overpopulation/). For these homeless animals, winter presents a serious challenge. Cold temperatures and harsh winter weather pose significant dangers to their lives and health. If they cannot find warm, dry shelter and sufficient food, they risk hypothermia, frostbite, dehydration, starvation and even death. Staying warm during frigid winter months is difficult for homeless cats, as they do not have access to the heated homes that domestic cats enjoy. Homeless cats must rely on their natural instincts and adaptive behaviors to survive the winter conditions. This article will examine the ways feral and stray cats manage to keep their body temperatures up and stay alive when the weather is bitterly cold.
Body Temperature Regulation in Cats
Cats are excellent at regulating their core body temperature, which normally ranges between 100-102.5°F (37.8–39.2°C) [1]. They achieve this through a variety of biological processes and behaviors.
Cats have a thermal neutral zone between 86-97°F (30-36°C) where they are comfortable and don’t need to activate temperature regulating mechanisms [2]. If the ambient temperature falls outside this range, cats rely on conduction, convection, radiation, evaporation, and vasodilation/vasoconstriction to maintain their body temperature [3].
Conduction allows cats to cool themselves off or warm themselves up via contact with objects of a different temperature. Vasodilation expands blood vessels to dump heat while vasoconstriction conserves body heat. Evaporation through panting or sweating cools cats down.
These automatic physiological responses keep a cat’s core body temperature stable even as the external temperature fluctuates. This allows cats to comfortably handle both hot and cold environments.
Winter Fur Coats
In winter, cats grow thicker fur coats that provide insulation against the cold weather. According to the ASPCA How to Keep Cats Warm and Healthy in Winter, most cats have two layers of fur – a smooth outer layer for protection and a soft undercoat that provides extra insulation. As winter approaches, daylight hours decrease which triggers cats’ coats to become denser. The undercoat becomes fuller and longer while the topcoat remains smooth. The additional fluffiness traps air close to the cat’s body to retain heat. Long-haired cat breeds like Persians and Maine Coons already have very thick coats and may not change much between seasons. Short-haired tabby cats experience more significant coat changes and grow very thick undercoats for the cold months. A healthy winter coat can allow cats to stay warm even in frigid temperatures. However, senior cats and kittens may struggle to grow an adequate winter coat. For these cats, other warming behaviors like huddling and shelter seeking become even more essential.
Shelter Seeking
Homeless cats typically seek shelter anywhere they can find it during the cold winter months, such as under porches, decks, sheds, in crawlspaces, and in dumpsters. According to the Animal Humane Society, stray cats “gravitate toward warm places in winter” like car engines and basements (https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/news/can-outdoor-cats-survive-minnesotas-sub-zero-temps). The Humane Society notes that cats may seek shelter in abandoned buildings, barns, crawl spaces, under decks or stairs. Cats sometimes huddle together in groups to share body heat. Providing insulated outdoor shelters, like an insulated cat house, can give homeless cats a warm place to sleep in freezing temperatures.
Huddling Together
Cats are known to be independent creatures, but feral cats will come together when it gets cold outside. As solitary hunters, cats don’t usually congregate in groups. However, communal cats such as feral cats will huddle together in order to conserve body heat during the winter months when temperatures drop (https://www.saveacat.org/winter-tips-for-protecting-cats.html).
When cats huddle together in a small, enclosed space like a shelter or box, their combined body heat can raise the ambient temperature significantly. By packing tightly into a shared space, each cat benefits from the warmth of the surrounding feline bodies. This communal huddling behavior helps feral cat colonies survive frigid winter nights when temperatures can drop below freezing.
The added warmth from huddling allows the cats to conserve energy that would otherwise be expended trying to keep warm. Huddling together is an effective survival strategy that homeless outdoor cats rely on to make it through harsh, cold winters.
Eating More
During the winter, outdoor cats need more calories to generate body heat and keep themselves warm (Winter Weather Tips, Tips to Help Cats Stay Warm). Cats primarily get their energy from the food they eat. By eating more food than usual, especially foods rich in fat and protein, cats can increase their calorie intake. Their bodies then use these extra calories to fuel the biological processes that generate heat. The additional calories stimulate their metabolism and increase their core body temperature. This allows cats to maintain a warm, stable internal temperature even when it’s freezing outside. An outdoor cat in the winter needs significantly more calories just to survive cold temperatures than a cat kept indoors.
Reduced Activity
Outdoor and feral cats will naturally reduce their activity levels in the winter to conserve calories and body heat. With cold temperatures and sometimes limited food sources, expending energy unnecessarily through extensive movement or play can be dangerous. Cats instinctively know to remain still and curl up into a ball to retain heat. Moving around expends energy, which in turn burns more calories to fuel the body. By minimizing activity and limiting movement primarily to finding food and shelter, cats can conserve their precious calories and body heat during frigid winter months. This torpor-like state of reduced activity is an essential survival mechanism for feral cats trying to make it through cold, harsh winters with minimal life-threatening risks.
Help from Humans
Humans can provide essential assistance for homeless cats trying to survive the cold winter months. According to https://www.alleycat.org/help-outdoor-cats-in-winter-top-10-tips/, one of the best things people can do is build or provide insulated shelters for stray cats. Shelters should be lined with straw, which is warmer and drier than hay. The shelters give cats a place to get out of the wind, rain, snow and cold temperatures.
People can also help stray cats by providing food and unfrozen water regularly. Bowls and containers should be checked frequently to ensure they have not frozen over. Cats burn extra calories trying to stay warm in winter, so consistent access to food is very important according to https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/how-care-outdoor-cats-winter. People who look after feral cat colonies make sure the cats are well-fed during cold months.
Providing winter houses, shelters, food and water can help reduce illness and death for homeless cats trying to survive in cold climates. Humans play an essential role in helping community cats endure wintertime outdoor living conditions.
Dangers of Winter
The winter months pose many dangers and risks for homeless cats. Without adequate shelter and food sources, homeless cats can easily succumb to starvation, illness, and freezing temperatures.
Hypothermia and frostbite are very real threats for cats without warmth and protection. As temperatures dip below freezing, a cat’s body struggles to maintain a healthy internal temperature. Prolonged exposure leads to hypothermia, which can be fatal if the cat’s temperature drops too low. Extremities like ears, tails, and paws are at high risk of frostbite damage from the cold.1
Illness is another major danger, as cold weather and inadequate shelter weaken a cat’s immune system. Upper respiratory infections are common and can progress to pneumonia without medical care. Gastrointestinal issues from eating spoiled food are also a risk.2
Access to food is more difficult in the winter, as many cats rely on garbage bins and other outdoor sources. Starvation and malnutrition quickly set in without a consistent food supply. Dehydration is also a real possibility if snow cover limits accessible water sources.3
Conclusion
In summary, homeless cats have a variety of coping mechanisms to stay warm in the winter. Some behavioral adaptations include growing thicker winter fur coats, seeking shelter in warmer places, huddling together for shared body warmth, and reducing activity to conserve energy. Eating more food also provides additional calories to produce heat. Humans can help community cats survive the winter by providing insulated outdoor shelters with straw bedding, feeding stations with food/water, and by trapping-neuter-returning the cats so they are healthier overall. It’s important that we understand how cats adapt in the winter and do what we can to support community cat colonies in staying warm and healthy through the colder months.
