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Unlike dogs, most cats prefer staying home: a daily visit for food, water, litter and fuss suits the territorial cat better than the best cattery pen. Catteries win for medication schedules, anxious escape artists and long trips. Either way: licensed premises (England requires it), up-to-date vaccinations, and booking that beats the school holidays.
What The Cattery Cost Calculator Works Out
- Cattery total: the first-cat nightly rate plus GBP 8 for each extra cat sharing the pen, multiplied by nights away. UK cattery pens run GBP 10 to GBP 15 a night for the first cat, with discounted sharing for housemates from the same home.
- Daily home visits instead: one GBP 12 visit a day for food, water, litter and fuss, multiplied by nights. The visit is priced per call regardless of how many cats are in the house, which is why multi-cat homes swing hard toward visits.
- Verdict: the saving from whichever option is cheaper. For most settled adult cats the visit wins on welfare as well as price: cats bond to territory as much as to people, so the cattery's real constituency is the medicated, the anxious escape artist, the frail, and the trip long enough that a daily half-hour stops being enough oversight.
- Rate for each extra cat (advanced): edits the GBP 8 sharing rate. Some catteries charge 50% to 70% of the first-cat rate for a second cat, others a flat few pounds; the per-cat-per-night card shows the effective price once sharing is applied.
- Home visit price and visits per day (advanced): professional sitters charge GBP 10 to GBP 15 a visit; kittens, diabetic cats and anxious cats often need two visits a day, which doubles the home-care line and can hand the win back to the cattery.
- Peak season surcharge (advanced): adds a percentage to both the cattery and the visits. School holidays and Christmas book out months ahead and commonly carry 10% to 20% uplifts.
- Medication or special care (advanced): a per-night extra the cattery charges for giving tablets, injections or special diets, usually GBP 1 to GBP 3 a night.
- Per year (advanced): both totals multiplied by the trips you take in a year, with the annual saving in the subtitle. Two or three trips a year turns a small nightly difference into a meaningful annual line.
- Licensing and vaccinations: catteries in England need a council licence under the animal-boarding regulations (star-rated and inspectable), and will ask for current flu and enteritis certificates. For home visits, insured professional sitters with police checks and a daily photo update are the quality tier; a trial night before the fortnight is cheap insurance in both markets.
Further reading: Cats Protection.