Thinking of starting a Cattery? Here's what you need to know
Running a Boarding Cattery is a very rewarding and fulfilling way of life and all our customers tell us it is a lifestyle rather than a job.
Flexible hours and being able to work from home is becoming increasingly popular – whether it’s an intimate four pen cattery or a commercial 50 pen outfit, the following pages will give you all the information you need to get started. Take a look at our finance page where you can very easily calculate the financial benefits of running such a convenient and rewarding business. We are always here to help – no question is a silly question. We understand how daunting starting up can be so please pick up the phone for a chat. Lindee Lu Offers You The Whole Package
From the bespoke design service and quotation through to delivery and installation, we look after you all the way.
We can supply all the information you will need to submit your planning permission, including design and access statements, CAD drawings, list of materials and exact dimensions.
You will need planning permission to build your cattery and a license to run your boarding establishment
Lindee Lu Ltd can help you through these stages with relative ease.
We can provide examples of scale drawings, design and access statements, material lists and exact dimensions for your cattery. Everything you will need for your planning application. Unlike some other cattery manufacturers, Lindee Lu does not charge for this service as we believe it is important that your planning application is 100% correct. Incorrect submissions can often lead to the costly process of having to re-submit your plans – wasting time and money. We always advise our customers to speak to their local council about a pre planning visit. There is usually a small charge involved for pre planning advice but this has proved to be invaluable and could save you a lot of money. There are strict regulations set out by DEFRA, as to the required size for a cat pen. Our 4ft Walk-in Chalet adheres to these, the only thing that needs to be decided is the number you want! Some customers start with the space they have available and ask us to design something to fit, others know the number of cat pens they want for their business and start the project this way. As a guide for the space needed, a single unit is approximately 1250mm (w) x 4400mm (d). Multiples of 1250mm will allow you to map-out the rough area your cattery will incorporate. You will also need to take into consideration any additional rooms you wish to have, such as a reception, store or kitchen area, which in general would be two or three pen widths as one area, often split with a partition, for two separate rooms. Once you are happy with the design and layout of your cattery, we can provide scale CAD drawings and elevations suitable for submitting with your planning application, which will give you the exact dimensions your concrete pad needs to be. There is a small charge for these but you can be confident that your submitted drawings will be 100% compliant with the current regulations. Cattery Kitchens, Receptions and Storerooms
Regulations insist that you have a separate wash area for cleaning food dishes and litter trays etc. This does mean you are not permitted to use your own domestic kitchen.
Although it is not a requirement, we do advise our customers to have an additional cattery washing machine as washing hairy, possibly soiled, bedding in your domestic machine is not ideal! A place to meet and greet your guests, somewhere to store cat boxes, food, litter and a room for washing up with all your cattery cleaning equipment etc. are essential for the smooth running of your business. Whether you’re looking for a 4ft storage area for all your bags of litter or a beautiful 10ft square kitchen, Lindee Lu can build these rooms into your cattery creating a work space attached to the pens making your life easier, especially in the cold, wet weather. Our reception rooms and kitchens come with fully fitted vinyl flooring which is warm underfoot, easy to clean and create a very smart and professional impression to your customers when they enter your establishment. About Our Cattery Bespoke Pens
We can design and build any shape of cattery providing it complies with the current regulation sizes and license conditions.
Sending us your ideas and any photos of the area you have planned for your cattery are always very welcome as we pride ourselves on making each building individual to your requirements. Read More About Family Pens
More and more people decide to keep more than two cats and sometimes you will be asked to house a whole family or perhaps a Queen with her kittens. Whether you plan to breed cats or have a boarding cattery, having the option of an extra-large pen is always a good idea.
The downside to having a 5ft, 6ft or larger unit, is when it is not needed as a family pen – you are wasting precious space. We have the perfect and most cost-effective solution to this by fitting an interconnecting door between two of your 4ft pens. When the door is fixed back on itself, you open up a huge double pen measuring 8ft wide with the choice of two sleeping compartments. Of course, once your family of cats checks out… you simply close the door and you are immediately back to two 4ft pens, thus maximising your space and your income. We do manufacture a lot of 5ft and 6ft pens. These are to hold a family of 3 or 4 cats and look especially good in the corner of an L shaped cattery. You can always market these as premier suites, putting a higher price on them when only being occupied by one or two cats. You will find that many of your customers are happy to pay the higher premium for the luxury accommodation. Bespoke Hand Made Catteries, built in the UK
Customer expectations of a cattery are rising all the time. More and more people want their cats to have a luxury holiday in a boutique hotel with a choice of menu etc. and we are fortunate enough to be able to provide you with as much luxury as you want.
Lindee Lu has its own factory with a team of highly skilled joiners who craft every cat pen from scratch by hand for each individual customer. This gives us the pleasure of being able to manufacture each job specifically for you to suit your exact needs. Whether you are short of space or want to fill that awkward space in a misshaped corner of your garden, Lindee Lu can accommodate to fit your needs. Setting up a new cattery business can be very daunting and we have an experienced team of people who will suggest layouts and designs best suited to your garden.
We do not charge for this service – we make site visits and surveys where necessary but most of our projects we find can be completed without this requirement, which speeds up the process and gets you up and running faster.
Feel free to send us your ideas – no matter how simple! Just as long as it gives us an idea of what you have in mind. From this we can design something that meets with all the current regulations and bring your ideas into reality. Lindee Lu prides itself of the longevity of its workforce and because of this; the boys in the factory never forget a pen. Very often they will see a photograph of a cattery installed 15 – 20 years ago and they will immediately remember the name of the customer, where in the UK the cattery is based and what style of pens they have. This is all down to the pride they have in their work and the product we supply. A single pen is as important to us as a 50 pen commercial cattery. Don’t forget – a cattery is not all about the cats! You will be living and breathing your cattery and it must be a pleasurable workspace for you too. You are going to need planning permission to build your cattery and a licence to run your boarding establishment. Lindee Lu Ltd can help you through these stages with relative ease. We can provide examples of scale drawings, design and access statements, material lists and exact dimensions for your cattery.Everything you will need for your planning application. Unlike some other cattery manufacturers, Lindee Lu does not charge for this service as we believe it is important that your planning application is 100% correct. Incorrect submissions can often lead to the costly process of having to re-submit your plans – wasting time and money. We always advise our customers to speak to their local council about a pre planning visit. There is usually a small charge involved for pre planning advice but this has proved to be invaluable and could save you a lot of money. Walk In Chalet Style Houses
The standard unit you will need for your licenced cattery, also used and approved by leading rescue groups throughout the UK.
The fully lined and insulated walk-in sleeping quarter measures 4ft wide x 4ft deep x 6ft high and has a vinyl floor for easy cleaning. Two removable UPVC shelves, a fully adjustable air vent, lockable cat flap and a fully opening window leading to a full-length, pop-hole shelf and ladder, make this a firm favourite with customers and cats alike! Full height sneeze barriers between each pen can be manufactured in a choice of finish. Our sneeze panels come in solid white or clear acrylic with the most popular being solid white panels in the bottom half and clear panels on the top. This allows any nervous cats to have privacy but when they want to venture out; they can sit on their sunning shelf and check out the action in the neighbouring pens. A 6ft long exercise area gives your cats plenty of space to explore and relax, and the full-length shelf allows good access, up high at the front of the pen, providing the perfect view point for whatever is going on in the safety corridor and outside. Our safety corridors are a minimum of 3ft wide although most customers prefer a wider 4ft corridor making it easier for customers with cat boxes to manoeuvre their way through the cattery. About Cattery Isolation Pens
The importance of starting things off correctly
Larger catteries sit on top of a concrete pad. We will give you the exact dimensions for this and it is important that your cattery sits with a slight overhang to allow rain water to run away from the building rather than onto the concrete and underneath the cat’s exercise area.
The requirements for the pad are a minimum of 100mm depth, flat, level, square-edged with a pole float finish (rectangles only, no parallelograms!). We cannot stress enough just how important it is to follow this guide. A good base leads to a great installation. From here you can decide what finish you have and we advise, for cleaning and hygiene purposes, that you cover the bare concrete. The most expensive but increasingly popular option, is to tile the pad. This needs to be done before we arrive and cover the entire area, even under the sleeping quarters, leaving us with a flat surface for construction. One important point to keep in mind, is to make sure that the grout is applied flush with the tiles as the last thing you want is hard to clean grooves, which trap hair and dirt. Other options include a hard-wearing floor paint or specialist resin-based paints such as Renotex, designed for cattery and kennel flooring. These can be applied after we have installed the cattery, although easier to do beforehand, and reapplied in high traffic areas as and when needed, to keep things looking fresh and smart. You may also be interested to lean more about tanalised timber and vinyl bases |
Free Guidance Notes For BoardingQuestions?No problem! Contact our friendly support team for further assistance..
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