What sort of territory does the average house cat have outside, and what do cats do when they roam?

magistra_linguae: What sort of territory does the average house cat have outside, and what do cats do when they roam?
I have two indoor cats, and although they seem perfectly happy in my three-bedroom house, I was wondering about how it compares to the space they’d have to roam in if they were allowed outside and whether they’d be significantly more active there than inside.

Does anyone have any idea how large the roaming territory of domesticated cats is, or how much they actually do roam? Does it depend on the territories of other neighborhood cats, geographical markers such as roads and creeks, the gender of the cat, or the cat’s personality? And what do cats do when they’re wandering around the neighborhood?

Answers and Views:

Answer by trunksgurl914
Outdoor cats tend not to roam farther than the neighborhood, but that’s still a lot of ground. If your cats are happy as they are, I suggest leaving them that way. Outdoor cats have a much shorter lifespan than indoor cats.

Answer by cheerchic
They usually stay in your backyard. Their they like to run and climb trees, if you leave near woods they like to play in the woods ,they like to hunt.But accasionaly they might cross the road to play.

Answer by flredneckgal_21
I was surprised to see this but I seen on a show about cats that a cat will typical roam in a mile radius of there “home”. I think that depends on if the cat is spayed/neutered or not. I know that my spayed cat tends to stay in the yard but will occasionally head next door.

I had a male cat that wasn’t neutered and he would dissapear for weeks at a time. Only coming home to check in.

Answer by phoebhart
Un-neutered male cats will roam around their neighborhood for a radius of 1 mile give or take. But I also noticed that cats do recognize natural and human-made boundaries like creeks, roads, fences, buildings, group of trees, etc. Whenever I move to a new place, I take my neutered male for walkies on halter and leash. I allow him to lead. I noticed that in the first few forays outside, he tends to want to explore a wide area – several blocks (of course we do this in the dead of night). But subsequently, once he is satisfied at knowing “what’s out there” he will walk only around our immediate premises and not want to cross streets and all. Once or twice when he escaped on his own, I noticed that he would keep only around our own grounds – the backyard or front lawn – never atempts to cros the street unless I am with him. I don’t know whether this is typical though.