How much space does a Maine Coon cat need?

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Outdoor Maine Coon decides where to go
Outdoor Maine Coon decides where to go. Image: MikeB based on image in public domain.

How much space have you got? You haven't got enough space. I'll explain why. Maine Coon cats are like any other domestic cat in terms of their space requirements. Their space requirements are based on their 'home range'.

Your average domestic cat, given complete free rein in order to satisfy their natural, wild instincts, would probably need to travel 50 meters to 400 meters in any direction from their home where they live with their caregiver. 

On my calculation, the longer distance represents about 50 hectares or 124 acres! The lower figure of 50 meters represents a space of about 2 acres or 84,540 square feet. The average house size in the United States is 2,500 square feet. Most Maine Coons are confined to 2,500 square feet which is about 3 percent of their free travel desires.

Movements of domestic cats allowed to go out
Movements of domestic cats allowed to go out based on a scientific study. 

Seeing as Maine Coon cats really have to be full-time indoor cats they are confined to the home unless they are taken outside on a lead and harness or are allowed in the backyard surrounded by a cat confinement fence.

Either way, the actual space that they are allowed to live in is a tiny fraction of the ideal space that they would normally want to live in when expressing their inner wildcat.

Perhaps when the Maine Coon was called a "Maine cat" as they were in the late 1800s in the state of Maine, USA, they would have the amount of space that I mentioned in the second paragraph. They were, as you know, barn cats living on farms where that kind of acreage was available.

So you can see that there living space has shrunk dramatically over 200 years.

How do I know that Maine Coon cats would like to have between 2 and 100 acres to live in?

In Australia and in other countries, they have placed GPS collars on indoor/outdoor cats in scientific studies and monitored their movements over a period of time. Of course, individual cats have their individual preferences as to how far they want to travel.

But I remember the map. It is firmly fixed in my head. And in my estimation the average domestic cat would travel about 100 m or 100 yards from the front door.

Some male domestic cats might travel three or four times that while others such as timid females, might be satisfied with staying at home or travelling no more than about 50 m from the back door into the garden and then back home again.

It depends how confident they are but I'm averaging which is slightly dangerous because the differences are quite substantial between individual cat. However, the purpose of this article is to give a feel for how much space a Maine Coon cat needs.

So I stand by my initial assessment in the opening paragraph. It might be slightly less but let's just say this; that Maine Coon cats have to adapt to a smaller space. And that's not a great hardship because domestic cats are adaptable.

And of course they are selectively bred which means that they are very domesticated and therefore already on the way to accepting these restrictive conditions.

And it should be mentioned that in multi-cat homes the amount of personal space available to each cat in that home is going to be a fraction of the square footage of the home if they are full-time indoor cats. A tiny fraction of what they would need if they were feral without a food source.

This shouldn't really concern cat care givers because as mentioned they are adaptable but it does mean that there is an obligation on the human caregiver to ensure that their Maine Coon cat is entertained and stimulated. 

When confined to a small space as described which is indoors and therefore in the human environment, they are going to lack stimulation and challenges. It's up to the caregiver to provide these in substitution for their normal activity which is to hunt.

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