moving house and cats

We are moving on Friday and I am not sure what to go about the cats. I don't particulary want to leave the cats locked up in the new house for days/weeks till they get used to the place, they will likely use the whole house as a litter box.

So I was wondering if buttering their paws works, does anyone know?
We are borrowing a cat cage so I thought to take them out of the cage in the bathroom at the new house and butter their paws then, I would probably leave them in teh bathroom for a few hours or overnight.

Any other ideas?

Is the new house near a busy road? If so, I would be leaving them inside for a while until they get the bearings. We left our cat inside for 2 weeks, only taking him out on a lead, as we moved from the country to the city. And unfortunately he still got hit when we finally let him out but only slightly so is OK.

I think you'd probably need to expect them to be housed for a good few days or up to a week, I guess it depends on how close you are to them and if you think they could hurt themselves by being scared/running away?

Another thing we've done in the past (our cat is a great traveller now, we take him camping every year and even took him to mums for a week when we stayed out there lol) is put food everywhere. Our cat comfort eats and will hang round the vicinity if he knows there's food so that's another option. Good luck though, it's hard not to worry about them but locking them away is probably the best bet for the first few days. Sorry don't know about buttering the paws, I'm pretty sure my cat would claw me to death if I tried that one.

My cats are well used to moving now, we have done it enough times. I normally leave them till last to bring over, then lock them in the spare room until we go to bed. The seem to feel safer exploring while its dark. I just have a litter tray for them and they don't have any accidents. I let them out after a day or 2 although this last time we moved, it took about a week of hiding in our walk in wardrobe for them to be confident enough to come out. Not sure why though...

The biggest thing I've found, is for the cats to be moved last, so that when they get to the new house, all of your belongings are already there so then there is a familiarity with the house and it's not totally new to them. We never kept our cats inside longer than a day (with a litter tray) and never had any problems, but they were well used to moving.

I think we will leave them inside for the weekend but no longer. SIL who is pg as well told me that I am not supposed to handle kitty litter while pg so they will be outside once DH goes to work on Monday.

Will try buttering their paws anyway, just in case it works

Yeah DH could do the kitty litter but I am sure that the cats would turn their noses up at having to use it anyway. Will see how we go and play it all by ear.

If they stress out about the move you can always give them rescue remedy! It has worked for my cat on many occassions (he is a bit of a stresser!)