ABSTRACT
Houses are places to be, where the micro-conditions for living, resting and interacting are generated and maintained. This chapter discusses how various housing practices and structures both derive from, yet also trouble, the relations we humans might have or think we have with sentient, yet domesticated, non-humans. For many millions of domesticated animals, the final "house" is the slaughterhouse where materialities are re-fashioned. The cat litter tray or litter box has become an essential convenience in the management and practice of contemporary human-animal relations. The chapter relates the cat-litter boxes as physical infrastructure and concerns their role in the more material biotic pathways and practices that link humans and non-humans. Dawn Coppin demonstrates how the adoption of farrowing crates reconfigures relations between farmer, pig, the materiality of the "crate" itself and the wider public in both foreseen and unforeseen ways. Farrowing pens or barred-steel-sided boxes facilitate intensive production methods and permit all-year-round farrowing within indoor housing units.
