Two years ago a feral cat started hanging around with my domesticated pets but she was always terrified of us and took off if we so much as moved in her general direction. We tried to catch her and get her spayed but we weren’t able to before she got pregnant. After that she started hanging out in the house more but was still nothing close to domesticated. One night she came in, looked at me and meowed and proceeded to have 2 kittens right next to me. From that moment on she wanted lots of attention and purred constantly and it lasted the whole time that she was nursing the kittens. Once she stopped nursing she reverted back to being mostly feral and only comes in to eat when we’re awake. My first question is about why she became affectionate while she was nursing but then reverted back to being skittish as soon as the kittens were weaned. Is that a common thing?
I don’t know whether the father(s) are feral or domesticated cats, but one of the kittens was immediately socialized and loves people. The second kitten is more like the mom and it’s taken me a long time to get him completely comfortable with me although he still runs from any other human. Could the paternity of the kittens have anything to do with this and would a feral kitten fathered by a house cat be easier to socialize than one fathered by another feral cat, or is it just that the one kitten is taking his cues from his mom more than the other did?
Catching a feral cat is impossible. The only thing that works are traps,humane shelters will usualy loan one. But after traping don’t ever expect that cat to trust you.
But now that it almost does please have her fixed.
We tried so hard to catch her with traps from the shelter but every morning I would get up to see the smug face of my housecat who just polished off the tuna and was waiting to be let out. Since then I’ve had them all spayed/neutered and they have all of their shots. Two unplanned new kittens was lots of fun but I’m not letting them multiply until I’m a crazy cat lady. The poor mom was in heat again before she had even finished nursing and was down to skin and bones.
I have found that a feral born of a feral that has had no good human contact will probably never re-domesticate if they are grown. I have gotten very loving and trusting cats that I trapped that were out for one month to about a year. Depends on how old they were when they went walkabout and how they had been treated.
We have one big black male, “Devil” who was near death when we found him and he could not fight us. It has been over a year now and he is great. There are a few things that will cause him to put his fangs on us and show that if we persist he will hurt us but we would not do those moves to any cat other than testing their trust and their security of their place in the family.
We also had one little man just walk up the driveway that thinks he is human and should be wallowed and can be held and messed with in any manner and just enjoy the heck out of it. Does not even use his claws when using you as a jumping launch platform or landing pad or falling off while playing. No idea why someone would throw a cat like this away…
I never said it couldn’t happen, just don’t expect love and trust after such a trumatic experience. If you can socalize it great but be prepaired if it doesn’t respond well.
My animals are so weird. My original cat and dog spend most of their time cuddling together and grooming each other and the feral mama cat was brought home by a pit bull that used to live here and she adopted it as her own. When the mama was in heat she spent most of her time trying to hustle my cocker spaniel and neutered male cat, who obligingly rolled around on the floor with her for hours to no avail. Sociable kitten A follows me everywhere and Skittish kitten B is in love with my blind and deaf cocker spaniel and follows him around, rubbing herself all over him and guiding him back to the house when he gets lost. She often sleeps underneath him where it’s warm. I can’t figure out who imprinted who first but it’s nice that they all love each other.
Karyn, you are so sweet for helping out (and fixing) the momma and kittens. Kudos to you!
My husband and I volunteer with a group that takes turns feeding the feral cat colony at Gellert Hill here. We help trap them, too, to have them spayed and neutered. Some of the cats let us pet them and some would rather chew glass than have us anywhere near them. At one end of the Hill, there is a little family group that had three kittens about six months ago - two males and one female. The males were easier to catch and for some reason have been very affectionate since the big snip. The female kitten was more standoffish and having been trapped and spayed has not made her any more kindly disposed toward us. So, IMO, there’s no telling why cats do anything. Cats are funny people.
We adopted a filthy skinny half-grown cat from the Hill, but she was so affectionate when we first met her that we firmly believe she was abandoned rather than feral. She’s much larger and cleaner now, and has taken her rightful place as supreme ruler of the household.
There’s a big problem with feral cats in the greenbelt areas down in town at the coast but there are so many coyotes up here in the mountains that the population stays small. I’m guessing that the kitten the pit bull found and adopted was part of a litter that the coyotes got to because she was hiding by herself in a little hole under a rock and I think she was too young to have been fully weaned yet. It was so cute to see this tiny kitten cuddling with a pit bull, and then to see the pit bull stoically endure having kitten attacks launched out of trees onto her back as the kitten got older. The first time I saw the dog pick her up but the scruff of her neck I couldn’t stop laughing.
Karyn, I don’t know the answers to your questions but I can report similar experiences.
I’ve been involved in animal rescue for over a decade and several feral queens I have fostered became very trusting and affectionate during late pregnancy or once they delivered…only to revert to their skittish selves once the kittens were weaned. The feral moms were spayed and released but the kittens were always homed. Some of these offspring were sweet and trusting while others seemed to retain some of the feral instincts. Not sure if it’s nature or nurture though. But I lean towards nature since the kittens’ personalities always seemed to be apparent from a very young age.
When I worked for a hotel in Florida it was on its own island. Well actually it shared the island with a state park. We had an open air lobby so a lot of the animals from the state park would visit us. It used to annoy me, 'cause the game warden would always come over and say “Are you molesting our animals?”
Apparently it’s wrong to throw water on a raccoon, to get him to leave the lobby, even if he’s not in the state park.
So I had the owner get a cat from a shelter. Cito the cat’s name was great. She adopted the hotel lobby and chased all the other animals away. See if you shoo away a raccoon it’s wrong but if you ball up the cat and throw it at the raccoon claws first, it’s hard luck for the raccoon.
Anyway we also had feral cats on the island and Cito, the hotel cat was good at keeping them away. I would try to make friends with the feral cats but couldn’t.
But what was interesting is every once in awhile you’d see a guest petting one of these cats. We used to have a pool and an outdoor bar. And every so often you’d see a guest holding a feral cat on their lap petting it.
I could never figure out why certain guests were able to get these feral cats to let them play with then and hold them and pet them and others could not.
