<p>We’ve had cats for our entire married lives so don’t be shocked by this question. What is a feral cat? I thought that was just an untamed cat, but if you get it as a kitten, wouldn’t raising it in a home make it domesticated? How do you know if a cat is feral if you get it at a shelter?</p>
<p>A feral cat is born wild and lives outdoors without human owners (or staff, as we say). You can domesticate a feral if you get it young enough, but a feral kitten doesn’t arrive at your doorstep domesticated. From what I’ve read, you can’t really domesticate an adult feral cat, not usually.</p>
<p>Some cats that live outside are not feral, but strays; they once had an owner, but now do not. Strays, unlike ferals, can make good pets.</p>
<p>To return to the feral kittens: unlike kittens born to pets, feral kittens are unused to humans, and likely to be terrified of humans. Kittens born to pet cats were fed solid food by humans, and should have been picked up, held and played with by humans. So pet kittens are in general used to people even if they’re a bit skittish, but feral kittens need to learn not to fear people.</p>
<p>And you’d know if a kitten was feral if you got it at a shelter because they’d tell you. Many shelters don’t adopt out feral kittens without having them fostered for a while to get them socialized.</p>
<p>Most ferals have to be tamed to be put in a shelter or put up for adoption. In fact, many vets will not treat ferals. There is too much liability, workers’ comp, for them to handle. We have a free spay/neuter program for all cats in our parish, feral or not, and only a few vets will take the ferals. Vets and their technicians have to be specially trained to handle these cats. I have heard tales of a butterfly net, and on my vet visit with a trapped feral yesterday, I saw the tech ready with such a device. I’ve never personally witnessed this, but I’ve heard that the trap is open with the butterfly net ready to catch the feral cat. What they do after that is beyond me. But, it is possible to humanely trap a feral cat, have it spayed or neutered, and released back to its colony. There, a caretaker provides food and water, but the colony is no longer reproducing. Some people believe ferals are a nuisance and call the paddy wagon to take them away. Unfortunately, in a matter of weeks, a new colony establishes, and the trap/neuter/release has to start all over again. Feral cats provide an important use to society in that they keep rodent populations down. I’d much rather have a cat in my yard than a rat. A group called Alley Cat Allies has done a lot in educating the public about feral cats and how we can coexist. As for the strays, I have seen many people not spay and neuter their pets because they do not go outside. One accidental escape, or change of residency, will create an overpopulation problem in the neighborhood in no time. So, please, even if your cat will stay indoors, please, please, please have them spayed or neutered. And if you don’t want to spend the money, please research local low cost spay and neuter programs. It used to be, you could only get ferals fixed for low cost or free, but now there are even programs that provide low or free spaying for nonferals. You usually have to eartip the cat, a painless procedure but one that identifies it has been sterilized. I have personally benefitted from this practice when a beautiful Maine Coon decided to live in my backyard. I did not have to get him fixed because he was eartipped. In fact, I thought he was a female up to a couple of years ago, when he posed immodestly for me one day. He is the best ratter ever, and I am more than happy to feed him and care for him in exchange for keeping the rats out of my yard.</p>
<p>Cats are born with allergies to humans.</p>
<p>Montegut, do you have a feral colony under TNR (trap/neuter/replace) that you tend to? I’ve only just learned about TNR programs. They make a lot of sense to me.</p>
<p>How are the kittens doing? We’d all love an update!</p>
<p>Almost one month in and the Kitty Committee has come to the realization that they have indeed landed in Cat Paradise. In fact, its difficult to type this because the Chairwoman is trying to be on my lap. The two of them remind me of Hermione Gingold and the Ladies Auxiliary in The Music Man. The Chairwoman thinks of some outrageous adventure (like climbing the curtains) and here comes her faithful follower right behind her. </p>
<p>I found out that they didnt land in the shelter until they were 6-7 weeks old so they may have a little bit of a feral background. But that hasnt stopped them from forming attachments to the humans in the house, especially me. But while they will choose to sit on me, I still cant pick them up they squirm and fight to get down. My theory is the first encounter they had with humans was being caught. Were only a month in, so that may yet resolve. </p>
<p>Its a little disconcerting that they both, but especially the little one, engage in nursing behavior. My reading indicates that this means they didnt properly finish the weaning process and they might not grow out of it. I have to keep an old T-shirt handy so they can get that wet instead of whatever Im wearing. </p>
<p>The great Cat Cabana experiment is going well my H built a little kitty outhouse reachable through a cat door in a window. We started with the cat box on the floor of the room with the cat door and built an elaborate set of steps out of cardboard boxes. Every day since they arrived their cat box has gotten a little closer to that cat door and yesterday I moved the cat box into the Cat Cabana and they are using it! What smart kittens! So with luck, no more cat box in the house. The Cabana is mostly made of lattice right now but when the weather turns bad my H has plans to put insulated shutters on it to keep it warm. What, no Wifi? </p>
<p>So you were all correct in advising me to give it time I had my doubts but there is no question that my little Kitty Committee is making this place their home (so to speak.)</p>
<p>What a great update! I’m so glad to hear it! And the cat cabana sounds creative and wonderful.</p>
<p>We are dealing with a rescue cat ourselves, though it’s not going quite as swimmingly - perhaps because she’s older. We adopted a six year old cat who had obviously been mistreated. Ten months later, she’s still very jumpy. </p>
<p>She follows us everywhere and sometimes likes to be patted but on her terms only and she never climbs on our lap. If we try to pick her up, she freaks. However, she is improving. She recently started tolerating eye contact and she sometimes will rest her head on my hand. If I am on the sofa, she is there also. Currently she is the requisite 8 inches from me, but sometimes she will allow herself to roll into my leg. :)</p>
<p>Yea … well done!</p>
<p>Many cats don’t like to be held. Must be genetic. My youngest has the record holding Chester: about one minute … and he’s 13 years old and incredibly strong so you physically can’t hold him when he says no. His brother would only be held his way, which was draped over your shoulder like some sort of weird parrot. That may have been related to the heart disease he eventually developed. The purebreds have loved to be held, to the point of being velcro. It was Lily, a siamese, who taught me nothing is more persistent than a cat: push her off you 49 times, 99 times and you lose concentration, look down and there she is on your lap. And those with siamese know those cats will, unlike most others, refuse to move when you push them. They dig in. I spent years being awakened by my wife fighting with Lily for space in the bed. </p>
<p>And none of them, other than the purebreds, will sit on you, with the really moving exception that after the one died last year the other two would take turns sitting on my lap. That lasted a few months. They will stand on you but only for a short bit.</p>
<p>My siamese cat will not be ignored. We have conversations. Seriously. Since he’s gotten older and doesn’t go outside much, he wants a lap every single second of the day. He also has the nursing behavior, which has become more intense over the years. I have come to terms with having damp spots on my clothing. </p>
<p>On a serious note, it is helpful to be able to handle a cat at times. I have to give insulin shots twice a day, and thankfully he doesn’t struggle.</p>
<p>I want a cat cabana! How did he build it?</p>
<p>I brought home one kitten from a shelter. She was about about 9 months old and she hid under the furniture for a day or two. She had been brought to the shelter with her brother by a family who could no longer keep her, so she wasn’t feral. She warmed up to us in a couple of days. (Unfortunately, about 3 years later she went out one day and never came back. 
)</p>
<p>We got our second kitty from a different shelter. She was about a year old, and her name was “Blueberry” which leads me to believe she may have been feral and found near/under a blueberry bush. I tried to set up a safe room so she could adjust to our house but she was having none of it. She wanted OUT of that room immediately, and as soon as I opened the door she set about exploring the entire house.</p>
<p>So my domesticated kitty was the scaredy cat, and my feral kitty was Ms. Outgoing. Opposite of what you’d expect!</p>
<p>BTW, Ms. Outgoing is now 18 years old and stone deaf, but otherwise healthy. She’s curled up next to me as I type this.</p>
<p>Siamese are wonderful except for the dental problems and other purebred issues and the clinginess and the talking, talking, talking. Lily would yell at us for 30 minutes at a time. But they’re really loving animals. </p>
<p>We have a Billy. A Russian blue / feral mix who can catch mice but has no idea what to do with them and has only managed to kill one. My new hobby is catching them and carrying them outside and putting them under the shed where they’ll be safe for a while. Last night was typical Billy. I saw him leaping around so I guessed he’d brought in a mouse. Put it down, jump around … but the dolt put it down right in front of the fridge … mouse bolts … Billy sticks nose under fridge and looks at me … I say “You played with it for 4 seconds and lost it.” What an idiot.</p>
<p>My little feral kitty follows me around the house and curls up just out of arm’s reach, wherever I am. She will sit on the arm of my chair or the back of my chair and get petted, but will not sit in my lap and will NOT be picked up. No way. No how.</p>
<p>My two ferals are doing great. I had to set a trap to catch them for their fe leuk boosters, but the wilder one was actually sleeping in a carrier, so I just closed the door on him! I was worried, after the trapping incident, I’d have to start over, but no, Charlie, the sweet one, now loves to be petted. He rolls on his back for tummy rubs and wrestling. The gorgeous long hair is still timid, but will at least come to eat while I’m actually still in the room.</p>
<p>I am trapping every week, and unfortunately, have caught mostly males. The calicos just sit next to the trap and watch the stupid boy cats go on in.</p>
<p>I have stopped freeing the boys in favor of trying to catch a female and just gone ahead and gotten the boys fixed.</p>
<p>I have three sweeties in my garage right now. I got them from a colony a few blocks away, and I know I’m supposed to put them back in their group, but it’s a bad situation there. An alcoholic animal hoarder, with tons of dirty cat dishes and flies on her porch. I can’t bear to bring these sweeties back there. I’m going to release them in my yard and put out food and water, and hope my outside cats don’t run them off. They’re about four months old, all male, and are now all fixed, with all their shots.</p>
<p>The mamma cat who I got a couple of weeks ago has stayed on the other side of my fence, and one of her kittens comes into my yard, too. He is still too small to neuter, but I’m glad he’s feeling comfortable in my yard.</p>
<p>We have been traveling a lot, so I have yet to release my inside adoptees into the general population, but I’ll be doing that this weekend, as we’re homebound for a while. I have let the alpha male meet them once, and they cornered him. Now, he runs as soon as they come to the door separating them. I think they’ll be running the house in no time!</p>