- Joined
- Dec 28, 2018
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Hello all! My lovely cat, Molly, is a formerly feral calico, and though she has never met you, she loves you.
I used to live out in the country, and our indoor-outdoor fixed female cat, Tiger, kept most other cats away. She was loving towards humans, but did NOT tolerate any other animals...unless we rubbed them with a dirty sock, then personally introduced them to her. Then she would very graciously tolerate them, as an indulgence to us. But strays were a very rare thing, and we rarely saw the same stray twice.
Then a new neighbor moved in, with three unfixed queens and an unfixed tom. You all know where this went. Neighbors insisted it was fine, and refused to keep their cats indoors or fix them, so there was a very predictable population explosion. Tiger was not amused, but after a while a compromise was reached where she decided that our front and back fences were the markers for her territory, and gave up on defending the various fields and pastures around us like she had previously. Eventually, Tiger got older, and spent more time inside, and one day she passed on.
Now we had dozens of ferals EVERYWHERE. Neighbors occasionally sliced open a sack of the cheapest cat food on the market and dropped the entire sack out on their porch, but this was not a particularly regular thing, and wasn't enough for the constantly growing population. Instead of bothering to put out water, they installed a pond in their yard, which they only sort of maintained when they thought about it.
I tried a few more times to talk to the neighbors, then gave up, registered as a feral colony caretaker, and started TNRing the lot of them. A dozen trips to the low cost feral fix clinic later, and many of the unfixed cats had been driven away by the fixed ferals, though a few still hung around, and we would sometimes get new drive-by drop offs, because hey, it's the country, and look, a barn! Perfect place to abandon your pet, right?
One of the cutest groups of ferals was a trio. Fred was a ginger tom we tnr'd, who was very laid back. Midnight was a solid black female, though we'd thought she was a tom for ages, since she hadn't gotten pregnant in the nearly a year since we'd started seeing her, and we hadn't been able to trap her yet. Nope, dump off, as she had a neat white spay scar across her tummy. Molly was a lovely calico, and the three could often be found curled up in a multicolor ball of fur together.
The trio was the most social group of the ferals we had, as they would hang out in our backyard, and would often cuddle together, but like many ferals, wanted nothing to do with people. That would be fine....but Molly was producing litter after litter. She was a clever girl, and could get the food out of any variety of live trap without setting it off.
So we started putting food out in our three seasons room only. It was a glassed-in former screened porch, with a slider to the main house and a slider to outside. We put food in the room, and stayed away from the inside slider, but made sure that food was out for limited times after the cats started eating it regularly. Then we started only putting food out when someone was in sight of the inside slider, though nowhere near it. Then only with someone next to the slider. Then in the far corner of the room. Then in the far corner closest to the outside slider. Then next to the outside slider. Then one day, when Molly was VERY pregnant again, and alone in the room as she ate, we closed the outside slider.
Molly was initially unconcerned, then politely confused. Within a few days, she'd calmed down some, and was successfully using a litterbox and coping with being confined to the room. I scouted out no-kill shelters, and how to socialize kittens. A few weeks later...kittens! She had three, a smokey grey with a black face we called Pop, a tabby we called Crackle, and a high energy cream baby we called Snap. Yes, we named them Snap, Crackle, Pop. It fit, and was hilarious to us. We handled the kittens every single day, getting more thorough as they aged, and by the time they were weaned, they would let you pick them up, flip them on their backs, touch their bellies, examine their bottoms, clip their claws without complaint or struggle, check their ears, and would even open their mouths and let you run a cotton swab over their teeth without the slightest sign of displeasure. If you didn't know better, you'd swear they were some sort of ragdoll cross. They went to the no-kill shelter, were made much of by the staff who were shocked kittens this tame had come from a feral mother, and spent all of two nights there before being adopted out to become pampered, fixed, indoor-only pets.
Somewhere in the time between us closing Molly in the three seasons room, and the kittens being weaned, she decided that we were the BEST THING EVER. We're not sure if it was the food, the being gentle with her kittens, or what, but Molly went from feral to very tame very fast. We took her to a fix clinic, got her spayed and immunized, and after a bit of recovery time, let her out again.
Molly let Midnight and Fred know that actually, humans were great, and we ended up with a trio of cats that let us pet and play with them, and with Molly's fixing, our colony stabilized with something like 15-20 cats in the area. We're guessing the others were chased off by the stronger fixed cats, eaten by wildlife, or otherwise didn't survive, as we started with a much higher population.
Fred was the first of the trio to go, casualty of an injury that got infected. At that point, we actually considered letting Midnight and Molly come inside, but Midnight sprayed (another reason we'd mistaken her for a tom!), and the two were so close that we thought it would be cruel to separate them. Then a disgruntled renting neighbor was evicted, and as a last spite, left out poisoned meat.
Midnight came home one evening looking off, and we promptly shut Molly in the garage to quarantine her since she was always with Midnight, and took Midnight to the vet. Vet told us it was poison, and that there was nothing to be done but make it fast and painless instead of slow, and we did our best, but we lost almost the entire colony. The tamer cats ate the poison before we could catch any of them besides Molly, and the others were all the wildest who would never again touch any food touched by humans after being TNR'd. We were furious and heartbroken, but the person was long gone, and other than keep Molly locked up safely until after a couple good long rains to clear the area, there was nothing to be done.
At this point, we had no indoor cats, and I was in the process of moving out, and remaining family didn't want the hassle of caring for an indoor cat again, so Molly was allowed to remain outdoors after it was safe again, while I worked to move into my new place, which needed a lot of work. I'd always planned to bring Molly over eventually, but it didn't happen until Mom sold the old house. Mom's staying with me now, and Molly has a good sized catio out back. I'm planning to bring Molly inside once mom and all mom's boxes are moved to her new place once the fixer-upper is fixed up.
Ah...it seems I ended up with far more than a brief introduction, but hello anyways? I hope that I can learn more here about how to best care for Molly and keep her happy and healthy.
I used to live out in the country, and our indoor-outdoor fixed female cat, Tiger, kept most other cats away. She was loving towards humans, but did NOT tolerate any other animals...unless we rubbed them with a dirty sock, then personally introduced them to her. Then she would very graciously tolerate them, as an indulgence to us. But strays were a very rare thing, and we rarely saw the same stray twice.
Then a new neighbor moved in, with three unfixed queens and an unfixed tom. You all know where this went. Neighbors insisted it was fine, and refused to keep their cats indoors or fix them, so there was a very predictable population explosion. Tiger was not amused, but after a while a compromise was reached where she decided that our front and back fences were the markers for her territory, and gave up on defending the various fields and pastures around us like she had previously. Eventually, Tiger got older, and spent more time inside, and one day she passed on.
Now we had dozens of ferals EVERYWHERE. Neighbors occasionally sliced open a sack of the cheapest cat food on the market and dropped the entire sack out on their porch, but this was not a particularly regular thing, and wasn't enough for the constantly growing population. Instead of bothering to put out water, they installed a pond in their yard, which they only sort of maintained when they thought about it.
I tried a few more times to talk to the neighbors, then gave up, registered as a feral colony caretaker, and started TNRing the lot of them. A dozen trips to the low cost feral fix clinic later, and many of the unfixed cats had been driven away by the fixed ferals, though a few still hung around, and we would sometimes get new drive-by drop offs, because hey, it's the country, and look, a barn! Perfect place to abandon your pet, right?
One of the cutest groups of ferals was a trio. Fred was a ginger tom we tnr'd, who was very laid back. Midnight was a solid black female, though we'd thought she was a tom for ages, since she hadn't gotten pregnant in the nearly a year since we'd started seeing her, and we hadn't been able to trap her yet. Nope, dump off, as she had a neat white spay scar across her tummy. Molly was a lovely calico, and the three could often be found curled up in a multicolor ball of fur together.
The trio was the most social group of the ferals we had, as they would hang out in our backyard, and would often cuddle together, but like many ferals, wanted nothing to do with people. That would be fine....but Molly was producing litter after litter. She was a clever girl, and could get the food out of any variety of live trap without setting it off.
So we started putting food out in our three seasons room only. It was a glassed-in former screened porch, with a slider to the main house and a slider to outside. We put food in the room, and stayed away from the inside slider, but made sure that food was out for limited times after the cats started eating it regularly. Then we started only putting food out when someone was in sight of the inside slider, though nowhere near it. Then only with someone next to the slider. Then in the far corner of the room. Then in the far corner closest to the outside slider. Then next to the outside slider. Then one day, when Molly was VERY pregnant again, and alone in the room as she ate, we closed the outside slider.
Molly was initially unconcerned, then politely confused. Within a few days, she'd calmed down some, and was successfully using a litterbox and coping with being confined to the room. I scouted out no-kill shelters, and how to socialize kittens. A few weeks later...kittens! She had three, a smokey grey with a black face we called Pop, a tabby we called Crackle, and a high energy cream baby we called Snap. Yes, we named them Snap, Crackle, Pop. It fit, and was hilarious to us. We handled the kittens every single day, getting more thorough as they aged, and by the time they were weaned, they would let you pick them up, flip them on their backs, touch their bellies, examine their bottoms, clip their claws without complaint or struggle, check their ears, and would even open their mouths and let you run a cotton swab over their teeth without the slightest sign of displeasure. If you didn't know better, you'd swear they were some sort of ragdoll cross. They went to the no-kill shelter, were made much of by the staff who were shocked kittens this tame had come from a feral mother, and spent all of two nights there before being adopted out to become pampered, fixed, indoor-only pets.
Somewhere in the time between us closing Molly in the three seasons room, and the kittens being weaned, she decided that we were the BEST THING EVER. We're not sure if it was the food, the being gentle with her kittens, or what, but Molly went from feral to very tame very fast. We took her to a fix clinic, got her spayed and immunized, and after a bit of recovery time, let her out again.
Molly let Midnight and Fred know that actually, humans were great, and we ended up with a trio of cats that let us pet and play with them, and with Molly's fixing, our colony stabilized with something like 15-20 cats in the area. We're guessing the others were chased off by the stronger fixed cats, eaten by wildlife, or otherwise didn't survive, as we started with a much higher population.
Fred was the first of the trio to go, casualty of an injury that got infected. At that point, we actually considered letting Midnight and Molly come inside, but Midnight sprayed (another reason we'd mistaken her for a tom!), and the two were so close that we thought it would be cruel to separate them. Then a disgruntled renting neighbor was evicted, and as a last spite, left out poisoned meat.
Midnight came home one evening looking off, and we promptly shut Molly in the garage to quarantine her since she was always with Midnight, and took Midnight to the vet. Vet told us it was poison, and that there was nothing to be done but make it fast and painless instead of slow, and we did our best, but we lost almost the entire colony. The tamer cats ate the poison before we could catch any of them besides Molly, and the others were all the wildest who would never again touch any food touched by humans after being TNR'd. We were furious and heartbroken, but the person was long gone, and other than keep Molly locked up safely until after a couple good long rains to clear the area, there was nothing to be done.
At this point, we had no indoor cats, and I was in the process of moving out, and remaining family didn't want the hassle of caring for an indoor cat again, so Molly was allowed to remain outdoors after it was safe again, while I worked to move into my new place, which needed a lot of work. I'd always planned to bring Molly over eventually, but it didn't happen until Mom sold the old house. Mom's staying with me now, and Molly has a good sized catio out back. I'm planning to bring Molly inside once mom and all mom's boxes are moved to her new place once the fixer-upper is fixed up.
Ah...it seems I ended up with far more than a brief introduction, but hello anyways? I hope that I can learn more here about how to best care for Molly and keep her happy and healthy.