New Feral Kitty - Molly

We trapped a beautiful approx 6 month old kitten, had her neutered and are integrating her into our house. Shes coming along quite nicely. After 3 weeks, although she is still definitely skittish, I can touch her, pet her and even get some nice purrs out of her. She will run and hide in corners and under the desk but I can approach her as long as I don't tower over her.

At the same time we brought Molly into the house, we had adopted another kitten from the shelter. They have both been in the same roon in our house and have become fast friends.

Heres what I'm contemplating, certainly having a friend for Molly has helped calm her down and feel more secure. However, will having that cat friend make it more difficult for her to feel more comfortable around humans?

Should I let Mollys friend have the run of the house and leave Molly in her room or continue to keep them together?

Thanks for your input!

Are these your only two pets? If so, they I would probably just let them both have the run of the house at this point. The two cats are playing together so they've already been introduced. If you've got the feral to the point of petting, is there really anything more to accomplish in the closed bedroom?

You might have to work on feeding your feral from the same feeding place as your other kitty. I started by feeding them at the same time at opposite ends of the kitchen. After a couple days of that, I moved their bowls together where the feral had been eating. A couple of days of that and I moved them back to the permanent end of the kitchen.

I adopted one tame kitty and one feral kitty (from a shelter) this summer. So I can relate. I only had the patience to keep the feral cooped up in a closed bedroom for about four days. The first day of introductions between the two kitties was a little rough (the tame kitty cornered the feral under a toilet for many hours).

Having the bedroom as a place of safe retreat is a good idea.

Once I opened up the house, I went thru the same process with the feral. Lying on the floor, enticing it with a toy...only I was doing that out in the den rather than in a bedroom.

Much thanks for your reply.

In addition to these two kittens, we have 3 other middle aged cats.

We are keeping Molly & her shelter friend in my office, which is actually quite large and spacious...

The shelter kitty is ready to run and roam and has already been introduced to the rest of the cats in the house. I hate to keep her confined but she has been a great calming influence on Molly.

I am concerned about Mollys reaction when her shelter friend is not around all the time, will it be traumatic for her OR will that actually be a good thing?

My instinct says that if Molly is left to roam the house - she could end up being an indoor feral.

All in all, it seems like Molly has made tremendous progress in only 3 weeks and I might be getting a little impatient in trying to fully domesticate her.

Thanks again for the help.

Hah. I hear ya on the indoor feral concerns. I wondered what the heck we had gotten ourselves into when I brought ours home and she immediately disappeared under the bed for three days!

I had similar concerns the first day I let her free. She would have probaby just explored a bit and retreated to her safe room, but her rambunctious fellow kitten kept chasing her to far reaches of the house and cornering her. Needless to say, the feral wasn't interested in my help. Fortunately, they worked it out in less than a day. I finally found them BOTH sleeping under the feral's bed which was when I guessed the introduction would probably go OK.

They ended up spending much of the first few days in the feral's room, even though the door was open.

Your situation is complicated by the three older cats. You'll need to make those introductions to the feral. On the plus side, your two kitties are already best buddies. My guess is that the feral will follow the other kitty around.

I'm not an expert, but I honestly think that if you've gotten the feral to the stage where you can lure it out and actually pet it, you've probably overcome the biggest hurdle.