TheCatSite.com › Forums › Ferals and Rescue › Caring for Strays and Ferals › Getting a cat back on schedule?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Getting a cat back on schedule?

post #1 of 5
11/28/09 at 6:53am
Thread Starter 
OK...me and my stray/semi-feral had a nice schedule going on. He would be waiting for me when I left for work around 8am and when I got home from work around 6pm. I would feed him at those times. Then, daylight savings time came and it messed everything up! Now he's rarely there, although I know he's still visiting. I don't know if he's coming before or after I'm out there - but the food does get eaten...and I have seen him a few times. I think he's either eating his breakfast for supper and supper for breakfast or not coming as often (maybe someone else started giving him food?).

Should I just skip a meal and hope that he is hungry enough to come for supper and try to get him back on schedule from there? I'd like him to be there when I feed him as I'm not a huge fan of food sitting there and want to gain his trust so I can eventually do something with him.

I don't think he goes too far...so would ringing a bell before I put the food down or something help?
Reply
post #2 of 5
11/28/09 at 9:42am
Daylight savings messes up my inside cats' clocks! I think ringing the bell is an excellent idea. Something to let him know food's waiting.

I may try that with my ferals - who all come at different times. I am always worried about the last man in.
Reply
post #3 of 5
11/28/09 at 9:46am
Awww, I'm so sorry.

I don't know about the bell, but we would "meow" call for our ferals.

I don't know if you can make this work with your schedule, but we live in a rural farmland/forest area. We quickly found that if we left food out, we were feeding the whole forest. So we started putting the food out for about 1 1/2 hours or so in the morning and at dusk.

Maybe you can put the food out when you wake up and pick it up when you leave for work? And put it out when you get home, and just leave it out for an hour or two.

When we were caring for a colony, they adjusted to the schedule.
Reply
post #4 of 5
11/29/09 at 12:04pm
If he is feral, the bells may scare him more than call him.

Like Laurie, I walk around like an insane person meowing to mine. Mine will come whenever I feed them but they stay in the one field and rarely wander far so are always around.
Reply
post #5 of 5
11/29/09 at 12:39pm
I've always just called cats. They learn and so do opossums...
I don't know about anyone else here, but my kitty kitty call can carry for a little over 1/2 a mile! You back off when the cat is in sight so as not to spook them.
It seems universal that most cats will learn this call and associated it with food. Were I to make it right now, all of my house cats would flock to the kitchen (even the scaredy kittens) and if the neighbor cats heard me they'd be at the windows.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Caring for Strays and Ferals
TheCatSite.com › Forums › Ferals and Rescue › Caring for Strays and Ferals › Getting a cat back on schedule?