What is an ex-feral kitty like?

I know it must be strange to everyone that is reading this but, what is an ex-feral like? I've read in places that they can be very timid and shy, those characteristics describe Jazzy in a nutshell. I'm just wondering if perhaps she was once a feral, she is scared of basically everything. One small noise gets her running.

Jackz, Jazzy & Ginga.

I think that's really depending on the individual kitty. They all have different character, y'know?
One of my friend's cat was an abused feral. She's very very shy and easily gets scared off. She would not let anybody touch her either.

My Ku Ku, on the other hand, is an ex feral "Queen" and now a strictly indoor-only "Queen kitty".
Only once in a bluemoon she shows "the wild side" & a cattitude but most of the time, she's completely used to the luxurious life of indoor, relaxed, and very spoiled.

Very skittish and it doesn't take as much to make them revert to that more wild mindset.

Example: Tanna will take off as soon as she hears the pet carrier door open. She will run and meow loudly, fight me every bit of the way - hissing and growling at me, may even attempted to bite. Once in the carrier and at the vet she's fine. Her brother and sister act out similarly, but not as extreme.

Poorly socialized cats can be much the same but don't usually become as wild when spooked.

Boo is very timid/shy, acts like a semi feral only trusting DH and I. He resists the carrier but never fights us or acts wildly even if he's scared.

It really, really DOES depend on the kitty and how young they were when they were socialized. Just like humans, every cat is different, no matter what their background.

My Elliott was a feral barn kitten who was taken in at about 8 weeks of age when his mother was killed by a dog. He spent the first 6 months of his life hiding underneath our kitchen table before he realized we were pretty cool after all. He is now a big lovebug! He's an independant cat, and certainly isn't into laps or being held, but he LOVES to lay beside me for belly rubs and he purrs like there's no tomorrow. He's very demanding when he wants attention too.

the background is not really known on most of my cats, but all of them were found outside. I have some that adapted to indoor pampering right away, some that took a long time to warm up (Cronus still looks at me occasionally like he thinks I'm an alien out to kill him ) but my true semi-feral, Apollo, is a very timid little guy who has his safe place, which for some reason is the bathroom he's like a totally different cat in there I've had him for coming up on 3 years and he only recently has started hanging out with the rest of the kitties and I in the living room, but he still runs when I stand up to walk into the kitchen. I can pick him up, but he does not like it!

^That's how it is with Boo. It's taken years to get him to this point and only this summer has he been as friendly with us as he is now. But he's never been fully feral, just very undersocialized as a kitten.

Just so everyone knows, a shy or former feral is no different in behavior to any other cat with the person who tamed/raised them. It's what they do when frightened or when encountering strangers that is the difference. Coming into my house, my four adult cats will eventually nose their way into your business. The three former feral kittens will stay hidden.
Outside, MewMew will force herself on you and Boo will keep his distance and meow at you - but doesn't hide.

I think the most overwhelming factor in their behavior is their personality. Considering every last one of mine was born feral, and all but one I started to socialize by the time they were 3 months old, there are huge differences in how skittish they are.

A second factor, which can often be overridden by their personality, is how young they were socialized. My 3 orphaned bottle feds are some of the friendliest cats in the house. In fact, Muddy and Scarlett are almost annoyingly friendly to strangers. On the flip side, I started socializing my most skittish one, Eightball, the moment I found him at a week old. Oscar is a close second, and I started to work with him constantly at under 5 weeks old. They are both actually far more skittish than Lucky, who I didn't start to socialize until he was close to 2 years old. Lucky has actually become a bit of a snuggle bug, and never runs away when strangers are in the house. People never see Eightball or Oscar.

Never assume that because a cat is skittish that they were born feral. And never assume that because they were born feral, that they will be skittish.

I agree. It is totally a personality thing, followed by the age at which they started getting socialized. One of the best, most loving cats I ever had was a feral tom who wasn't socialized until he was 3 or 4 years old. Smudge, on the other hand, has been with me since before he was even born. I've loved on him and played with him the same as the other cats, but he's still so shy. He runs from the room if we move too quickly, or if there is a loud noise, or if he gets buzzed by a raging renegade moth. He's been chased across the yard in terror by a running leaf.

The main difference between it being just their personality, and having been a former feral, is that with a feral you may be able to gradually improve how social they are. If it is their personality, then that's just how they are going to be for the rest of their life and you probably aren't going to see much change.

These are really interesting answers. And I agree - I think every cat has their own personality, whether born feral or not.

Larry was part of a colony of ferals in Brooklyn, and was trapped when he was almost a year old. When I got him, at a little over a year (they think), it was with his sister. She was definitely the more bold one, and was the first to start exploring the apartment, and Larry sort of followed....almost as if, as long as she was doing it, it must be okay.

When she died from FIP, 5 months later, Larry attached himself to me, and now he's the biggest snuggle bunny - but only with me. He's alert to any noise out in the hallway, and if he has any sense that someone else might come into the apartment, he's up and under the quilt.

IMO, kittens under 5 weeks old aren't feral. There mother may have been, but at 4 weeks old most of them are still trying to even figure out what "cat" is. So your bottle fed foundlings never were feral, they never learned it. If they're skittish, then they're simply skittish.
The instinct to start fearing other non cat or prey animals seems to switch on sometime after the fifth week - give or take a few days depending on the kitten.

It definitely a personality thing, along with their experiences. My two feral littermates, Peter and Claire were trapped with their 5 littermates when they were about 3 1/2 months. They were bunch of hissy, growly little creatures. Now, at six years old, they're both very sweet with me, but have very different personalities. Claire is the more outgoing of the two, shy around people she doesn't know, but will warm up to them with time. She loves being close to me and has become pretty tolerant of being picked up or held. Pete's pretty much afraid of everybody and everything (loves other cats, though). He rubs up against me, curls up in bed with me at night and will stand on and stick his nose in my eyes to wake me up in the morning. Even after all this time, Pete is still very jumpy with me sometimes. If I move too quickly or go to pet him when he's not ready, he bolts. He absolutely hates being picked up, so I don't do it unless absolutely necessary. What he does do, which I find particularly endearing, is come to me on his own when I'm sitting at the desk and working on the computer, put his front paws on my lap and give me a true kitty look of love.

I have wondered the same thing about Sweetie, since I've only had him a little over a year and he was a rescue a year before that, so I don't know what his background is.

Sweetie is very shy with everyone except me and is afraid of new experiences. I have a little story to tell: When I first turned on the upstairs airconditioner this spring, Sweetie stared at it with huge eyes like he thought it might attack him or something. His litterbox is located not far from the airconditioner, and for the first day or two he was afraid to go upstairs alone. Apparently I make Sweetie feel safe, so I had to go upstairs with him several times a day and stand next to the litterbox while he did his business. Fortunately he quickly decided the airconditioner was no longer a threat.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

IMO, kittens under 5 weeks old aren't feral. There mother may have been, but at 4 weeks old most of them are still trying to even figure out what "cat" is. So your bottle fed foundlings never were feral, they never learned it. If they're skittish, then they're simply skittish.
The instinct to start fearing other non cat or prey animals seems to switch on sometime after the fifth week - give or take a few days depending on the kitten.

Click to expand...

I don't know...the 3-week-old feral kittens I found in my backyard hissed and spit at me when I approached them! Once I started feeding them though they turned around, and you'd never know they were born in the "wild".

On the other hand I found my cat Church as a feral at somewhere between 5-7 weeks old, and he was not afraid of me at all. I went out into the alley and crouched down and he came right near me with no hesitation. He grew up to be like any housecat and he is no more skittish than any of our other cats, including the purebred from a breeder. He does tend to get a little more bitey (his bites are always soft though) but I think this has more to do with being an "only kitten" than a former feral.

Originally Posted by Nekochan

I don't know...the 3-week-old feral kittens I found in my backyard hissed and spit at me when I approached them! Once I started feeding them though they turned around, and you'd never know they were born in the "wild".

Click to expand...

Exactly, they turned around rather quickly with nothing left to even remotely consider them former ferals. They're just so impressionable and reliant on care when that young they quickly reassociate you as mother.
Having been around many many cats and litters I've noticed something that maybe some haven't. Even your kittens that have been handled from day one can act like tough little wild kittens if spooked - sometimes it can be as simple as a new human they're not used to smelling picking them up before their eyes aren't even fully open that results in pathetic little spitting. Too fast of movements when they still can't see very well, even from a familiar person, can also spook even tame kittens.

Other kittens just don't seem to develop common kitty sense as soon as others. I've taken in 14 week olds that should be feral but seemed to lack that natural fear altogether (mind you the one seemed a little slow in other areas, too lol ).

Originally Posted by katiemae1277

but my true semi-feral, Apollo, is a very timid little guy who has his safe place, which for some reason is the bathroom

he's like a totally different cat in there

I've had him for coming up on 3 years and he only recently has started hanging out with the rest of the kitties and I in the living room, but he still runs when I stand up to walk into the kitchen. I can pick him up, but he does not like it!

Click to expand...

That describes Lily perfectly. It took her years to hang out in the open, and it's only since we've moved house (after having her 3 1/2 years) that she's started hanging out more, and actually occasionally makes an appearance when we have visitors.

But, she's not semi-feral. She was found at 3 months after she rode in the engine compartment of a car for about 20 miles. She was shy and scared, but loved pats and had a big purr. It was just that the shyness overtook the loving.

Every cat really is different. I have rescued and socialised a bunch of true feral kittens, and almost all of them ended up being the most friendly little things. There was a few that retained that bit of fearfulness, but most of them were great - a lot depended on the age I got them.

My Linus was an ex-feral kitty and for the first year, he didn't understand the word no. He would wake me up every 20-30 minutes to chew on my feet and head. I apparently was his chew toy. After the first year, when I started teaching him tricks, he was amazing and understand almost everything I asked him to do. He was extremely food oriented so the one bad thing is that he was a garbage picker. He was an awesome helper with fostering animals, and he loved moving. It was a great and fun experience for him (yay cardboard boxes! Yay new things to investigate!). However he never really got over his distrust of new people. There were certain people over time that he would grow to love - like my step-daughter - but it was never that instant acceptance as if they were an animal. Except repair people. For some reason he was in love with them, because they were so focused on what they were doing that he was enamored with the fact he could be a fool and try and fit his almost 15 pound butt into their toolbox or toolbelt and they never yelled at him. He got to the point when people came over that he knew, he might rub against their leg or lay on the floor a foot away from them and just watch them, but there was never anyone he loved as much as he loved me. He took care of me when I was sick, he sang to me, he talked to me, he let me dance with him. He was the best cat ever.

So would I ever take another feral cat? Absolutely. With every fiber of my being I'm sure it would be a good decision. If nothing else, and they never blossomed as much as Linus did, I know at least I would be a good mommy to them, and no one understands the babies like mommies and daddies.