Need advice on adopting out once feral kittens

I took in a momma cat and her 6 kittens when they were 8 1/2 weeks old. Momma is friendly to me, but I had to trap and catch by hand the kittens from a shed they were living in. I covered my garage floor with plastic sheeting and put rugs on top of that. So that's where they've been living mostly. I have 4 cats of my own so I haven't been able to bring them inside as much as I wished. I have spent about 1-2 hours every day socializing them.

The good news is 3 have been adopted. 2 were no brainers because you couldn't differentiate them from kittens that had been handled by humans since birth. I assume the other adoption worked out fine because it's been 2 1/2 weeks and I haven't heard from the adopter. I told her to contact me if there were problems and I'd take the kitten back.

The bad news is because of my inexperience in this situation I'm not sure how much success I'm going to have finding the other 3 homes. They are now 3 1/2 months old. 2(boy and a girl) of the 3 are similar in behavior to 1 of the ones that was adopted. They love to play and will even climb on me during play, but always keep an eye on my hands. I also put baby chicken food on a finger and they will climb on me for that. If they are relaxed in their beds I can walk up to them and stroke them with no fear from them. The one thing that worries me is they don't like being picked up yet, though they appear to be less tense about it each day. They will run from me when I approach them unless they are right next to me. In that case, they reluctantly allow me to pick them up. The last one(a boy) has been the most afraid(by a long shot at first) from the start. In the last 2 days I've been able to lie down on the floor during play and when I took the toy away he lay down on my thighs and rested for 15-20 minutes. So I feel much better about his prospects. For the first several weeks I was very disillusioned about his situation.

I have been trying to adopt out the boy and girl with similar behavior(I know the last boy is not ready yet) for a week on craigslist. I have received several calls and one visit. I'm wondering if I'm being too paranoid due to my inexperience. To those with more experience, do these 2 seem like they will flourish once they are in a good home, away from their mother, and are handled frequently by their new owner? Or is my paranoia justified? Any advice is very much appreciated. I've thought of sleeping with them for a few days in a pet pen, but beyond that I can't think of much more I could do differently. Thank you for reading.

Have they been vetted? (Especially as re: treated for fleas, ticks, intestinal parasites, vaccinated... and have they been or are they going to be spayed/neutered?) Is there a reason you're not making introductions to your kitties, and allowing them to be fostered outside of the basement?

I ask, because all of our kitties are feral rescues, and they learned so much from watching us interact with our other kitties that were already socialized.

Do you know your vet practice well at all? We always enlisted our vet practice (the staff there) to help us find homes for our foster kitties. They often get calls about cats/kittens for adoption, and adopting to someone they know is always reassuring...

In situations like this, we portray them as "special needs" cats, and play on the sympathy thing of being rescued kitties. We emphasize they'll be great pets, but it will take more time and patience than a "ready made" pet kitty.

Also - are you using an adoption contract? Also, we learned the hard way that it's important to do at least some minimal background checks on potential adopters (vet reference, lease that indicates they're allowed to have pets, or something to prove they own their own home, that kind of thing) - and to charge some kind of fee to ensure they're going to someone serious about adopting them.

Originally Posted by LDG

and to charge some kind of fee to ensure they're going to someone serious about adopting them.

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If you feel uncomfortable with asking money "for you", you can instead / AND ask a donation, IN THE CATS NAME, to some good cause the buyer herself chooses. Red Cross, Doctors without boundaries, their Church.
I believe this has the advantage of making a magical bond with the new cat.
Giving away money for a good cause makes you feel noble - and this feeling good and noble - is thus connected with the cat...


Good luck!

When I adopt out feral kittens from ca-r-ma, I always tell people that they were born outside and are not 100% trusting in humans, but with time, patience and a lot of love they will be your best friend in no time! They're not the easiest cats to find homes for, but there ARE understand people out there, and YES, play up the "rescued" sympathy card. Good luck hun!

Originally Posted by StefanZ

If you feel uncomfortable with asking money "for you", you can instead / AND ask a donation, IN THE CATS NAME, to some good cause the buyer herself chooses. Red Cross, Doctors without boundaries, their Church.
I believe this has the advantage of making a magical bond with the new cat.
Giving away money for a good cause makes you feel noble - and this feeling good and noble - is thus connected with the cat...


Good luck!

Click to expand...

Stefan, that's brilliant!!!!! It also just occurred to me (thank you!) that if they're not spayed/neutered, one could require a payment be made to the vet they're going to be using. This ensures there's money at the vet for the procedure, and there IS a vet!

Originally Posted by LDG

I ask, because all of our kitties are feral rescues, and they learned so much from watching us interact with our other kitties that were already socialized.

Click to expand...

This helps so much with very skittish to feral cats. Very often ferals are cat friendly and having other more confident cats around them provides them with cues on how to behave. (counts for non feral kittens, too, they do best with another cat to learn from whenever possible)

You're not being paranoid, you know your kittens best. More time with them in a home setting would be the best for the ones you have left. They really need to get used to you coming and going about your day - both interacting and ignoring them.

For the more skittish ones you simply need to find people that are cat experienced, and preferably have no young children. If a person has cats already, even better.

Good advice everyone. Thanks! Thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s what I needed. I will let them spend more time around my cats. The main reason I havenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t is because they havenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t been tested for FIV/FeLV yet. I will try to get them tested soon. Money has been an issue. My 4th cat(young kitten) had to go to the vet twice 3 months ago and the bill came to almost $1,000. Cat food for the 2 colonies I feed plus the 9 I now have at home is running about $300-350 a month. I have a super friendly stray(hoping to find him a home quick) that I just dropped off at the vet to be neutered, get a shot for rabies, and tested for FIV/FeLV. I have also taken a lot of time away from my business because of the kittens and have lost some income the last 2 months.

I like the advice about advertising in vet offices. I considered it, but thought it would be inefficient compared to craigslist. Rethinking it though I realize the type of owners Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]m looking for are going to be frequenting vet offices. Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]ll also heed the advice to present them as they are to prospective owners, kittens that will need more attention at first. I was feeling pressure to get them adopted mainly because they were getting older and I was worried about their chances for finding a good home. I think Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]ll just take a step back and go slow from here on.

^ Do both. Vet offices, Craiglist, and petfinder (if you can). But, yes, being able to say they're FeLv/FIV negative will be a big plus for advertising them. Did you ever test their mother? Chances are if she's negative they would all be, too, since the only cat they could have got it from at such a young age is their mother. (young kittens not in a feral colony don't really have contact with anyone but mother)

She hasn't been tested yet. What you said about only receiving the viruses from the mother is what I thought too, but I'm super cautious with my cats. Mother looks very healthy so that gives me hope she'll turn up negative. I've never seen a FeLV or FIV cat up close. I guess any outward signs would be based on how long they have had the disease.

Depends on the cat, too. FeLv has different strains, as well, and sometimes those just carrying one strain fair better than those carrying two strains of it.
FIV cats can pretty much live a normal life as long as they're not exposed to other viruses and taken very good care of. It's also fairly safe to have them with other non-FIV cats as long as the group is stable and there's no serious fighting between anyone.

What's the situation with mother cat? Is she inside? out? with someone else? If she's been inside and not exposed to any + cats I'd honestly take her test result as the sign of what the kittens are, so see about getting her tested soon if you can.

You're doing a wonderful thing. Keep up the faith.

Momma cat has been with me ever since I brought the kittens in at 8 1/2 weeks. She is very friendly to me. I guess some of the kittens learned to trust me from her, but the last 3 really haven't. I have to assume she was an indoor cat at one time. She is from a group I feed at an apartment complex where many of them were once owned.

I went ahead and let my cats and the kittens interact last night with mixed results. I think I'll probably keep my 7 month old kitten away from the younger kittens because she's used to wrestling with the older cats. They just shed her off if they don't want to play, but it's very threatening to the other kittens. It caused a lot of hissing and growling from the baby girl kitten.

Thank you again everyone for all the advice and encouragement.

It's good to take the introductions slowly anyway.