Help with my new rescue

About a month ago I started caring for some feral cats in my neighborhood, and fell in love with one of them..I finally caught him, and he

ended up being very very sick with an upper respiratory infection, we spared no expense in treatment and hospitalization because the little guy probably would not have made it otherwise. He has made a somewhat full recovery, but we are encountering some behavioral issues with him, and unless I can fix this behavior or figure out what he is doing I am afraid I can’t keep him, as I have two other cats.

So, basically as a stray he is very skittish around us,  but little by little he is coming around, he lets us play with him and tolerates our touch VERY MINIMALLY, but hey at least we are getting somewhere. However, we cannot handle him or pick him up yet, and if we get to close sometimes he will lift his paw as a  warning, and once or twice has fought us back if we needed to handle him for his safety.

Stupidly - since he was feeling better we decided to let him explore the house since he has been in a kennel for about a month. He has always shown interest in our other cats, he never spits or hisses at them even though they act like two idiots around him, so we figured what’s the harm. Well at first everything went great, pur girls were acting up, but he laid down to show submission and was rather well behaved, that is until suddenly he snapped…it was like Jekyll and Hyde…he look at one of the girls cocked his head and started making these weird meows (normally he never makes a peep) then as she ran away hissing and growling he ran after her and attacked….when we got them separated he made a move to do the same thing to the other female…Can someone please tell me what this is all about?? I have had tons of cats and have never seen this happen….Obviously there is always turmoil the first few days and of course cat fights, but this was so different (I keep praying maybe it was even playing)

We are keeping him separated for now and getting him used to us so we can handle him, but it was such a  strange incident it still scares me and if he does it again I am not sure he can stay!

Please Please help!!!

I'm assuming this guy is now neutered and that your other kitties are also fixed? Something certainly seems to have set him off. If all kitties are fixed and this kind of behavior continues, I would try Feliway and see if this helps at all. Sending vibes!
 

When we took him to vet, thy told us he was neutered (which possible) because he might have belonged to someone- we thought maybe his testicles did not decend )forgot what they call it) but the vet said it was very rare. he doesn't spray to best of my knowledge either- but sometimes he gets a weird kitty look in his eyes (same look he got when he attacked my girl) and its definitely a little creepy

So you went from him being caged to full run of the house?   Maybe some intermediate steps are in order like keeping them in separate rooms, mixing scents, brief intro periods.   I've seen people post a link to a cat intro article on this site but I'm not sure where it is.  There's a book too Cat vs. Cat that might help.  I sure hope it works out!

Yes in hindsight it was not the best idea - while he was in his kennel they all met each other and he always seemed so friendly toward them (much more than us) so we thought the cat to cat issue would be the least of our problems! I will look for article thanks...but more than anything I would like to know what sort of behavior he was exhibiting and why the sudden change in attitude - I have never really seen a cat act like that