What to do with the stray/feral cat we have been caring for?

First, we live in an apartment and have two resident cats, which is one more than I really really want, but our rescue kitty wanted a play mate and I caved.

The apartment complex where I live has a large feral cat population - and someone around does the TNR because a feral cat got into our apartment long unrelated story - but her ear was tipped.  Unfortunately, the TNR program doesn't stop these poor kitties from being hungry or from getting run over when they try to cross the steet... There were three ktten frm a littler that used to come around and we tried an tried to befriend them before adopting our current cat, and they were ony in it for the food... and within 6 months, 2 of three were found dead in the road, and the other has not been seen again.

Okay, current cat.  When we first started feeding her, we thought she had escaped from my neighbors apartment because there was a carrier/trap out front, and food out by his door.  We wanted to help catch her for him.  Looking back, I believe the carrier we saw was actually a trap, and someone was trying to catch the cat for the TNR program.  Well, we were not the only ones feeding kitty as food and water dishes began to appear outside doors so there was a constant supply.

My daughter works the 10PM to 6AM shift, and "Buttercup" was always there waiting to be fed.  After weeks of this, she was able to pet Buttercup, and she determined that the cat was pregnant.  She made the decision to bring the cat indoors and care for her until her kittens were weaned, and I believe the general thought process was that she would find homes for momma and all babies (after having them fully vetted of course). At some point during the pregnancy she miscarried at least one or two of the babies and ended up only giving birth to one live kitten who is now 3 weeks old.  Buttercup has been inside with us now for 5-6 weeks.  She has become pretty people friendly, she likes to be petted and does not run from us - she just doesn't care to be picked up.  Unfortunately, she has made NO progress on getting along with the two resident cats.  She spends 22 hours a day locked in the back half of the apartment.  We lock the other two cats up for an hour in the morning and an hour at night so Buttercup can come out and play, get attention, and exercise.  She is finally starting to show some interest in playing with toys... BUT, she still growls the whole time she is eating even if no one is in the room with her.  If she catches sight of one of the other cats, she is out for blood.  She throws herself against the screen, or the glass if I have the glass door closed.  She escaped her enclosure on one occassion and had our ragdoll by the throat in an instant.  She knows how to open doors.  She frightens me because she gets so tense, you can feel the tension rippling through her body.  In the evening, I usually let the 2 resident cats go on the balcony and keep Buttercup indoors with me.  Part of her aggression is fear and part is territorial.   I will sit by the patio door, and she will creep up very close to me and want me to pet and comfort her, but at the same time she wants to tear the other cats apart.  Snowy is very calm around her and does not react to her hissing, growling, and attempts to pounce.  Tati, the ragdoll, meets her hiss for hiss now that she has been attacked... but Tati is a pampered house cat and stands no chance defending herself against Buttercup if Buttercup should happen to escape her enclosure again.

We have been putting feelers out about Mamma and Baby, with pictures and background... and have had ZERO interest.  We still intend to have them vetted, and were seeking a rehoming fee to help defray that cost, but I think we would have a hard time finding a home for the momma even if she were free to good home.  Keeping them is not really an option.  Our apartment is too small for 4 cats that got along, but when you have one that wants to kill the others, this just isn't going to work and while we are willing to pay to have them initially vetted, spayed, shots, etc., we cannot afford recurring vet bills for 4 cats.  What route would you go with Momma and Baby

1.  TNR  is it too late for this since she has come to tolerate humans and we have had her inside for 5-6 weeks?  Would we be dumping her?  Would it do her more harm to let her have her freedom again at this point?

2.  Surrender her to a shelter and let them find a home for her?  I mean, it is possible that once her baby is weaned she will settle down more... I am scared to hang on to this cat and keep trying though... I already feel like we are responsible for her because we have had her this long, and I am not sure that even if we get her socialized with our two cats that people would be rushing to adopt her off of craigslist or something.  I think the Shelter gives her the best chance at getting a home because people go there looking for animals to adopt.   But what if the shelter finds she is too aggressive to be adopted?  She cannot possibly be housed with the general population as she is now... even when she was outdoors, after we started feeding her (with all the food that was left out by everyone all the stray cats were coming around) but she kept them all at bay.  She was not friendly even to one we believe is her sibling... he would hide in the shadows and wait until she left and them come lick anything she left over in the bowl.. it is so sad...

We made a previous attempt at fostering a cat from the shelter, and thats how we ended up with resident cat number 1.  We don't l ike the shelter.  There was much sickness there, overcrowded, and unresponsive when our foster cat needed care.  So I don't want to foster this cat and ask the shelter for help in finding her a home...

What do we do?  Also, now that the kitten is getting bigger, we want to start bringing him around the other cats so at least he will get socialized, but not sure if that will make the momma better or worse...  She doesn't really like us handling him - but at this point I am sort of like "Hey, you know what, this isn't about you!"

Hi Mollyblue, thank you for trying to help these cats.

First of all, as Buttercup still has a very young kitten and I guess has not been spayed yet she's showing a lot of maternal aggression towards your two other cats. Once her kitten is weaned and she has been spayed she will calm down a lot, so please don't think she's always going to be unfriendly towards other animals. You just have to wait until she's raised her kitten and then do some very slow introductions.

If I were you I would get Buttercup tested for FIV and FeLV now. If she is negative for both of these it's very unlikely that her kitten is positive. Also get her spayed and vaccinated. You don't have to do the spay right now if she is being kept indoors, but the sooner the better. Female cats can go into another heat cycle just a few weeks after giving birth, this will make her more likely to hiss at your other 2 cats, attract feral toms to your house and, if she manages to get out, could mean more kittens.

I've found it's a lot easier to re-home cats if you can say they've been blood-tested, vaccinated and spayed. Make sure you keep all the certificates for this from your vet to show the new adopters.

Handle the kitten as much as possible now. Take him into another room so that his mother doesn't hiss and make him nervous. It's fine for the kitten to be away from his mother for several 30 minute sessions a day so you can play with him and get him used to being petted. Friendly, confident kittens find homes much faster than shy ones. Wait until he is a little bigger, more like 6 ~ 8 weeks, and has a clean bill of health from your vet before you let him meet your other cats.

I'm not sure about Craiglist, I've heard some bad things about it. Have you tried Petfinder to look for a new home for them? You need to ask for an adoption fee, at least enough to cover blood tests, vaccines and a handling charge. Responsible pet owners won't mind paying this. People use free kittens for terrible things, so don't offer the cat or the kitten for free.

If you can't find a home for Buttercup and she really doesn't get on with you other cats you could keep her as an outdoor cat once she's recovered from being spayed. The kitten needs to stay with his mother until he is 10 weeks old, so plenty of time to see if getting her spayed makes her more sociable. I have an outdoor only cat. If you provide her with a shelter and regular food she'll be fine. It sounds like your neighbours are cat friendly, which is a good thing.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

If it were me i would find a no kill shelter in the country bc it sounds like she would do well as a barn cat. If you take her to a shelter in the country they usually have pretty good luck finding homes for cats in the country. I dont know where you live but my great aunt had some feral cats around her place and thats what she did. It worked out well for her. I have one of the kittens and it too was a feral kitten about 5 to 6 weeks old and she is now tame and afraid to go outside. Not to mention spoiled rotten! It sounds like mama will do better on a farm where she can be a wild cat and so cat things.

Thank you for your comments.

First, yes, this poor momma kitty has been through a lot.  We do not know for a fact if she was born feral to the colony or if some one dumped her.  She does have one ear that has been torn as some point.  She is a dilute calico, and once you get to know her, she is beautiful in her own way, but at first glance... You are correct that she has not been spayed, nor to the vet yet.  My daughter did take her once right after she gave birth because she only had the one kitten, but you could still feel lumps in her tummy.  We believe she miscarried one prior to giving birth because her tummy shrank up.  After sitting in the waiting room for 2 hours while people that came in after her were seen before her, she finally left.  (My daughter works overnights so by this point, she was exhausted, and the cat was going nuts and it was just too much stress!)  We decided to wait at this point until mother and son can be fixed at the same time.  The TNR people offer a low cost spay and neuter program - but that is where she went and sat for two hours.  They do the best they can - but we had a bad experience wtih the Shelter vet from our other cat, and I think we just want to take these guys to our regular vet, who is more expensive, but great!  My daughter has been pulling doubles for the last two weeks to get the money to have them done. 

As for keeping her as an outdoor cat, we live in a second story apartment.  I don't know if the neighbors would continue to be patient with her, or if she would run off or if someone would just take her.  Putting her back outside would solve our problem, but I don't know if it would solve hers.  We are looking for a new place to live, and then we have to figure out if we put her outside, do we trap her again and take her with us when we move?  When she was still wild, there were two boys who were trying to catch her, and they said their mom said they could keep her, and another lady told me a different lady wanted her, but the apartment manager told her she could not have her, that she was a "community cat".  I don't know the lady that wanted her, and I havent seen the lady that told me about her again.  But, as an outdoor kitty, though we could put food out, with so many ferals running around we would probably attract another pregnant mum, and we need to figure out what to do with this one first.  The squirrels eat the food, as do the possums and I don't even know what all else.  I live in a suburb of Kansas City, but we have lots of wildlife, I have seen foxes, rabbits, squirrels, possums and a racoon at our apartments.  We even had geese take up residence at the pool after it was closed for the season. 

We haven't tried pet finder yet.  I will recommend that to her.  I get that about charging a fee is good to find a responsible pet owner... and my daughter would love to recoup some of the vet fees and food costs, but there just seems to be an abundance of cats and a shortage of people who want them.

We would consider homing her with someone who wants a barn cat, but after all the time and attention we have put into her, I would kind of like to see her be a house cat.  She is even getting now where she is playing with toys, and she is still just a baby herself.  She deserves a family that will love her, just not sure how is the best chance to get her that.  The vet has not confirmed it yet, but I believe she is a very healthy cat.  She doesn't have any sneezes or discharges, She is still on the slender side, but she feels really solid.  Putting her in a shelter I am really afraid will expose her to a lot of disease.  We visited a lot of shelters when we were wanting a cat, and there were diseased cats in all of them.  Too many cats, and not enough space to keep them separated.

We have a couple weeks.  The kitten is just turning 3 weeks so maybe a miracle will happen.

Thank you again for your ideas.

Your situation reminds me a lot of my own. I have been trying to integrate a rescue (from my yard) with my 2 resident cats going on 3 years now. If you are leaning towards keeping Buttercup, it will require lots and lots and lots of patience. But if you truly fear she will hurt your other 2, maybe it's better to consider their safety first and keep her outdoors or find another home her. 

I only have 2 suggestion.

1) Get Buttercup checked out by a vet asap. For her health and the resident cats health. This may be a little different in your case because she's nursing the 1 kitten. I took my rescue to the vet before he ever came into the house for all their health's sake. 

2) If it's possible with yours and your daughter's schedules, give Buttercup more than 2 hours a day to roam the rest of the residence. So she can feel more at home.

My rescue stays in a spare bedroom during the day. My resident cats get put up and he comes out once I get settled after getting home from work. Then he goes back in the spare room at bedtime and they come out and go to bed with me. So he gets 4 to 6 hours out, depending on when I get home and when I go to bed. Lately though, they've all been out at the same time. So that's been a challenge where the rescue's first instinct is to chase after the resident cats. He hisses and howls at them. The girl resident cat hisses back, stands her ground or runs for safety up high. The boy resident cat mostly hides, but hisses back if the rescue finds him. He wants my attention, but no one else's. He often eats aggressively like he's never had food before. 

Also, I think someone said spaying/neutering will make cats calm down. Yes, you should definitely get that taken care of, but de-sexing does not mean a cat will stop being aggressive. My rescue was already neutered before I took him in and he is still aggressive to other cats. He did have one cat friend though, that he followed around when he lived outdoors. My girl, who has always been indoors, was spayed at 7 months and she's always been aggressive. She doesn't like to be handled and doesn't like other cats in her space. It's not a cure-all for behavioral problems. 

We have been trying to add more free time for Buttercup, but she is showing less interest in exploring the rest of the apartment, I think in part because her kitten is getting older and starting to move around now, though he hasn't gotten out of his box yet, he does climb up and peek over the top.  And partly because of the other cats.  If I stay inside when we let the other cats out on the balcony, she will come in the living room and play with me.  If I sit on the floor by the screen door, she will creep up  and try to look outside and find the other cats...but then one minute she will be calm and maybe a little fearful.  he next minute she flies at the screen/glass.   Its very unpredictable.  Our older cat will meet her at the glass and calmly lie down and watch her and she doesn't react when Buttercup hisses, but our younger cat (the one Buttercup got hold of when she escaped her enclosure one day) hisses and runs.  One minute she is all tough, arched back, hissing, growling, and the next she is cowering in fear, hiding under my bed, etc.   So, you say that the rescues first instinct is to chase... but has she ever caught one of them?  One of our cats is deaf... and she has had a lot illnesses.  she is still weak and underweight from her last URI... and her allergies are bad. This is the cat that always offers Buttercup friendship, and Buttercup wants to tear her up.  The other resident cat and Buttercup are pretty close in age but Tati is just a contradiction.  One minute she is hissing and growling and down right scary, the next she is hiding under the bed cowering in fear and won't even come out for treats.  She doesn't just ever end up in the middle where okay... there's another cat.  Big deal.

I don't really want 4 cats in my apartment.  and if we keep Momma, I know we will keep baby...I wouldn't mind rehoming her at all, if we could find a nice home.  But I am just afraid if we rehome her and it doesn't work out.. I don't want her getting dumped I wouldn't mind her being an outside kitty, if I lived in a house and could put shelter up, or if we could put food out for her and not have all the other feral and stray cats coming for food, and the other wildlife too.     Here is a new picture of Theodore, the baby kitty.

 

Oh my he is cute! I would so want to keep him. But yeah 4 cats is a lot to handle. It's actually not even legal in my area; you can have 3 cats and 2 dogs and 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Yes the rescue, Jumbo, runs at the residents when he sees them. If they're on the ground when I let him out of the spare room, that's what he does. They usually hiss and run the other direction. They get up high, on top kitchen cabinets, entertainment center or their cat tower. He can't climb up to get them because someone had him de-clawed. He's kind of always looking for them, howling at them. But after a while he quiets down and curls up with me or elsewhere in the living room. Sometimes his quietness tricks the other 2 thinking he's back in his room and 1 will get down and walk around the kitchen or living room. If Jumbo notices he'll try to chase them. There's been several close calls I've broken up with a spray bottle and yelling at them to knock it off. The recent reintroduction has been going on about 3 weeks. Jumbo has been inside for 3 years (tended to him outside 1 year before that), while I've had the resident cats 10 and 9 years. It''s still very much a work in progress. So much patience I didn't even know I had.

that is quite a long time.  When I was younger, I was constantly taking in animals, and I never had any of this slow introduction crap... everyone just got along gosh darn it !  I had 2 cats, a dog, and a conure, and they were best buds.  Then a baby kitty showed up in my yard, and wouldn't even take food from me... but I guess it liked hanging out in my fenced yard for safety.  Eventually the other two cats brought it indoors.  When she got pregnant and delivered, she tried to abandon one of her babies who had 6 toes on one foot, and seven on the other, on each side, but other than that it seemed normal.  My dog is the one who adopted that kitty..and kept pestering the momma about it until she took him back.  Funny thing about that is someone stole that kitten from my yard... so the momma got dumped, and the baby got stole. 

Anyway, all of these cats are new, and the first two took a couple months to get along...

I know. When I first took in Jumbo, my mother was staying with me going through cancer treatments and the fighting upset her. So I just kept them separated until she was better and moved back to her own home. Then I guess I just got stuck in that routine. I tried here and there, but it never went well so I just went back to separating. Until this month, now I'm really trying to work on it again. It's new to me too. All the cats I had growing up were outdoor/indoor and I don't remember much in-fighting. But with other cats that were't ours, sure. My dad would just toss them outside if fights broke out inside.

That's good that your first 2 didn't take a long time to get used to each other. Hopefully the new one starts socializing better with them once she stop nursing the kitten.