Contained feral having cage rage, difficulty accessing him for care (pics)

I TNR'd a new feral on Tuesday. We were forced to relocate the small colony, and so until we are able to build the proper enclosures (should be within the next week or so), we have to keep them contained. The other ferals are in 48" crates and their enclosure should be up this weekend for them to be released in.

Since this feral is new and the primary caretaker did not necessarily want to take all of the cats to her new place (pet limit that she is already violating with them) I decided I would take the new guy since he is not an established member of the colony yet and having just been neutered, we were hesitant to place him in an enclosure with the others.

He is currently in a 36" wire dog crate. Within the dog crate is a small carrier meant for my 6lb foster - we intended to transfer him to a larger carrier the night after surgery but we have been unsuccessful in getting him to leave the current one. His crate has a small litter box, food, water, and a piece of firewood from the old property they used to scratch on.

During the day he seems incredibly docile, always blinking the moment we make eye contact before I even have the chance to. He is receiving composure treats with every meal, rescue remedy in the water, feliway diffuser, and classical music on and off. He seems to stay in the carrier throughout the day, but every morning when I check on him, his crate is absolutely a mess - litter and puppy pads everywhere, fire wood removed and flipped from where it was, water spilled, ect...

This has had me concerned about his recovery since I'm unable to check his incision or ear. Also, I'm trying to figure out why he is freaking out. Is it lingering roaming instincts? How long until the behavior subsides?

Last night he did the worst he's ever done and it is presenting a problem. This is what his normal set up generally looks like (though this is technically after one of his nightly freakouts)

 

Our set up allows us to twist tie the carrier door so that it remains open, and when I need to go in to feed, clean, scoop litter or transport, I take a yardstick (shown in the lower right hand corner) and stick it slowly through the crate to close the carrier door. The yardstick keeps the door closed until I can get in and manually lock the carrier. So far this has worked great.

But this morning, DC really did a number on his crate. He managed to move and entirely flip the carrier on its side.

Front view:

 

Side View:


So here is my current problem - I am afraid to try and feed him right now. Every time I go in there, I think without the sense of protection from being in the carrier (or perhaps feeling better post-op) DC does not seem quite as docile as normal and is more on edge. I can use a spoon to drop food in his bowl but I am afraid to even try this with DC right now, as he is very clearly uneasy about my presence and being unable to take cover. It is making me very nervous and I am not sure what to do. Should I just suck it up? What should I look out for if he tries to attack or charge the crate (even with the spoon my hands are within the danger zone)?

The second issue is that I don't know how to go about fixing the mess he's made... How do I flip the carrier and push it to the back as it was without harming him, terrifying him, or risking escape?

We actually lucked out this morning at a thrift store and were able to purchase a large "cat cage" - it looks to be the Iris 3 tier cat play pen, which measure 70.1" H x 36.6" W:


Once we figure out how to set up the carrier in there, we were hoping to transfer him at some point today. But we need to be able to access him!

To sum up my questions are:

- Should I worry that he's caused himself harm during the recovery period from his nightly cage rage?

- What is causing the cage rage? If roaming instincts or something else related to his testosterone levels, how long until we can expect this to subside?

- Is there anything we can do to help prevent him from doing himself harm or risking escape, or to help calm him?

- How should I go about feeding him and fixing his carrier?

He may be trying to escape and trashing his crate in the process. Can you use the yard stick to flip/turn the carrier back into place? Once that's done, he may crawl back in and you can secure him for the move. I don't think i would mess wirh anything else rifht now. You can clean up afterwards.

The new cage is awesome. Keep in mind it will give him more room and he may end up harder to corral into the carrier.

He may have disturbed his wounds but unless you see blood, he should be OK. Feral cats are tough - a lot tougher than we give them credit for.

Looking at your images of "the morning after" and the three tier cat cat play pen - take a different carrier / den and set it up wherever you decide in the 3-tier cage. Maybe the top level shelf so you can use the bottom level under the middle shelf for his litter pan. Get some coated electrical wire and fit some lengths through the carrier vents and around the play pen bars. Have the cut ends outside and firmly twisted together. Do at least one side in  couple of places and the back of the carrier in a couple of places. Now he cannot flip it around or turn it over. Once you have it set up, litter pan in place, etc then transfer him to the new apartment.

He may simply get the nighttime zoomies because everything is quiet and he feels less constrained than daytime about hunkering down to be less conspicuous. Time may help.

@Ondine - it's difficult to notice blood when we don't have a good look at him and the surrounding of the crate is black :/ And we are trying to think of a way to make the play pen work. I feel horrible having him in a 36" crate for so long, though  I suppose we will have Hobo and Puff moved to their outdoor enclosure likely by Saturday and he could move into one of their large 48" crates with the top perch


It's just difficult to wait even one or two more days, especially when he's thrashing around like that and seems so unhappy. You are probably right about that feral toughness, though!

@Catapault - We're trying to see if we can configure the play pen to meet our needs, particularly with having a carrier included. It doesn't seem to fit on any of the shelves, so we may have to get creative and try to attach one of the wire dog crates to the bottom opening for added space. Definitely a good call on tying up the carrier through the vents!

Do you really think this is being caused by the zoomies and not the lingering mating instincts? The other two previously (neutered) cats we have in holding haven't done this whatsoever, including one who does not like to stay in the carrier and prefers to roam and climb around within the crate.

Continuing to think of your situation vis-a-vis the cat @MoxieWild - zip ties would actually be easier and just as secure as coated wire, if and when you need to secure the carrier to a larger cage.

If it will not fit on the middle or upper shelf then think about putting the carrier on the bottom of the cage. Or is it possible to add some wooden bars from side to side to extend the topmost shelf "footprint." They must be absolutely secure. My first thought - make the wooden bars long enough to extend outside the cage then either drill a hole for a vertical dowel peg at each end or screw on a short vertical support strip at each side. Think of an L on its side with the _ at both ends. And screw rather than nail so it can be disassembled when no longer needed.

A feral cat might feel better able to "act up" when there are no humans around and the house is quiet, wouldn't you think? It works in the wide world too - last night some critter knocked over my resin cast bird bath, which has been in place for several years.

It takes 3-4 weeks for the male hormones to settle down after a neuter. You've got a caged, adult feral cat with tomcat hormones still inside of him-- he's going to be anxious and try to escape. Ferals hate confinement, they're used to roaming and hunting at night. Maybe he'll do better when he's in a larger confinement and settle down over time. Some adult ferals, though, are true ferals--they don't ever adjust to being indoors and live happier lives outdoors with a caregiver. You'll have to discern this over the weeks to come, it's too soon to tell now.

@Catapault - that's a great idea! We will definitely look into that! We figure at worse this can end up being a substitute for a cat tree once we have his enclosure done, but we will try to come up with some plans to extend the shelf and tinker around with it first. The bars of the cage have very tight spacing so we may have to get creative.

@MsAimee - That is a very good point, especially about the night activity. We actually only fed this guy in the mornings and have no idea where he'd normally go/eat at night. No one in the area claimed to be providing for him and we weren't going to continue allowing him to roam around unneutered, so we just took him with us for the move with the others.

We are not positive he is feral-feral, as he is so extremely docile and does not act like the others... at the same time, we've never heard him meow or vocalize in such a way, so who knows. We aren't intending to tame him or convert him to an inside cat. This is only temporary until we finish enclosing our porch for him. He should be confined indoors at most three weeks, but mostly likely two. Tomorrow we are finishing a different enclosure and  the ferals occupying the two level 48" crates will be released to their new home - so we will be able to transfer DC to one of those tomorrow evening.

He really went crazy last night... There was litter somehow half way across the room, some of the towels/sheets covering his cage pulled down, others pulled completely inside the cage with him, and of course, the carrier was flipped. It's definitely progressively getting worse each day (the messes he made at first were what you see in the first picture of the initial post) . Makes me sad to think about how unhappy he is when he does that Hopefully moving to the bigger crate with more room and the ability to climb will give him something more to do.

Either it will help with his anxiety OR it will just be a bigger area to make a mess in and add even more time to my daily cat chores than he's already doing with his shenanigans

True ferals don't attack when you reach in the cage. They usually freeze. Now, he may not be a true feral so might be a bit unpredictable, but even so, he probably won't attack unless you try to grab him. If you do need to grab him, throw a towel over him or use leather gloves.

Maybe some toys in the new cage will help. Not a ton of room to play but it might be a small distraction.

None of them attack or have even hissed. But Hobo and Puff both watch me intently while frequently diverting their gaze slightly up, down or to the side, but will not blink (I had just started getting Hobo to blink back at me "on the outside" a few months ago and had been doing so with Puff for a long time).

DC, on the other hand, blinks and squints the very moment I have to pull back the sheet and will do so the entire time I'm in there unless he hears something unexpected, then he perks up for a minute. He also refuses to leave the small carrier for the larger one, while the other two darted into them as soon as they could.

This could all just be some his own idiosyncrasies or perhaps due to the fact that Hobo and Puff know me but he does not. Even though it would seem like him blinking and them staring would suggest he actually trusts me more than they do, maybe it's that he in fact fears me more and is trying to discourage conflict?

The larger crates Hobo and Puff are in have toys, but there just wasn't much room in DC's crate for that. When we transfer him today I'm thinking of possibly stringing up some toys from the top of the crate and maybe fit a treat ball in there to put a little dry food in... we'll see, I'll have to mess with it a bit, but I'm definitely trying to figure out how to get some enrichment in there for him.

The fact that he doesn't act like the other two and that I don't actually have any sort of relationship with him/know him like the others, definitely always has me on guard with him, though I try not to be "nervous" about it. Sometimes I just feel like he's trying to fool me with those sweet squinting eyes so he can pull a sneak attack when I'm least expecting it!