advice needed for adopting a former stray, very fearful cat

A month ago my grandma decided she could no longer live alone and went into a nursing home. She asked me to take her cat. This cat was a stray that started to come around my grandma’s house, my grandma started to feed her, and they adopted each other. She eventually became an indoor/outdoor cat, and would sit on my grandma’s lap and even sleep on her bed. She's been with my grandma for several years now. We believe the cat was either born feral or was mistreated and dumped because she would hide whenever anyone came to my grandma’s house. She has never really grown to trust anyone else, though she would be in the same room with my mom and my aunt because they came to the house often. My grandma has managed to take Kitty to the vet and she’s had vaccinations and been treated for fleas.

My problem is that after a month of being with us, we haven’t seen her since the first night. We had to use a trap to catch her at my grandma’s house and then brought her to our place. Since we have other cats both indoors and outdoors (with access to comfortable rooms) on our acreage, and because we were afraid Kitty would just run away if we let her loose, we put her in a large shed. We set up food, water and litter boxes for her and some of her things from home. There is an abundance of hiding places, which is exactly part of the problem because we don’t know where she hides when we go in there. My husband and I talk to her when we bring her food every day, hoping she’d get used to the sound of our voices and at least peek out at us at some point, but no. We know she’s still alive because she’s eating and using the litterboxes.  She’s the only cat in this part of the shed, and my husband was wondering whether we should let another cat in there so she could start to get used to our other cats, but I’m afraid this might lead to her feeling more threatened or that she might even end up fighting with the other cat. I’ve considered not leaving food out all the time and only providing it when we bring it and sit and wait nearby to see if she’ll come out and eat, but I don’t know if that would work either and am afraid she might still refuse to come out and just end up hungry.

Has anyone else had a situation like this and how did you handle it? Any suggestions for getting Kitty to come out and see that we’re really okay people?

We're moving your thread to the Strays and Ferals forum, hopefully you can get some good ideas from folks there.  Welcome to TCS.  

   Welcome to TCS!

 I think that the cat will need to acclimate for a long time since she is typically so shy. You could try a slow, passive introduction of other cats by allowing a resident kitty inside the shed while you and your husband is there and taking the resident out with you when you leave. This gives the resident the time and opportunity to spread its scent around for the newbie to come out and investigate, giving you important hints on how she feels about other cats in general - some cats are social like lions, others as elusive as a cougar.

 You might try gradually eliminating some of the ground hiding spots and give shelves/cat trees instead, so the newbie is up off the ground, looking down on her surroundings - this will give her feelings of confidence and power.

  Poor thing, she is not only grieving the separation from your grandmother, she is now in a strange environment. Be encouraged, however, because cats are resilient - there is a good chance that you may never be able to pet her, but she is in a safe home ;and may someday be inclined to openly observe you. One of my dad's ferals is that way - since he died, the cat lives in the yard and never allows anyone to touch him. It's been five years and only recently does the cat trust me enough to get close enough to touch - which I don't because I respect the cat enough to honor his preferences.

Thanks for your input, catsknowme. My grandma came for a visit last weekend. She thought if Kitty heard her voice she might come to her. She sat in the shed for about 45 minutes and tried to coax Kitty out, without success, as far as we know. My grandma is almost blind, and we for the most part left the shed in case Kitty felt safer making an appearance without us strangers in there. But I did peek in a few times to see if I could see her, in case she was there but beyond the point where my grandma could see.

We can go like this for now, but we live in the Midwest and eventually colder weather will mean Kitty needs a source of warmth. We have little rooms that are heated for our cats, but if we can't get her to go into one, I don't know what to do other than hang a heat lamp in the shed (which my husband is not crazy about) or put some other type of shelter designed for ferals with a heated mat or something in it, inside the shed where she is.

We'll try letting some of our more mellow resident kitties come in and investigate so she can at least get used to the scents of our cats. What about leaving some of our clothing near her food and water bowls so she can smell us as well?

If anyone has any more ideas, please share.

The idea of leaving some of your clothes that you've won enough to have your scent on it in the shed sounds really good to me. How about also putting something your grandmother has been wearing together with your clothes too?

UPDATE!

A couple weeks ago, on my grandparents' anniversary no less, I went into the shed with some canned food and talked to Kitty like I normally do, and she finally came out of her hiding place. She sat and looked at me for several minutes from across the shed, meowing occasionally while I talked to her. Finally she slowly started to come toward me. I stood still and kept talking in a quiet, soothing tone, and she eventually walked all the way around me and then returned to her original spot. I did not try to touch her. The next day she approached again, this time I bent down and held out my closed hand and she sniffed it. She came closer and I pet her, just a little, and gave her some treats. I couldn't believe it!!!

Now she comes to me much more quickly every day and lets me pet her and rubs against me. I even managed to put some flea drops on her. She still doesn't trust my husband much, though he has gotten closer to her than before. My grandma says she doesn't like men very much. She is still frightened easily and if someone else comes in or there's a noise when she's by me she will start to go back to her safe place. But she has taken a huge step, and I'm hoping with time she will continue to learn to trust us and get to know our other cats.

Anyway, I wanted to let you all know how things were going, and let others know that it can take a long time (in this case almost 3 months) to get a feral cat to begin to trust you, but be patient and don't try to rush the cat and it can happen.

That's a wonderful update.  

That's wonderful news.  Hopefully by the time the cold weather gets there she'll trust you enough to allow you to move her to the heated room.  I was worried that you might end up having to trap her in order to move her for the Winter but it sounds like that isn't going to be the case.  Hooray for Kitty, and Hooray for you and your hubby for waiting patiently, and  allowing her to come around at her own pace.  

 Wonderful, wonderful news! It took months for me to tame my wildest feral, Scotty, because he was about 7 years old and hated humans. I really wanted to tame him because at the time, we had large rats in our garage and I had seen Scotty out in the fields with his meals of rat.  I used canned food to coax him near, gradually putting the food dish nearer my feet. The hard part was when Scotty did approach, he would strike out at me and he was a huge, orange TNR'd tomcat.  I would wear rainboots and a long sleeved shirt with leather gloves.  When the weather turned cold (it gets below zero here, too), I left the back door open and I think that Scotty could feel the warmth because he hesitantly came inside and eventually parked it in front of the woodburner - and stayed inside all winter. I was worried that he would become an attack cat but instead, he would sit near me, watching me cook and do dishes, and seemed so approachable that I gave him a stroke and he took to petting as quickly as he took to cozying up in front of the fire.