Stray kitten found and possible father or surrogate father cat

We came back from a holiday 2.5 months ago and saw a whole bunch of kittens and assumed someone dumped them in a box while we were away. They disappeared overnight from our property. There has never been a mother cat around here at all and i'm sure of it as we live in country area.

Before that maybe a month or few weeks prior i saw a male adult cat white coat and blue eyes howling during the night and 3 weeks ago found a little black kitten meowing and hanging around our property. It was malnourished as stomach was larger compared to size of skinny body.

Been feeding it royal canin kitten biscuits as kitten looks to be 8 weeks old or older and he's been eating it fine. It wants to enter our house and i have bathed it twice no problems and has been playing with my 1.5 yr old male cat.

We are considering adopting it and leaving biscuits out for the white male adult cat as its still kind of afraid but will not run away when i put biscuits outside.

Just wanna know how long has it taken people to train kitten strays to use litter tray when they are around 8 weeks old?

This kitten has seen my male cat use litter and haven't seen any fleas on this kitty. At night its afraid to stay out and really cries like ita chosen our home to live in and loves my adult kitties so i'm torn between taking it in or leaving it with its dad or surrogate dad.

The adult male cat could be a surrogate that saw this kitten and showed compassion and took it under its wing, kitten is really friendly and lovey dovey.. This kitten will not be able to defend itself outside against ferals..

We will take the kitten to vet for desexing and health check etc. Just wanna get peoples opinions on if they had any issues with litter training and spraying on furniture etc..

eva84 said:

We came back from a holiday 2.5 months ago and saw a whole bunch of kittens and assumed someone dumped them in a box while we were away. They disappeared overnight from our property. There has never been a mother cat around here at all and i'm sure of it as we live in country area.

Before that maybe a month or few weeks prior i saw a male adult cat white coat and blue eyes howling during the night and 3 weeks ago found a little black kitten meowing and hanging around our property. It was malnourished as stomach was larger compared to size of skinny body.

Been feeding it royal canin kitten biscuits as kitten looks to be 8 weeks old or older and he's been eating it fine. It wants to enter our house and i have bathed it twice no problems and has been playing with my 1.5 yr old male cat.

We are considering adopting it and leaving biscuits out for the white male adult cat as its still kind of afraid but will not run away when i put biscuits outside.

Just wanna know how long has it taken people to train kitten strays to use litter tray when they are around 8 weeks old?

This kitten has seen my male cat use litter and haven't seen any fleas on this kitty. At night its afraid to stay out and really cries like ita chosen our home to live in and loves my adult kitties so i'm torn between taking it in or leaving it with its dad or surrogate dad.

The adult male cat could be a surrogate that saw this kitten and showed compassion and took it under its wing, kitten is really friendly and lovey dovey.. This kitten will not be able to defend itself outside against ferals..

We will take the kitten to vet for desexing and health check etc. Just wanna get peoples opinions on if they had any issues with litter training and spraying on furniture etc..

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The kitten will have a much happier life indoors. Please bring it in. If there is anything you can do to have the male neutered that would be fantastic.

I agree, please take the kitten inside. Most cats and kittens immediately know to use the litter box, that should not be a problem. If it were a problem, add another litter box for the kitten, and put some dirt from outside in it--the kitten will catch on.

Tom cats sometimes do care for their offspring, and will befriend other kittens (less common), but you should know that this doesn't last for long. In another couple of months, when the kitten hits puberty (it can happen as early as 4 months--I've rescued two 4 month old females who were pregnant), the male cat will either impregnate the kitten if it's a female, or possibly chase it off if it's a male, who would be viewed as a competitor.  Kittens are very vulnerable outdoors to predators and illness. The fact that this kitten has already been inside your house and gets along with your other cat is a huge plus--the transition will be very easy.

I  hope you can help the adult male cat as well. Is there a low cost spay/neuter clinic near you, such as a Humane Society or Animal Friends? He will live a much happier and healthier life if he's neutered. Perhaps some day you would consider taking him inside, too, or help to find him a home. I have five rescued cats inside my house and they all play together and get along (for the most part) so I guess I'm biased in favor of multi-cat households, lol.

It's great that you're taking care of these kitties!  

Thanks msaimee and talkingpeanut for ur replies. Its hrd to catch this white cat as it easily runs off while the black kitten lets me pick him up.. I've been torn between do we be selfish and take the male kitten and ignore white adult male cat or leave food outside for him as a kind gesture that he actually helped show compassion and take care of the kitten. Just last week saw another stray male cat that was fighting this white adult cat for biscuits we left out and the black kitten hid under a car as it knew it couldn't defend itself...

Then you could see even tonight at 10pm it was sleeping behind the grill in front of our main front door. When i bathed it, it cries when i let him out as he wants to dry off inside. Even though this male white adult cat is keeping it company and looking after it, the black kitten still asks to come in and i honestly think if i let it in, it would not want to go out anymore

Its just hard this is happening 1.5 weeks before i am due to go overseas for 3 weeks and family will be coming every few days to check on the kitties for food change litter etc...

My husband said next week saturday we can desex this male kitten and permanently keep indoors... So i may bathe kitty tomorrow morning and leave indoors to see what happens.

I don't believe it has worms as its full of energy and happy. When i 1st saw him, he was skinny and 3 weeks after 3-4 meals of royal canin and his getting heavier and body looks even toned.

Thanks for ur advice ladies. I agree kitten shouldn't be an issue and its much harder to deal with the adult cat

My cats hissed for 1st 2-3 days and last week my male cat was playing with the kitten and been hugging it and licking one another. My girl cat who's the sibling of my male cat is more territorial but she is warming up to the kitten. She will hiss and act confused like why is the kitten running off happily and not hissing back or fighting with her and she's been sniffing his bum which i hear is a friendly kitty greeting/gesture...

I'm afraid if i wait till coming back from holidays b4 adopting the kitten that it will have run away and have no chance of survival. The strays seem to show more appreciation to their owners when rescued... Its alot to deal with together with my 8 month old baby... But i do agree adopting this kitten is the best thing... Its not everyday that we will have stray kittens asking to move right in right??

He will need to be treated for worms. Almost all kittens have them. I agree that he clearly wants to be an indoor cat.

You can borrow a humane trap to catch the older cat. I would definitely keep feeding him!

Yes we will be defleaing, de worming the kitten and our 2 adult cats at home all at onceas my adult kitties are due for them anyways..

Keep the kitten inside now. He is trying to tell you something! He loves you! Very very dangerous for him outside. As to spraying, chiefly only male cats spray & only when they are not neutered. I never feed any cat outside unless I am planning to get it fixed. I do not "feed to breed". Once you feed a cat you are then its person & must take care of all its needs.

I think you should definitely take the kitten inside before you go out of town. Three weeks is a long time, and if anything happened to the kitten, you will feel terrible. The kitten has already been inside your house, has started to bond with your other cats, and allows you to handle him--so he's already yours. You're not being selfish for separating the two cats.

Is it possible to have someone feed the adult outdoor  cat while you're away? Get him into a feeding pattern, twice a day if possible. Then when you return, borrow or rent a humane trap and trap him, and get him to the vet to be neutered and tested for FIV/FeL (SNAP test). If you take him inside, you'll need to give him a room by himself for at least a week or two while he adjusts to life indoors and to the other cats. As long as he is intact, he'll be fighting other toms outside and can catch all kinds of diseases. If you don't take him inside, or at least not right away, you can continue to care for him as an outdoor cat. However, from my experience, it's a lot less stressful caring for the cats when they're all indoors.

If we bring this kitten indoors, its already playing with my adult cats and would be hard keeping it locked up in a bathroom all day or overnight it would be in distress i would think. He seems traumatised being left alone as my male cat has taken him under his wing... We can only make time to see a vet on saturday which would be about a week with this kitten but i will ask hubby to get some worming/flea treatments safe for kittens if possible or we will need to wait for the vet visit in a weeks time

Oh I didn't mean to confine the kitten into a room. That's not necessary as long as you treat it for worms and fleas. I'm talking about if you bring the adult stray into your house.

Frontline is a safe flea medication, your vet will sell you some without an appointment. You can get it much cheaper online, but that would take at least a few days. I would wait on the de-wormer to get it from a vet. There's no safe de-wormer sold over the counter. Perhaps your vet would also allow you to purchase a de-wormer such as a Drontal tablet prior to the visit if you explain the circumstances.   

All my kittens knew how to use the litter box with no effort from me.  I did, for very young ones, say 6 weeks old, put in extra boxes as their little legs sometimes had trouble getting to a far away box when the urge struck.

I doubt the adult stray looks like it wants to be an indoor cat as my female kitty fights at the glass sliding doors with it and it howls during the night.

My vet gave drontal a year ago when my 2 cats got tapeworm... Lucky we moved far away now to the country so fleas and worming hasn't been an issue. Our cats kept getting fleas from neigbours cats unhygienic living spaces in the opposite apartment despite us defleaing cats every month

I will ask hubby to buy drontal for kittens tomorrow or the next safest worming medicine until we can see vet for full med checkup

I agree with the others on bringing him in, and having him fixed.  The bigger stomach could actually be from the worms than actual malnutrition.  As far as the litter goes just show him where it's at, I'd be sure and get a couple of litter boxes so he can always have one close by, with his age you may have to help him in it a couple of times, but he'll catch on quickly.   

Another reason I suggest more than one litter box is that I have ran into issues where the cats just refuse to use the same litter box that the stray is now using, so they go in search of somewhere else to go.  If there is a clean litter box they'll go there, but if there isn't, they'll often find another inappropriate location to do their business, but the extra litter boxes should prevent this issue, if it is an issue at all, because not all of them are like that, but only a few will refuse to use the box with a strange kitty. (So you'll definitely want to watch for that and ensure everyone is using a litter box, so you don't get any surprises behind your washing machine, or under, or In your bed ).   Be sure and show All the kitties where all the litter boxes are located. 

If you get the Tom neutered, he will settle down. I don't know why he would be howling unless he's fighting with other Toms? Another reason to get him neutered is so he won't bring any of his future offspring to your door. I had a feral Tom I couldn't trap to neuter who brought all his offspring
to me and my neighbors (three of my indoor cats are his offspring, which I domesticated), so this does sometimes happen. Even if you don't take him in, you would be giving him a much happier and longer life if you neuter him.

Since the kitten has already spent tme inside your house with the other cats, you might as well take her inside now, the horse has already been let out of the barn

I brought in a feral kitty when she was about 9 weeks old and she used the litter box the same night that she was with us. I was surprised how easily she took to the litter box, though she had possibly never used it before. I have heard others say similar things about other feral kittens too. There's something about cats in that they come with a built-in toilet-trained button

I've found the same thing to be true. Any kitten I've found on the street, no matter how young, has instinctively known how to use a litter box.

eva84 said:

. But i do agree adopting this kitten is the best thing... Its not everyday that we will have stray kittens asking to move right in right??

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Right.  The Fate has Chose you.  Its just to obey...  In short:  God wants it!    As the old field cry told.

Also, the psyche of father is essential for the psyche of the kittens.  As we here know the psyche of this father is really first rate, you can be fairly confident the psyche of this kitten will be nice, above average.

The only question is, how you help adult white cat best...  Begin as you do, give it food and some protection, with time take it in a trap and neuter...  And perhaps adopt or find it an adoption home, with somebody whom is willing to do some fostering work and having a cat shy to visitors...

Drontal or Milbomax are good dewormers both.

Kitten has had a bath over 2 hours ago along with my other kitties. He shows no interest of wanting to go outside. Had to leave him downstairs a bit to shower and bathe baby and he was chilling in a basket on our dining table. He hasn't needed to use litter yet. When i opened front door to see if white cat was around the kitten just looked and wasn't interested in going out.

He's too happy inside

Well, now that he's clean and snuggly and happy, looks like you got yourself a new indoor kitty If you show him the litter box he will likely use it tonite. Have you named him yet? Please post a picture.

Hopefully i've attached pic right. This is the black kitten with his big bro roger... He's decided to nap on a rug next to couch and basket too...