- Joined
- Mar 8, 2016
- Messages
- 6
- Purraise
- 1
So this is my feral story (Sorry for the super long novel post):
One dark, early morning toward the end of January I saw a small orange kitten run through my backyard. He ran away quickly but I left some dry food out for him. That night he came back with his mom and another orange kitten. I guessed the kittens to be around 8 -10 weeks. I fed the three of them for about a week. As soon as they saw me they would run away. There's an orange tomcat in the neighborhood and I didn't want Momma to get knocked up again so I planned to have all three fixed at the local SPCA as soon as possible. One night I was able to sneak up on the kittens while they were eating (I fed them in a small, mostly empty shed behind my house). I set a cat carrier inside and was easily able to shoo them into it. They lived in my bathroom for the next week while I worked on trapping Momma and bringing them all to their spay/neuter appointments on February 1. Originally I was hoping the kittens were small enough that they could be socialized easily but I thought if they didn't show any signs of being happy indoors I could release them with Momma, and continue feeding them as feral cats.
One of the kittens (Finn) would eat food in my presence, although he didn't like me to get close. The other kitten (Poe) would hiss at me if he thought I wasn't keeping my distance. Also, I have two female cats (4 and 5 years old). On the fifth or sixth day that the kittens lived in my bathroom, my cats got into a fight that scared the actual piss out of the smaller one. They have never fought, even when introduced as adults (about 3 years ago). So I had to consider that keeping the kittens myself was negatively impacting my resident cats, and also that only one of the kittens seemed amendable to domestication. In addition, I live in New Orleans and resources for shelter animals are limited enough. I reasoned that it would be kinder to all if the family stayed together and didn't take up space in a foster home or rescue.
After their spay/neuter appointments, I released Momma and her kittens under the direction of the SPCA. Since then, Momma has disappeared. I hope that she decided to go with a safer (in her mind) food source but have no way of knowing. The kittens returned to their regular feeding time after staying away a couple nights. For several weeks I fed them and talked to them and they grew more comfortable in my presence. They started showing up late morning or early afternoon looking for food. They would run a few feet toward me when they saw me, excited for food. By the end of February, they would let me sit within arms distance of them while they ate. They seemed more confident and would walk around with their little tails in the air. Surprisingly, Poe was now friendlier. I pet him a couple of times while he ate his wet food and he started to play with some cat toys with me.
Then Poe disappeared. I last saw him around Feb. 26/27. He was the dominant kitten even though he was smaller. (The SPCA didn't tell me how old the kittens (both boys) were but did chart their weights at 2.7 and 3.1 lbs.) Finn began hanging out around the shed more and meowing pitifully. I think he was really lonely. He would eat and then hang around and meow until we played with a ribbon wand that I got for him.
I decided to try taking Finn in again, not knowing if he would make it on his own. Yesterday I pulled the same trick trapping him in the shed. A coworker who was helping me picked him up with a towel and got him in the carrier. I thought that he would calm down quicker this time around. So he's back living in the bathroom but he hides from me and won't eat in front of me now. He has definitely played with some cat toys when I'm gone but not interested in playing with the wand with me.
My question is, how do more experienced people who have socialized feral kittens before think this is going? What is my next step? I've read all that I can find but every case is different and this is my first time. I wanted to get him to a vet sooner rather than later to get him started on vaccines and dewormer but I can't even handle him and don't want to set back what little progress I've made with him.
Please help, even if it's simple encouragement. He's a really sweet kitten and I feel bad that he's all alone.
One dark, early morning toward the end of January I saw a small orange kitten run through my backyard. He ran away quickly but I left some dry food out for him. That night he came back with his mom and another orange kitten. I guessed the kittens to be around 8 -10 weeks. I fed the three of them for about a week. As soon as they saw me they would run away. There's an orange tomcat in the neighborhood and I didn't want Momma to get knocked up again so I planned to have all three fixed at the local SPCA as soon as possible. One night I was able to sneak up on the kittens while they were eating (I fed them in a small, mostly empty shed behind my house). I set a cat carrier inside and was easily able to shoo them into it. They lived in my bathroom for the next week while I worked on trapping Momma and bringing them all to their spay/neuter appointments on February 1. Originally I was hoping the kittens were small enough that they could be socialized easily but I thought if they didn't show any signs of being happy indoors I could release them with Momma, and continue feeding them as feral cats.
One of the kittens (Finn) would eat food in my presence, although he didn't like me to get close. The other kitten (Poe) would hiss at me if he thought I wasn't keeping my distance. Also, I have two female cats (4 and 5 years old). On the fifth or sixth day that the kittens lived in my bathroom, my cats got into a fight that scared the actual piss out of the smaller one. They have never fought, even when introduced as adults (about 3 years ago). So I had to consider that keeping the kittens myself was negatively impacting my resident cats, and also that only one of the kittens seemed amendable to domestication. In addition, I live in New Orleans and resources for shelter animals are limited enough. I reasoned that it would be kinder to all if the family stayed together and didn't take up space in a foster home or rescue.
After their spay/neuter appointments, I released Momma and her kittens under the direction of the SPCA. Since then, Momma has disappeared. I hope that she decided to go with a safer (in her mind) food source but have no way of knowing. The kittens returned to their regular feeding time after staying away a couple nights. For several weeks I fed them and talked to them and they grew more comfortable in my presence. They started showing up late morning or early afternoon looking for food. They would run a few feet toward me when they saw me, excited for food. By the end of February, they would let me sit within arms distance of them while they ate. They seemed more confident and would walk around with their little tails in the air. Surprisingly, Poe was now friendlier. I pet him a couple of times while he ate his wet food and he started to play with some cat toys with me.
Then Poe disappeared. I last saw him around Feb. 26/27. He was the dominant kitten even though he was smaller. (The SPCA didn't tell me how old the kittens (both boys) were but did chart their weights at 2.7 and 3.1 lbs.) Finn began hanging out around the shed more and meowing pitifully. I think he was really lonely. He would eat and then hang around and meow until we played with a ribbon wand that I got for him.
I decided to try taking Finn in again, not knowing if he would make it on his own. Yesterday I pulled the same trick trapping him in the shed. A coworker who was helping me picked him up with a towel and got him in the carrier. I thought that he would calm down quicker this time around. So he's back living in the bathroom but he hides from me and won't eat in front of me now. He has definitely played with some cat toys when I'm gone but not interested in playing with the wand with me.
My question is, how do more experienced people who have socialized feral kittens before think this is going? What is my next step? I've read all that I can find but every case is different and this is my first time. I wanted to get him to a vet sooner rather than later to get him started on vaccines and dewormer but I can't even handle him and don't want to set back what little progress I've made with him.
Please help, even if it's simple encouragement. He's a really sweet kitten and I feel bad that he's all alone.