our new feral is confusing us

[kwren]

we have just brought a feral stray that we have been feeding all summer into our home. it has been about a week, and everything seems to be going well, but over the past 2 days she has started getting a little growly at our big cats.

we started her out in the mudroom, shut off from the other cats, but they did fine through the door and she was meowing so pitifully that we went ahead and let her out to play. she is happy and hyper, doesn't mind the 5 year old, loves petting. we had been handling her in the yard for a few weeks and she really loves petting and being fussed over. she hissed a little at our kittehs, they just sniffed at her and then tried to eat her food. they seemed to be getting along fairly well.

we only have two cats that are out all the time in her level of the house (our house has three floors, the whole upper floor is owned by housemate and her two cats, our anti-social i-hate-you-all old boy hangs on the second floor and won't really leave our bedroom, so it is just rosie and tim roth, who are basically just big kittens) rosie is almost a year and a half now, tim is 13 months. they are playful sweet awesome cats, and neither of them has made even the tiniest of aggressive moves towards fenchurch (the little girl kitten) they want to play with her. she seems to want to play with them, but when they bat back at her or try to share a toy she gets very very vocal and starts yowling or hissing while at the same time rolling on her back and trying to bat at their front legs in what seems like a playful manner.

i can't tell if it is aggression or fear or what! she is very talky normally, she mews when she wants petting, she talks while she eats, she will beg for food while talking to you when we are eating dinner.

should i let them sort this out on their own? ignore it? wait to see what happens?

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by kwren

she is happy and hyper, doesn't mind the 5 year old, loves petting. we had been handling her in the yard for a few weeks and she really loves petting and being fussed over.

That's not a feral. Feral means wild, not tame. A feral would shred your 5 year old. You simply took in a stray that someone lost or ditched.


Is she spay?

 

[kwren]

her mama is truly wild. i've been calling her a feral because besides the loving she has gotten from us once she was brave enough to venture away from mama she has never been touched by another human. she is about 16 weeks, and is set to be spayed on the 27th. her brother is totally wild and won't let us touch him, but we are trying to trap him. he will come into the yard with us but it took us a good month or so just to get the kittens to the point where they wouldn't scamper away whenever they saw us. little girl was fairly easy to win over once i actually touched her, she flinched away but came back for more. this cat was never meant to live the life of a feral cat, she is a lovebug. little boy still wants no hands on him. if we manage to get him he will take some serious work to win over.

we're tnr-ing the two possible mama cats since we don't want more kittens. i really don't know who our kittens belong to since we have seen them around both cats but both of the females (a very pretty dilute calico and a little tortie) won't come anywhere near people, if you startle them in the yard they hiss and spit. supposedly the tortie at one time belonged to our neighbors who have since moved, but we never saw them touch her or even saw her in their yard. i suppose the kittens could be drop-offs but we did see them with both females so we figured they belonged to one of them. they are little grey and black tabby cats.

 

[strange_wings]

She really doesn't sound feral, she'd fight you more. But, yes, some can be born to a feral mother and not learn it (if you get to them early enough). I'd just tell everyone, including the vet, that she's very skittish as feral has some negative connotation and can affect how she's treated. (she wouldn't be abused, just not handled)

At 16 weeks old she's old enough to start wanting to be a bit independent yet still very much want other cat company. That's what you're seeing. She misses her sibling and wants to be friends with these cats, but they're still strange cats that are bigger than she is.

Plus, she could already be in heat.

However, there's a big problem here. If she has not been to the vet you cannot have her out with your other cats! You do not know what she has and it's guaranteed that she will have parasites. You're putting them at risk. Even with a vet visit, 2 weeks quarantine, and 2 dewormings, is safest.

 

[kwren]

she has been in to the vets, she tested negative for feline diseases (she had the leukemia and hiv test) and was dewormed, and while she had no fleas she had flea dirt so she got treated for fleas.

we did keep her separated from the big guys for 4 days after she got checked and wormed, but we felt so badly for her all by her lonesome mewing sadly. it doesn't help that the mudroom is shut off from the rest of the house by a glass door, so you can see her sitting in there at the door crying. and she tries to climb up the frame!

i hope she isn't in heat already, but part of the reason we brought her in now was so we could get her fixed before she went into heat and ended up pregnant! well, that and she was starting to leave the alleyway and we didn't want her getting run over, we live on a busy street.

i really hope we can catch her brother, we felt so bad splitting them up. and it's getting colder