Trouble taming third feral kitten

[queenb1958]

A friend of mine has a problem with stray/feral cats at her house. A couple of months ago, there was another litter of kittens born at her house. I help her find homes for the kittens, and this last litter there were only three kittens. A friend of mine took one of them , I'm keeping one (Macavity) and there's still one left. This third one whom we call 'Mystery' (because we haven't been able to sex him/her yet) refuses to accept us. Even when she (for arguments sake) was only about four-five weeks old would hiss and swat at us. The other two are sweet as can be now but unfortunately, none of our attempts to to tame her have worked. It took me about a week to catch her, so she was about nine-ish weeks old when I brought her home. Right now, I've been keeping her in a covered dog kennel in my living room so she'll get used to us and our sounds. I put Macavity in with her at night and periodically throughout the day so they can play and so 'Mystery' can have so loving. I've tried hand feeding her, quietly sitting near the kennel, bribing her with yummy wet food yet she still hissing and 'spits' when I go near her. The only tiny bit of progress was when I was playing with Macavity with a string toy and Mystery sort of started to play, but she got nervous when I moved and hasn't played with me since. Another friend of mine said he'll take her after he moves in a couple of weeks, but obviously he won't want her if she's still acting wild. I'm not sure what else to try. Any suggestions?

 

[shadowsrescue]

Welcome to the forums and thank you for helping out with the kittens.  I hope that when the kittens are being adopted that they will be spayed/neutered as well.  As for the problem with stray cats/ferals that your friend is having, the best advice is to TNR the cats.  Trap them humanely, take them to be spayed/neutered and ear tipped and release them back in their original environment.  The kitten problem will not stop and will only get worse if the cats are allowed to continue breeding.

As for taming the 9 week old kitten.  It can be done, but it may take alot of time.  Some ferals just may never completely warm up to humans and they will be more shy and skittish their entire life.  I will post a link to a a series of videos on taming feral kittens.  The first part shows the rescue of the kittens, but the rest of the video will give you some ideas.

Do you have a feliway adaptor to help with calming?  Have you played soft music for the kitten especially when he/she is alone?  As for activities, make sure the interactions happen numerous times each day for short periods.  Make sure you are using quiet voice.  Keep your gaze down if direct eye contact frightens the kitten.  The best trick and you will see this in the video is Gerber Stage 2 baby food in chicken or turkey.  It only contains meat and water.  Cats love it.  Food is often the best motivator.  Also if the other more social kittens are still around, they can be used to help the more shy kitten.

http://www.urbancatleague.org/TamingVideo

 

[wijody]

When I took in the litter of 4 kittens that showed up in our shed, they were about 6 weeks old, I estimated.  They were hissing and spitting away!  I kept them in the kennel for about a week or so but then let them out in our sunroom (removed all the furniture so they couldn't hide so much that I'd never see them).  I didn't touch them at all for several weeks.  What worked best for feeding was turkey or chicken baby food.  It's kinda pricey (they are a dollar each and each one is gone in no time) but they were much more motivated to come to me for that than soft cat food.  You might want to try it.  Make sure it's just turkey and not some sort of mixture with other stuff in it (onions are toxic).  The one I get is just the Gerber "Turkey and Gravy" that the ingredients are just "ground turkey, water, cornstarch".

My kittens tamed up at different levels.  The one that was the most swipy, spitty and hissy ended up to be the most playful and funny one.  (Her first name was 'Swiper' if that shows you I'm not kidding!)  The 'nicest' one at first, who we first called goopy because her eyes were a mess, is now kind of timid and, while we love her, kind of 'boring', lol.  Then the boy (3 girls, 1 boy) was the longest to come around - he'd often not even bother coming for the baby food, has now finally come around so much that my son calls him "the cuddler" ... I think that's going a bit far, but he has come around SO much.  He's the hardest to get a purr out of still, though, but he will purr and loves to be petted when lying in a comfortable spot.  None of them like to sit on laps or be held, but they put up with it and if you get them at the right time while they're lying around, love to lay and purr their hearts out and be petted. 

How long have you had this kitten? 

I did the 'long and slow' method of taming.  I didn't do the thing where you grab them and hold them while they're hissing because, frankly, I was just too scared to do that.  I just kept feeding that baby food.  For awhile I gave them like 3 jars per day, so it got kind of expensive.  But that was for 4 kittens, so for 2 (because I'm sure your other kitten will want some, too), you could probably stretch it to one jar, and do it a few times per day.  I found that once I got to the point where I could start picking them up, while they were eating the baby food was the best time to scoop them up and put them on my lap and they would stay there to keep eating more of it.

 

[ondine]

Some cats just aren't meant to be lap cats but even given that, it may just be going to take some more time to socialize her.  Spaying and neutering is going to make a big difference because it really does calm them down, so make sure that's on the agenda.

Talk to the man who wants to adopt her and let him know she's less than social.  In te next few weeks, he may want to visit and assess if she's the cat for him.  A lot will depend on his schedule.  If he's away all day, it may suit her personality.

We have two former ferals who were six months old when we brought them in.  Not knowing what I know now, we did everything wrong.  Eight years later, the boy will allow a scratch or two on occasion.  The girl had recently discovered she likes being brushed and will pester us until we do so.  And she is the one who decides when the session is over!

My best advice is take your time and be patient.  Hard to do, I know but it is the only thing that will really work.

In any case, thank you for helping these kitties!  You are making a tremendous difference.

 

[queenb1958]

Thank you for the advice, I'll get some baby food tomorrow :-) Should I just put it on a plate, or give it to Mystery off my finger? Macavity is a chow hound and nearly takes off my finger whenever I try to hand her food so I worry a bit about hand feeding Mystery. I've tried looking into local programs for the parents that will spay/neuter feral colonies of cats but there aren't any near me. I live in Rochester area in NY, if anyone knows of any programs near me, I'd be really appreciative. I'll keep you guys posted with Mystery's progress. If I can figure it out, I'll post some picture of them. My profile picture is of Macavity

 

[wijody]

I always used a spoon to feed   Start through the cage and then you can open door and put hand in and eventually pick her up when you do it  

 

[queenb1958]

Interesting development with Mystery..... She managed to get out of the kennel (which is my fault, I must not have covered it properly when I took Macavity out) but she's acting friendly-er. She's been exploring and she's been (cautiously) coming up to me. I gave her some soft food off of a fork and she came really close to me, almost touching. She's even being good with my dogs. In the kennel she would hiss and spit whenever they even walked by, but now that she's out, she's actually approached them. Her and Macavity have been playing like crazy, tearing around the living room. I'm going to leave the door to the kennel open so she can go back into sleep but I'll let her have the run of the house tonight. Mind you, my house is tiny.

 

[queenb1958]

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• queenb1958
• Aug 24, 2014

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• queenb1958
• Aug 24, 2014

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• queenb1958
• Aug 24, 2014

I'm hoping the pictures will show up.... Mystery is sitting on the couch with me now! She was going crazy chasing her tail (it was so cute!) so now she's tuckered out. I upset her a little bit because when she first jumped up on the back of the couch I thought she was Macavity so I went to pet her which she still doesn't like, but at least she coming near me of her own free will. I think that bribing her with some meaty baby food and letting her roam free will do the trick! I'm so happy for her!

 

[shadowsrescue]

She is just so precious!  I can feel you beaming with happiness over her progress!  Keep us updated.

 

[wijody]

Awww, she is very cute   Let us know how they like the baby food

 

[queenb1958]

Awesome progress! As of this morning, Mystery is a confirmed male, so now his name is Mistoffelees! I don't know if any of you are familiar with the musical Cats, but that's where I got the names Macavity and Mistoffelees. In the musical, Mistoffelees is a renowned magician and is called Mr. Mistoffelees so we used to call our kitten Mystery Mistoffelees... Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that's funny Anyway, back to the actually story..... So the last few days I've been giving Mistoffelees food by hand and playing with him a lot. He's started lying against me, and when he's playing with Macavity, he'll even run across my lap. This morning , my mom told me when she was outside, my dad's dogs was annoying him and when she went over to tell the dog to knock it off (don't worry, the dogs not mean by any stretch of the imagination, she just tries to play) Mistoffelees not only let her pick him up, but was loving it when she was letting him! This is so exciting, this little bugger has made so much progress in the last couple of weeks, now I've just gotta find him a good home The guy who was supposed to take him got another kitten. Grr. And btw, I got the baby food and both cats, my three rats and all five dogs love it! Haha, who knew? I'll post more pictures later. I tried to post a video, but I couldn't figure it out. He chases his tail and it's hilarious. He's such a cutie!