Calling all COTH Cat Whisperers - Mission Accomplished!

[K_2]

Recently, we’ve had a visiting kitty at the farm. Most likely she was dumped. She is quite wary of people, but will come up and eat wet cat food with people present. She will hiss at you, but continues to eat. You can try and touch her, but she immediately backs away. We have a colony of ferals in the barn, and I think only two of them will eat with someone nearby, and that’s after six years of work - which makes me think she was dumped.

She looks quite young, and is very thin.

My question is, what would the best plan of attack be for taming her? There are currently four kitties living in the house, and I would prefer not upset the current status quo. The long term plan would be to get some weight on her, get her spayed, and find her a new home.

I was thinking of possibly setting her up either free-range in the garage, or confined in a large dog kennel also in the garage.

Would appreciate the input of the COTH cat experts!

And here is a picture of the sad little soul.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12141545_10156093952210587_483981830397448109_n.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=7df999b023342e1e904ccb826d0bf371&oe=56CE08E3

[Anonymoose]

What a beauty! I so seldom get to see black calicos; so many are grey (and they are lovely; I have two as good friends). One of mine is black calico.

I wouldn’t worry about a plan of “attack” for a little while. You are feeding, she is eating, presumably your other barn kitties are letting her eat. Let her join the feral colony if she wants to (sounds like she already has, unofficially).

Are your barn ferals neutered/spayed? If so, then when she gets a bit of weight on her and maybe --MAYBE – lets you touch her – you may want to the try the garage thing, or trap her and take her in for shots and spaying. If your others are not spayed/neutered, I’d just keep feeding her and trying to get close (I wouldn’t want to try touching a cat unless I knew it had had its shots).

From your location I bet it’s fixing to get seriously cold very soon if it hasn’t already, so the garage might be a good idea for kitty warmth 'til you can get her spayed. But if she sticks around, and keeps eating, she may more or less tame herself and make herself at home in your barn where she will find nice warm snuggling spaces.

I’m really surprised you’ve had so many views without any replies. Hopefully with this “bump” some people with a lot of trapping experience will chime in.

You are wonderful to be feeding the kitty! Have you named her yet? I know it’s the wrong province but could you name her Nova? (Not as in salmon! )

[K_2]

Our feral colony went through the whole TNR program. Has pretty much kept any wandering kitties (mostly toms) from staying long.

This little kitty has been hanging out on the opposite side of the property, so I’m not entirely sure she’s encountered any of our feral kitties yet.

The cooler weather is what concerns me, she’s so thin that I doubt she would survive long.

At this point I think I’d be a little bummed if she missed her morning feeding appointment! No name yet…

[Anonymoose]

I think your garage idea may be a good one but I honestly don’t know enough to want to offer advice about that.

Surely someone will reply who has more knowledge than I do!

[JoZ]

Well you have a couple of options. There are ways to make her snug and warm even without the garage. I’ve seen plans online for feral kitty beds made out of Styrofoam coolers. Tape the lid to it and cut a small hole for access. I think the plans I saw had the cooler sitting in something so you can pack insulation around it. But my memory is failing me!

The thing with the garage is, there’s a very good chance she will not get any more tame being kept in there. In fact, it may cause her stress if she feels confined. That might be a lovely place for her to live after you have caught her and taken care of her veterinary needs. The best way to do that would be trapping her. I have successfully trapped in a large dog crate when the cat is semi-OK with people. I have tied a bunch of hay strings together and attached it to the door, then laid in wait. It works better if there are holes in the crate that you can feed the hay string through. Picture the door wide open with the string attached to it then coming back toward the crate through a hole, then over to you. The food goes at the very back of the crate. Having the string fed through the crate makes it more secure when you close the door. I say this having lost a trapped cat who had the strength and the will to push the door open. Or you can get a have-a-heart trap – they often loan or rent them from vet hospitals or shelters.

After spaying you can keep her in the crate for several weeks to get her more friendly. Of course that assumes it’s huge enough to have a litter box in there. That will be helpful regardless of whether you decide to keep her on your property, or find her a home. If you don’t want to do that, that might be the time to confine her in the garage. I always want to keep an eye on them to make sure that they are not having any problems with the surgery. However, I know that inner city trap and release programs put the cats right back out with very little problem.

[Holly_Jeanne]

Don’t know whether this will help but we have a feral colony at work. One is a beautiful little girl who had been declared untouchable. I could see her out my window and I noticed she would come close when someone was sitting at the nearby table. So, I got some treats that smelled really good and sat at that table, throwing the treats a little way out. After she started coming close enough to eat them, I threw them closer. Eventually, she would come up and sniff them in my hand and then she started taking them out of my hand. To my surprise, one day she started rubbing on my hand and ignoring the treat. I’ve been able to approach her and pet her ever since and she has also warmed up to a few others. I was even able to treat her tail when she injured it a few months back (looked like a claw mark). I think the reason I was successful with her was that I never approached her. If this girl has been dumped, this might work on her as well. Good luck!

[PaintPony]

It sounds like you are familiar with catching ferals, so you could always try to trap her first and then confine her in order to make friends.

A friend of mine has tamed quite a few wild kitties that way and they all ended up as nice house pets. A smaller space like a bathroom is best to use because you don’t want her to be able to hide somewhere you can’t see her. After that it just takes time to build trust, but eventually most cats come around.

My friend is a member of this board and I’d be happy to put you in touch with her if you want. We call her the Feral Whisperer.

[K_2]

Just thought I would post an update on “Pumpkin”. We managed to trap her and get her in the garage over the winter. The garage was problematic for attempting to tame her as there was a lot of places for her to hide. She did spend a winter out of the cold weather (and enjoyed the heating pad and a comfy bed). Yesterday we finally got around to getting her spayed. They said that she has an old hip injury - I suspect that she may have been hit by a car at some point, poor little kitty. We have confined her to a small bathroom, and hopefully we can have a better go at the taming process.

Anyways, here is a picture of our post-surgery kitty.

Pumpkin

[JoZ]

Aw, pretty little girl! Good for you! I’m surprised you didn’t have kittens in that span of time. Your TNR program must be very effective!

[Zu_Zu]

[B]Enjoyed your “Pumpkin” update ~ she is lovely !

Now things should fall into place ~

Bless you for loving her and helping make her life comfortable ![/B]

[K_2]

JoZ - our original TNR was very effective. They were done almost 8 or 9 years ago, and we really haven’t had any new cats since then. No females to keep the toms around, and the colony isn’t welcoming to any new cats at all.

Pumpkin was in heat when she was spayed, so it was probably only because she was confined that she wasn’t “in foal”. Funny thing, mid winter we had a very friendly male cat show up on the front step, I think he was lured in by Pumpkin in the garage, he was so friendly it was evident that he was someone’s pet, so he went to the humane society and they scanned him for a chip. Sure enough he was chipped, and had been missing since August!

It’s great that the barn has nothing but spayed/neutered kitties, they are all in good health, I remember as a child going to barns where they were overpopulated with cats. They were often highly inbred, and usually sickly.

[redalter]

[QUOTE=K~2;8600814]
JoZ - our original TNR was very effective. They were done almost 8 or 9 years ago, and we really haven’t had any new cats since then. No females to keep the toms around, and the colony isn’t welcoming to any new cats at all.

Pumpkin was in heat when she was spayed, so it was probably only because she was confined that she wasn’t “in foal”. Funny thing, mid winter we had a very friendly male cat show up on the front step, I think he was lured in by Pumpkin in the garage, he was so friendly it was evident that he was someone’s pet, so he went to the humane society and they scanned him for a chip. Sure enough he was chipped, and had been missing since August!

It’s great that the barn has nothing but spayed/neutered kitties, they are all in good health, I remember as a child going to barns where they were overpopulated with cats. They were often highly inbred, and usually sickly.[/QUOTE]

What a pretty girl! Congrats on getting her done!
Thank you for what you do for them!

[K_2]

Well final update - Pumpkin spent sometime in a small bathroom, but really didn’t show any interest in being a good kitty citizen, she would hiss, would not try and interact at all, but with a little perseverance, she would bat a little bit at a piece of twine. She was still quite wary of anyone, but we decided to release her into the rest of the house. She spent the next week or so hiding under furniture, but I placed her food closer and closer to the inhabited areas of the house, and we would occasionally catch a glimpse of her. She met all the rest of the kitties (four in all!) with occasional growling, but no scraps. She started to hang out in the living room while people were watching television. She started to play with a cat toy, and a laser pointer, you could finally touch her without her hissing and running away. She has chosen my best kitty buddy Ike as her crush, she follows him all around the house. He looks at her like an annoying little sister, always tagging along, and tolerates her presence. She’s just blossomed into a nice kitty all around. She’s still a little wary if you move quickly, but she’s allowing us to pick her up and pet her. They mentioned when she was spayed that she seemed to have an injured hip, and she does have a little trouble jumping too high, but manages to hop up on the couch for a nap.

Hoping that this link to a short video will work!

[Zu_Zu]

[B]She is lovely ~ bless you for saving her and giving her such a grand forever home !

Be proud of your work ~ not always an easy assignment but always worth the time and effort ~ IMHO.

Jingles & AO for many years together ~ again … Pumpkin is lovely ![/B]

[NoDQhere]

What a cool cat! And how cool of you to save her.

[Zevida]

Well if you are scratching her belly (or pretty close to it) like in the video, then she is clearly at home there! Congrats!

[jetsmom]

Awww…good job!

[TC3200]

She certainly looks happy.

[Dewey]

She is adorable!

[SonnysMom]

That is one happy cat.