Help with a super stressed out cat please!

[Obsidian_Fire]

Nearly 3 weeks ago I adopted a barn cat in need of rehoming. She is 3 years old. This is her story: she belonged to an elderly woman who died. She was left in the ‘care’ of a tenant who wasn’t feeding her, so the son of the woman who died asked the realtor who ended up taking the cat. Unfortunately the realtor’s dogs decided kitty needed to be lunch… realtor belongs to one of my local horse riding groups, she put an ad there which is how I connected to all this. She brought kitty out with all her things. Supposedly kitty is (was) friendly and lovable. The first day, she was. She let me rub her head and all that. I set up a very large kennel for her, like you would for any new cat.
She’s been nothing but upset since. Hissing, spitting, clawing if she can grab you. Occasionally she’ll look for me when I come in the barn, a couple times I’ve been able to scratch her head, but that is all. Honestly, she is miserable. My thinking is she’s just had too much upheaval in her young life and is now afraid of anyone and everything.
I have calming spray, and catnip spray, they don’t seem to be helping.
10 days ago the local cat rescue finally got ahold of me that they had a “tame feral” for me - which is what I’d been looking for. They brought him out, we put the kennels about 6" apart from each other, they can see each other but each have their own ‘invisible’ space. The lady who brought this one told me just give it a lot more time, she’s stressed and anxious, she’ll come around. And maybe having this other cat, who came from a large colony and is used to being with other cats, would help. This cat is already letting me pet him, and loving every minute of it.
The female… nope.
At this point I don’t know what to do or try. I can’t “catch” her for a vet appt, to give her meds or anything, so that is out. I really feel she is just so stressed and I feel badly for her but I don’t know what else to do!
They are both in my feed stall, and when I’m there I have the door open, and she watches me while I ride. She seems interested in “life” but that’s it. I cannot let her out of the kennel as my feed stall is literally that - a stall. She can get out. I don’t want her disappearing, and the advice from the feral lady is that is exactly what will happen if I let her out too soon.
I tried putting a sweater of mine into her kennel, to get her used to “me”. She dragged it into the litter box. I have put “her” bed in the kennel, she refuses to use it at all.

Any thoughts??? I’m at a loss, I’ve never had this happen with any cat before.

[islgrl]

NO ideas for you sadly but thank you for trying with her! I guess what I would say is that if this doesn’t change, maybe let her out, she’ll either stick around or she won’t, but maybe she’ll just become a barn shadow that you don’t see much but she hangs out?

[LCDR]

Maybe too much is going on around her and she has nowhere to just hide for a while , rest and decompress. Do you have room in your house for her?

[2DogsFarm]

Like with a new & stressed horse, 3 weeks is NOTHING.
This poor thing has been through a lot in her short life.
It sounds like you’re on the right track.
Keeping her caged is far from abusive.
It gives her a safe place to get used to her new World.
As long as she’s eating, drinking, using the litterbox in her cage, I’d just be Room Service.
Provide food, water & a clean box until she relaxes enough to stop the frightened hissing & initiates any contact.
When she seeks you, go sloooooowwwwly.
Search for @Foxglove 's thread on her feral: Gordon
Lots of great advice there.

My own experience was with a 6mo kitten from a feral litter.
I adopted him & another unrelated kitten from a local shelter as barncats.
Set them up as you described in adjoining cages.
I won’t bore you with details, but neither became a barncat. Due to my decision to bring them in.
One - who I’d been told came from a hoarder - became friendly within months.
The feral took 4 YEARS to become tame.
He’d been living in my basement, I never saw him aside from the occasional orange blur as he fled from me.
When I had to relocate him upstairs as I was having work done in the basement, I had to livetrap him. He then became Invisicat in the guestroom where I’d set up food & litter for the other one.
MONTHS later he’d stay “hidden” perched on a windowsill behind a curtain.
Then I was allowed to talk to him, then touch & finally he came out.
And became a complete love bug & cuddler.
& BFF with the other cat.
Sadly I lost him 4yrs later to FIC.
His Safe Place in the guestroom:

His Debut to the rest of the house:

Chillin’ with his best bud:

I hope your story ends well w/o taking anywhere near as long
& Can you please post pics of your new cats?

[SinMiedo]

I adopted my Mashacat mid-pandemic with only a quick meeting through the window because she was advertised as “talky and opinionated”, which turned out to mean semi tame feral. It took a solid 2 months for her to stop cowering under the couch, hissing and smacking, and at least another year before she was truly comfortable with me around. I spent a lot of time bringing her the stinkiest treats I could find and sitting close by while ignoring her and I could have cried the first time she actually requested scratches.
Based on that experience, maybe taking on the super zen supplier of Churus role could be effective?

[Obsidian_Fire]

Pics!

[Obsidian_Fire]

@2DogsFarm thank you. That makes me feel better.

This morning she rubbed against my hand thru the kennel bars. Then returned to her crabby ways, lol.
Frankie was all over me, wanting to be petted and fed and petted some more.

The black and white is Oreo, the female. The other one is Frankie, for his blue eyes, Frank Sinatra. Backstory there - my grandmother had a part Siamese cat with blue eyes she called Si… short for Sinatra. This cat reminds me of Si, and her…

[MunchingonHay]

It can take MONTHS for a cat to adjust to a new home and this kitty has changed hands so many times in a short period.

I would bring her inside and give her a room if possible and a couple of times every day and you can have Oreo time. Just sit with her, feed and eventually she will let you pet her. Shes’ been though a lot and now she is in a cage in the barn. She was a house cat to a little old lady. Her world has turned upside down.

My GF fosters cats and every so often she foster fails. Usually its the more timid ones she keeps because they are hard to adopt out. Her latest foster fail is a female like your Oreo. Karma is very timid, does not hang out in the with everyone, she prefers to have her own room and hides under the bed mostly.

She lived in my GF in her “cat room” with a litter of kittens (not hers) for a few months then GF decide to adopt her. Its been 8 months since the foster fail and she has finally started to come out of her shell. Karma has been with my GF for over a year total. She sat on my GF’s lap for the first time last week.

Oreo needs time and to feel secure.

[Renn_aissance]

Along with the other suggestions of environmental management, you might talk to your vet about keeping gabapentin on hand. It comes in a capsule which can be easily top-dressed on food, and the taste seems to be inoffensive. The part of letting cats acclimate that worries me the most is “what if you get into a bad situation, I need to handle you for your own well being, and you are going to do a murder if I touch you?” This might give you a way to do things like “enter the feed stall” and “take her to the vet” while she’s figuring out how to be a cat in your world.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Yes, I absolutely 10,000% agree with you. It’s what I keep telling the folks who say “when are you going to let that cat out”…
I do sit in there and talk to them. Or just sit quietly. I’m the only one going in/out of my feed stall, so that keeps traffic to a minimum.

I also have to wonder if once I do let her out, when she has more space, if she will feel more secure in approaching me then. Kind of “I can enter your territory but don’t you enter mine”.

[MunchingonHay]

Don’t worry about those other people, you are doing right by Oreo. She has to feel safe and secure first.
Otherwise, they will be passing Oreo on the road and it will not be pretty.

Can you get some cheap snowfencing or something you can put up short term so when you and Oreo become more comfortable with eachother and you can give her the feed stall as a whole instead of going from crate to full on freedom?

[BatCoach]

@Obsidian_Fire Poor girl has had a turbulent go of it and likely needs a lot more time to bond with you.

There also is a good chance she is better suited to be an indoor cat than a barn cat. Not all cats are good mousers or take to a ‘working’ life. Oreo does look stressed, when a cat is voluntary sitting in their litterbox it is a sign she is trying to hide. Can you fit a medium/small cardboard box in there on its side? When I fostered 2 feral moms they both loved the cardboard boxes in their kennels.
to give her a hidey hole?

Catnip spray tends to make cats more exited and jumpy (at least in my crew) and it only has an effect on 80% of cats, so I would lay off of that for now.

Frankie’s presence might be intimidating for her as well - particularly if you pet him before you try to pet her, she could be reacting to his scent on you.

[2DogsFarm]

Both pretty kitties!
I hope both Oreo & Frankie can sort things out & take up residence in your barn.
Too bad my Cheeto didn’t read @BatCoach 's poster & adhere to that schedule

[Obsidian_Fire]

This morning Oreo sniffed my fingers thru the kennel bars again then retreated to her far corner hissing, like usual. She even has Frankie worried, he crawled back into his carrier when she started hissing. I go to her first, let her sniff me, I talk to her, praise her…
Frankie this morning could not get enough petting. He even was head-butting me. Purring up a storm. Bite of food, back for more pets. Silly boy, him I’d love to bring home.

Oh and for those who asked, no I can’t bring either of these 2 into the house. I already have 4, the youngest 2 are 9, the oldest is 15-16-ish. DH would kill me if I tried to bring another cat home, lol. And at their ages I wouldn’t do that to them.

Also, to make things funny, the next door neighbor (to the barn) got a kitten. Couple weeks back a kitten came to visit. We didn’t know where he came from. Friendly and playful as only kittens can be. Absolutely fearless. Running into the arena chasing dirt clods. We played with him, fed him, petted him, BO was going to take him into house for the night when neighbor came over looking for him! Anyhow, yesterday he was back. He was trying to “play” with a horse in the arena having a lesson. Trainer ended up holding kitten while teaching lesson… Can’t you just see it???

[HPFarmette]

For cats in the shelter, we give them a place to hide and a place to perch. Some cats like to be above ground level when anxious. You might have both those features already.
At home I have used Feliway a couple times with great success. Expensive but effective.