Rehoming a feral cat

SEL

SEL

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The charity don't know much about Benny Black Cat because I understand the council asked them to rehome him. From Benny's POV he's been taken from a place he was happy, neutered and shoved in a small cage.

He's not happy around humans.

My plan was dog crate in my feed room so I can poke food through the door and change the litter tray. The dog cage isn't huge so OH is going to try and build a large run - that will have to go in a stable but will at least mean he can have a scratching post.

How many weeks do you keep them in for? There's a risk once released he'll be off, but it's pretty rural so at least he'll have freedom and plenty of rabbits.

Any other hints or tips? All my previous ferals have just turned up and hung around so this is new for me
 
With my two it was 2 weeks but they were friendly (but skittish) with a totally feral I’d want to wait at least 4 weeks or until he is happy enough to come to you at call. If he never is I’m afraid you may just let him go hope he stays about. Some cats never tame.
 
I'd keep him in for 4-6 weeks and try and feed him at the same times so when you let him out he'll be expecting food at that time.

A larger run sounds ideal so he can find a spot he's got space and feels safe, again then he should want to come back to his safe place.

Good luck. Letting them out for the first time is scary but he'll know where he's fed!
 
Equi said:
With my two it was 2 weeks but they were friendly (but skittish) with a totally feral I’d want to wait at least 4 weeks or until he is happy enough to come to you at call. If he never is I’m afraid you may just let him go hope he stays about. Some cats never tame.
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We have a very feral female who was technically rehomed to the allotments mousing in the fields who won't let humans anywhere near her, so he may well disappear. At least if he does then it's in a place where he can be pretty self sufficient and my hay barn is open sided for shelter.

4 weeks feels a very long time! OH will have to build him a palace 😁
 
good luck, ferals are the bane of my life trying to keep them fed and safe. :D:D

I presume this cat is neutered. Terrified feral doesn't sound like a cat you are going to be able to hold or stroke so I would just go for establishing him and hoping he will come back for food preferably daily. Also hope there are no aggressive neighbourhood ferals who won't allow him to stay on their patch.

.

if you have a hay barn which is going to provide shelter I would set up a cage in there for him. I use 2 large dog crates and put a wire tube link between them so I can feed in one whilst I can see the cat in the other crate. I would stack hay all around them and on top so the whole place is a dark hole.
I would put them well out of sight of people, feed twice a day and just leave him.

If after a couple of weeks it is obvious he is getting no more friendly I would feed and after he has eaten just open the door and walk away and hope he comes back for food. If he looks like he could get friendly then I would reconsider if I should tame him to be held (useful for a vet)

I've taken in lots of ferals over the years and they are so very different. 2 of my current ones live in an enclosed hay barn. I feed twice daily. One doesn't go out of the barn, just hides but does come out to eat. Can't touch her after 3 years of this. The other is a very aggressive entire male who accepts a bowl of food but I couldn't touch him (after 4 years) but he goes out of the cat hole and returns daily for food. We had another male (neutered) feral move in. A lovely cat who had clearly come from stables. Our male fought him almost to the death so I had to take one to the shelter. I had to give up the lovely stable cat as he would have had a good chance of being rehomed. Our male wouldn't have had a chance so I am lumbered with him. :rolleyes::)
 
Many years ago we took in a huge, very much feral tom cat. We had seen him hanging around the village and was definitely an unneutered male (you could spot those massive balls a mile away), and every bunch of kittens that turned up around the area where always black and white like him. One day he turned up in our garden with a huge growth above his eye, it was infected and bleeding and he had half an ear and many battle scars.

We managed to trap him and took him to our vet to get the growth removed, treat what needed treating and then de ball him so he could at least go back into the wild in a better place health wise than we found him in. They had to handle the old rogue with leather gauntlets and two of them manhandled him out of his cage when we went to pick him up. He had a collar on to stop him tearing at his various stitches and wounds (he had several growths all over him) With instructions to keep him in as long as possible and not worry about the sutures being removed as they had used all dissolvable ones in case he escaped too soon.

Well! He flew around our house for three days, throwing himself at the windows and climbing walls, everything was splattered in blood from where he flicked his head up and down trying to escape the collar. On vets advice we removed the collar gave him a feed (he would not eat with the collar on) and released him into our back garden, he took chunks out of both my husband and I and left scratch marks all down my back. That was just getting him from the kitchen out into the back garden. Off he went like a racehorse over the back fence and away across the fields. Felt sad, but we had done what we could to help him and the vet had warned that it is very difficult to tame a truly wild feral cat like him.

No sign of him for about 10 days, then one afternoon he strolled up the garden, brushed around my legs purring and casually sashayed past me into the kitchen! :eek: 🤭 We figure he had gone back to his old stomping ground and without his credentials intact he was probably chased off by younger fitter males and decided we were a better bet than his old life style.

Our vet thought he was about middle aged, we had him for another 23 years, so however you judge his age when he arrived he lived until his mid twenties. Never left our garden, spent most of his life either curled up on a lap (he did not know how to use a lap to start with he kept rolling off:rolleyes:) or on my pillow at night, in the morning gently dabbing my eyelids with his big paw and purring like a Harley Davidson until I gave in and open my eyes to talk to him. He had to go back twice in his lifetime to have the reoccurring growth above his eye removed, our vets hardly believed it was the same cat. He charmed all the staff and thoroughly enjoyed his regular check ups with his favourite people. We moved home three times with him, he would just sit patiently on the packing boxes for the removal van, come with us in the car and got back on the packing boxes at the new house while we unpacked and sorted ourselves out not a bother on him.

We adored dear old Thomas, he was definitely a one off character that we still laugh about in the family to this day. Feral cat turned out to be the best cat we ever owned. Good luck with yours OP.
 
Mrs. Jingle said:
Many years ago we took in a huge, very much feral tom cat. We had seen him hanging around the village and was definitely an unneutered male (you could spot those massive balls a mile away), and every bunch of kittens that turned up around the area where always black and white like him. One day he turned up in our garden with a huge growth above his eye, it was infected and bleeding and he had half an ear and many battle scars.

We managed to trap him and took him to our vet to get the growth removed, treat what needed treating and then de ball him so he could at least go back into the wild in a better place health wise than we found him in. They had to handle the old rogue with leather gauntlets and two of them manhandled him out of his cage when we went to pick him up. He had a collar on to stop him tearing at his various stitches and wounds (he had several growths all over him) With instructions to keep him in as long as possible and not worry about the sutures being removed as they had used all dissolvable ones in case he escaped too soon.

Well! He flew around our house for three days, throwing himself at the windows and climbing walls, everything was splattered in blood from where he flicked his head up and down trying to escape the collar. On vets advice we removed the collar gave him a feed (he would not eat with the collar on) and released him into our back garden, he took chunks out of both my husband and I and left scratch marks all down my back. That was just getting him from the kitchen out into the back garden. Off he went like a racehorse over the back fence and away across the fields. Felt sad, but we had done what we could to help him and the vet had warned that it is very difficult to tame a truly wild feral cat like him.

No sign of him for about 10 days, then one afternoon he strolled up the garden, brushed around my legs purring and casually sashayed past me into the kitchen! :eek: 🤭 We figure he had gone back to his old stomping ground and without his credentials intact he was probably chased off by younger fitter males and decided we were a better bet than his old life style.

Our vet thought he was about middle aged, we had him for another 23 years, so however you judge his age when he arrived he lived until his mid twenties. Never left our garden, spent most of his life either curled up on a lap (he did not know how to use a lap to start with he kept rolling off:rolleyes:) or on my pillow at night, in the morning gently dabbing my eyelids with his big paw and purring like a Harley Davidson until I gave in and open my eyes to talk to him. He had to go back twice in his lifetime to have the reoccurring growth above his eye removed, our vets hardly believed it was the same cat. He charmed all the staff and thoroughly enjoyed his regular check ups with his favourite people. We moved home three times with him, he would just sit patiently on the packing boxes for the removal van, come with us in the car and got back on the packing boxes at the new house while we unpacked and sorted ourselves out not a bother on him.

We adored dear old Thomas, he was definitely a one off character that we still laugh about in the family to this day. Feral cat turned out to be the best cat we ever owned. Good luck with yours OP.
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What a lovely story and what a lovely Thomas! Made me feel good just reading about him.
 
Mrs. Jingle said:
Many years ago we took in a huge, very much feral tom cat. We had seen him hanging around the village and was definitely an unneutered male (you could spot those massive balls a mile away), and every bunch of kittens that turned up around the area where always black and white like him. One day he turned up in our garden with a huge growth above his eye, it was infected and bleeding and he had half an ear and many battle scars.

We managed to trap him and took him to our vet to get the growth removed, treat what needed treating and then de ball him so he could at least go back into the wild in a better place health wise than we found him in. They had to handle the old rogue with leather gauntlets and two of them manhandled him out of his cage when we went to pick him up. He had a collar on to stop him tearing at his various stitches and wounds (he had several growths all over him) With instructions to keep him in as long as possible and not worry about the sutures being removed as they had used all dissolvable ones in case he escaped too soon.

Well! He flew around our house for three days, throwing himself at the windows and climbing walls, everything was splattered in blood from where he flicked his head up and down trying to escape the collar. On vets advice we removed the collar gave him a feed (he would not eat with the collar on) and released him into our back garden, he took chunks out of both my husband and I and left scratch marks all down my back. That was just getting him from the kitchen out into the back garden. Off he went like a racehorse over the back fence and away across the fields. Felt sad, but we had done what we could to help him and the vet had warned that it is very difficult to tame a truly wild feral cat like him.

No sign of him for about 10 days, then one afternoon he strolled up the garden, brushed around my legs purring and casually sashayed past me into the kitchen! :eek: 🤭 We figure he had gone back to his old stomping ground and without his credentials intact he was probably chased off by younger fitter males and decided we were a better bet than his old life style.

Our vet thought he was about middle aged, we had him for another 23 years, so however you judge his age when he arrived he lived until his mid twenties. Never left our garden, spent most of his life either curled up on a lap (he did not know how to use a lap to start with he kept rolling off:rolleyes:) or on my pillow at night, in the morning gently dabbing my eyelids with his big paw and purring like a Harley Davidson until I gave in and open my eyes to talk to him. He had to go back twice in his lifetime to have the reoccurring growth above his eye removed, our vets hardly believed it was the same cat. He charmed all the staff and thoroughly enjoyed his regular check ups with his favourite people. We moved home three times with him, he would just sit patiently on the packing boxes for the removal van, come with us in the car and got back on the packing boxes at the new house while we unpacked and sorted ourselves out not a bother on him.

We adored dear old Thomas, he was definitely a one off character that we still laugh about in the family to this day. Feral cat turned out to be the best cat we ever owned. Good luck with yours OP.
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lovely story Mrs J and very weirdly so like my attempt at cat taming.

Not a feral (so sorry SEL) but I had 2 cats from a shelter. One a dozy old house cat and the other a young spayed female just about feral who they wanted in a country home a long way from where she had come. So I took her. Couldn't catch her and it was clear from her one outing she was going to compete for England in bird killing. So I moved her inside with the old house cat. They are both indoor cats and he tamed her. Tamed to the extent we could get her onto the work surface and pick her up but not much more. She got a respiratory track infection so no choice but the vet. Caught her. Vet decided to take her temp. Bad move and no leather gauntlets but vet and I got some exercise chasing her round the surgery to re catch her and my arms got scratched to h*ll. She had to have 2 pills a day, am and pm. Got a cotton bag, grabbed her, shoved her in none too kindly, with just her face showing. OH held her very tightly and I wrenched open her mouth and finally got pills in. After a week we were grateful to stop.

A week later she was a completely changed cat. Came to me on the worktop purring for her back to be stroked. Lovely cat. Can now do anything with her.

Moral of the story, yours and mine, appears to be treat them mean and that apparently tames them. Very surprised. Thought I would never catch ours again yet now I am like her best buddy.

(not suggesting that for you SEL)
 
We've lost both cats this year - the late great Mr C came with the yard and was 20+. Despite technically being feral he was the soppiest of lumps and you could barely sit down before he'd launch himself on your lap.

Little Missy lived at home but she was a teeny, tiny feral without fur who turned up in my garden in Birmingham 14 years ago. She decided sofas and central heating were nicer than a park and moved herself in. Ruled the roost until the day I lost her - totally broke my heart 💔

Benny needs a home and we're going to build him a bigger run for one of the spare stables this weekend. I think he could come round to at least thinking humans aren't totally awful, but if we are then he can do rabbit patrol!

My vet friend thought both her feral had vanished but popped a camera up and they were sneaking back at night for food so I'll take that!
 
My parents fed a gnarled, not in the first flush unneutered male cat, who could regularly be seen hanging around the butcher's shop (across the busy main road!).
They ignored him for quite a while because they thought he was being fed but gave in when he looked a bit thin, feeding him in the garden, because ghey couldnt tempt him inside. After a while he had a health problem, can't remember what now, and needed to see a vet. We managed to trap him and stuff him into a basket. Vet gave him a long-acting a-b injection, 'in case you never see him again' and we took him back. Put the basket down in the garden, near the front door and opened it. Cat strolled out and straight into the house! He stayed for years.
 
We have two ‘ferals’ they were born in next door’s barn. Apparently there were three but one moved down the road, there’s better food down there and other company. The two l have were thought to be about 6 months old when they were spayed! Courtesy of CPL who sent tokens for all 3. We kept them in a crate for a few days then in a stable. I think two are better / easier than one although one of ours is very friendly and always has been and her sister is more wary. They are quite/very demanding when it comes to food, and that’s probably what keeps them around. They)re pretty good at catching mice and the odd pigeon and are very noisy hunters! One of them sometimes disappears for a few days but l don’t think they go far, l quite often see them a mile down the road sitting on a wall but there favourite place is on top of a round bale. Given the choice l’m sure they’d be in the house they think nothing of going in the lorry or a car if there’s a door open. I’m sure yours will come round in time as long as you keek topping up the food. You’d think feral cats wouldn’t be fussy but l can assure you if there’s better quality food they’ll eat that first and demand more. Hope you have fun with yours.
 
SEL said:
We have a very feral female who was technically rehomed to the allotments mousing in the fields who won't let humans anywhere near her, so he may well disappear. At least if he does then it's in a place where he can be pretty self sufficient and my hay barn is open sided for shelter.

4 weeks feels a very long time! OH will have to build him a palace 😁
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I have a friend who took two semi-ferals (not at the sme time) and could only keep them in 2-3 days and they both stayed around. Its not ideal but as you, they were in a very rural/no traffic area with food & shelter (stables/barn). They have both become friendly which was a bit of a surprise
 
I’ve always taken feral kittens and the way to tame them is to unceremoniously scruff them and hold them in place while you stroke them for a few mins..and they can only eat between my legs. then one day they just head butt you and that’s them tame. So maybe there is something in that method but not sure I’d want to attempt it with a full grown tom 😂
 
Equi said:
I’ve always taken feral kittens and the way to tame them is to unceremoniously scruff them and hold them in place while you stroke them for a few mins..and they can only eat between my legs. then one day they just head butt you and that’s them tame. So maybe there is something in that method but not sure I’d want to attempt it with a full grown tom 😂
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If anyone decides to try this with an adult feral please video it - it will go viral very quickly!!!!!
 
He's a lot more settled today. Obviously got quite institutionalised at the cattery because it was very obvious when breakfast and tea were expected - very vocal!

Not hugely feral really given his advert. He was head bopping me through the bars tonight. I don't think the council tried too hard to see if he could be re-homed!
 
Ooops pressed post too soon.

Just a few seconds shot with the stable door shut because I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't disappear off at speed into the fields if he wiggled out. My OH built this enormous run over the weekend so he has a cat tower in there as well as his bed, food, litter etc.

He's very cute!

 
Mrs. Jingle said:
Gosh, he's wild and dangerous isn't he????😂🤣😍
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I sent it to the rehoming place where he acted like he was ready to kill everyone and I'm not sure they believe its the same cat!

I'm wondering if he just really hated being around other cats in the rescue centres but he's definitely used to human cuddles so was obviously being fussed by someone when he was a stray.
 
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