I live on an army camp and in the barn of our (mainly closed) saddle club, there are two feral cats. I noticed one was pregnant about 4 weeks ago, started feeding them, and rang the Cats protection League to ask their advice. They suggested keeping an eye on the cat and continuing to feed her, and that there is a window between 4 and 8 weks to tame the kittens. I had also hoped that the Mum could be caught and spayed, as I understand she has had many litters and all have been born dead.

Anyway, I hadn't seen the pregnant cat about for a while, and assumed she may have gone off elsewhere to give birth. Today my husband went int he barn to get soem hay, and saw some kittens in there. He said he saw at least three. I went up to take them some food, and although they were hiding, saw one kitten. I left some food out (just what I could get at short notice, ordinary tinned food) and tonight the kittens seemed to have eaten some (Mum was eating from a different bowl I left down when I left, but it might have been Mum/the other cat who ate it) and kittens were nowhere to be seen.

I am not sure, but going by when they must have been born I think they are 2 1/2 to 3 weeks old. I thought I might sit in the barn with a book tomorrow to see if they come out to be nosey. Mum isn't very nervous and will happily stay sleeping while I potter about the barn, letting me pass within 3ft, and will eat when I am there, although has never let me touch her. I am hoping I can tame the kittens (I will ring CPL as soon as they are open) as the barn is getting knocked down next year and it would be nice if they coudl have a nice home as pets.

Obviously I'll take the CPL advice on this, but has anyone ever tamed feral kittens before? What shoudl I feed them? A kitten wet food or raw meat? Should they have milk?

Thanks.

Don't really have any advice on ferals I'm afraid, but kittens don't normally eat solids until at least 4 weeks old -and that's when they are desperate. I have a litter of 7 week olds and they only started soldis this week despite mum having no milk -they obviously felt my bottlefeeds were enough. So either these kittens are not eating or they are a bit older. Wet kitten food is by far the easiest for them to eat, Whiskas for instance, but even better raw mince (pet chicken mince) until they are a bit older -much easier for tiny mouths, my kittens won't eat anything else yet. Cimicat milk to drink would be good.

we have had ferals on the farm for years and many people have taken the kittens and pretty much failed to make them comfortable as household pets. They do ok if fed outside and allowed to be outdoor cats, but none ever made it to the fireside as they were just too jumpy. hope you have more success with yours!

My cousin has two ex feral kittens, the CPL caught them & he got them when they were about 5 months old-already neutered &"tamed"they are now 7 & a right pair of couch potatoes !

Speaking from experience of ferals ....unless you are able to handle the kits from about 3-5 days of age, you'll be hard pressed to be able to "tame" them.    We had several "sneaky" litters from 2 or 3 feral mums to our - supposedly secure  - pedigree persian stud (some of you may remember the "Catsender threads of bygone years :) ).  So our "ferals" had a quota of persian blood running through them !!!  Bearing in mind we had a half acre of garden/land in which they could flourish - with unlimited rabbits on demand, it was a problem.  So I had to deal with the situation that we had, and for which I felt I had some responsibility.

Our own pedigree cats were by this time, contained - a penned area of garden from which they could not escape.   This was to prevent any infection of our cats/future impregnation of feral cats from our by-now elderly stud cat !

We had two or three feral families existing alongside our "contained cats".

If we became aware of a pregnant feral cat early enough on in the pregnancy - and she would allow herself to be caught - we could then let her have the kittens, handle them as much as possible, and CPL would find homes for them - and of course, Mum would be neutered asap.   But there would always be one or two that would turn up, keep a distance from us, and then, all of a sudden, we would discover 5 or 6 week old kittens in the garden.   They would be a problem - trying to catch and tame a 6 week old kitten isn't easy - although we did do it on several occasions.   These older kittens would be neutered at a very early age, and returned to our property - hoping to keep down the number of fertile feral cats in the area!

When we moved and we knew that the house would be knocked down, and that the Golf Club would not look after the cats, we made arrangements with CPL and over 3 weekends, we trapped the 9 feral cats (1 neutered mum, 3 neutered girls & 5 neutered fellas) and they were all moved, as a colony, to a stables complex which lost its feral colony to old age.    Coincidentally, I now find that they are only 7 miles away from where we are - and that they all (apart from 1 neutered fella who has disappeared) are happily living at a riding school!

Re: milk for kittens.  I thoroughly recommend Top Life Kitten Milk available from Tesco's/Asda's.   Its not based on cows milk and is easier for kittens to digest.   As for wet - my lot of 'non ferals' have chomped their way through a fair few boxes of Whiskas kitten pouches, Hi Life kitten pouches, Tesco's kitten pate, Roal Canin kitten pouches & Iams kitten pouches.

Thankyou very much eveyrone. My next door neighbour used to work for the RSPCA, so has a little knowledge, but it is limited. She did say ferals kittens are hard if not impossible to tame, but she was also suprised by how 'friendly' Mum was. The CPL seemed to think it was perfectly possible to tame them though, if caught at the right time, between 4-8 weeks. I am hoping they're right. Friend also thought Mum looked a good weight for a feral, so that's good.

I will have a look at the supermarket today for ktiten food, failing that, I'll go to the pet shop. I have seen the kitten milk there before, so will get some of that too.

My own cat has Royal Canin dry and Applaws wet food, so I do feel a bit guilty feeding the kittens 'crap', but I gues it is gormet compaired to what aferal is used to.

I have no advice on food as I just fed my ferral kitten porraige and milk warmed till she was old enough to eat cat food.
she came out from under my aunties shed with her brothers and sisters 2 at a time.
the first 2 were ill with  cat flu and had to be pts unfortuneately as they were too ill and too weak.
The second 2 came out a few days later..they were both ill but not so bad they couldnt get better with care....
I took one of them and a friend took the other...it was like having a baby and i was only 18 at the time,just starting work and i found myself getting up every hour on the hour to feed it as see to it....

worth it though as my kitten lived for years ..i was well into my 30's when she died.

Sadly the last 2 cats were to wild by the time they vetured out into the garden and while we were trying to catch them they bit my uncle right through the gardening gloves he had on...these 2 were also ill and had to be pts as the vet said they were too wild to be tamed even if they lived.

the mother cat became so tame she lived in my aunties house for years.

I hope you find good homes for the kittens and that you sucessfully tame them all

A friend of mine has a kitten from a feral mother that the Cats Protection league caught, neutered the mother and kept the kittens. She is the sweetest cat imaginable.

My kitten was ferral he came from a farm where he had never been handled when the farmer caught him he was spitting and scratching and put in a box, I talked to him all the way home, when we arrived home I took the box into the kitchen opened it and reached in gently pulled him out and held him, he started purring straight away which really shocked me, he has been a wonderful cat, absoloutly loves my kids x sadly he is no longer with us :(

> She did say ferals kittens are hard if not impossible to tame, but she was also suprised by how 'friendly' Mum was. The CPL seemed to think it was perfectly possible to tame them though, if caught at the right time, between 4-8 weeks. I am hoping they're right. Friend also thought Mum looked a good weight for a feral, so that's good.
>

our former moggy was a feral kitten from the CPL. she was never totally tame, in fact she really lived in the green house. she would come in when it was cold or the fancy took her or was hungry, terrorise the dogs, leave something dead for my mum then head outside again. oh, and attack you if you went into her part of the garden.

the situation suited her and us fairly well, the only problem being that we now think she has passed away but are not sure. but i suppose that the problem with any cat that goes outdoors.

At work we get alot of feral cats/kittens coming in to be neutered....we work through 'colonies', neutering, testing and releasing them back to suitable areas. If they are young enough then we try to get them used to being handled so they can be rehomed. The wilder ones get to go back and we make sure someone is feeding them and keeping an eye out for any sick or injured one.

I fostered a couple of feral kittens(brother and sister) this spring, their mother had given birth under a bush in a cemetery :( The kittens were about 5 weeks old when they came in and were already quite 'ferally', hissing and trying to hide when we went in to talk to them! BUT they all came round eventually, I had my two for about 3 weeks and they changed sooo much in those 3 weeks, it was great to see :)

They now live together and their new owner is over the moon with them :)

EDT we do get them in older than 'mine' and they can come around, just depends on the character. Equally, some of the young ones just do not want anything to do with humans!!

Thanks once again everyone.

I have been up an dfed them/Mum again tonight. I left a tin of food down, and some cat milk (couldn't get kitten milk). The kittens were peeking out from behind the wood pile they are under, but not brave enough to come out, so I haven't seen them properly yet.

I am going to go and sit in the barn with a book tomorrow, and hopefulyl once they get use dot me being around, they'll get brave enough to come out. Mum is fine with me being around.

Hi jackson

We had a cat at our stable yard that kept having kttens,and on her last lot,we decided to try to catch her and the kittens and spay them all.
we did it with the help of the blue cross,they loaned us a cage to catch them gradually and do them one by one.
The blue cross are willing to help in this situation to get all these feral cats done and avoid lots of unwanted cats.

We have all the cats still living at the yard with us...still feral but happy with us feeding them,and not having kittens all the time.

My friends recently rescued a feral kitten that was living under the chapel in a country park near us.  Seemingly the CPL had caught them all, neutered and kept the mum, but treated the kittens for worms and fleas and returned them to the park.  Anyway, my friends managed to catch one, other friends of theirs another but the rest proved too.  Their kitten was very jumpy and nervous, hissing and hiding behind and under anything it could find, but in only a month has become much braver and already enjoys sleeping on their bed,cuddles and playing.  He is very nervy and will scarper at unexpected noises, and funnily enough for a kitten born outside,they are having little success in persuading him to venture out of the house into the garden!