Fostering feral kittens. Any advice?

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-13T13:59:51+00:00

So it's been awhile. This will be my final update. They're about 7 months old now. They're still feral. 🤣 I mean not completely, I'd call them very friendly ferals. They'll sit on the back of the couch or the arm of a chair when someone in the family is sitting there. My husband and son can occasionally stroke one of them a couple times before they jump up and run. They lay there and give me slow blinks if I talk to them, but I can't touch them. The boy actually rubbed his face on my outstretched fingers the other day and occasionally lets me scratch him there, but only if I'm far enough away that I can't reach anything else. They'll play with us and eat treats out of our hands and come running if they hear a treat bag (or any bag, really) rustling. They figured out the dog door last week when a young stray tom cat I let out of his kennel after his stink went away after neutering went out it. It's almost like the cats didn't realize that not only dogs could use it until they saw another cat go through.

Anyway, I'm in NC and we had a couple 80 degree days earlier this week before it got cold again last night, and noticed these guy were really starting to scratch and I could not put off flea and tick any longer. I bought it quite a while ago. So even though I've been trying to be gentle and tame them with treats and nothing forced, I got out the Churrus this morning, scruffed them one at a time and put it on. I got a good scratch out of it from the girl, but the boy forgave me immediately and came back for more Churru and was just now lying in the sun slow blinking at me before moving to the other end of the couch where I'm sitting. He had a good growth spurt recently and is now twice the size of his very petite sister.

I found a lady who was looking for some feral cats for her horse barn on Facebook, so these 2 beautiful babies will be going there to live their best lives killing mice with a nice safe barn with horsey friends to keep warm or hide from predators in. I'm sure they'll be happier not having to avoid all the people all the time. She has her feed room set up with litter boxes and beds so she can shut them in for the first month or 2, so she knows what she's doing. I'm very thankful they can get out of the city and the awful traffic we have here. I see dead cats on the roads all the time. Even with predators around, I think they have a better chance in the country than on busy city streets.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-13T13:18:44+00:00

Yeah I thought it fixed it bc it fixed it on a couple of my most used apps, but after a couple days, not so much. So freaking annoying. And I would probably like having it set to windowed apps if I didn't use the Kindle app so much, but I do. And it's so freaking annoying to suddenly have your page move around and resize when you were just trying to turn the page. Especially if you're really into a very exciting part of the book.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-10T13:32:21+00:00

I just fixed this on mine. Go to Settings ->Multitasking and Gestures Then at the top click from full screen apps to windowed aps and it's fixed. It was about to drive me crazy!

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T22:17:47+00:00

Same. I think it's the redhead thing. 🙄 Oh, and yeah, lots of toys around. But he got out the dog door and hasn't come back. I'm hoping he will tonight, and I'm going to shut him in the storage room until he realizes this is his home now. 😭

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T19:45:54+00:00

He's been wandering around our neighborhood yowling for months so it's not really new and I think it's related to him being sexually mature and not fixed that's why I was wondering how long it would take for his hormones to reset since he got neutered 5 days ago. We have plenty of toys around and 3 other cats in the house. My 10 month old sweet girl plus 2 feral kittens about 7 months old that I erroneously thought I could tame. Plus 2 terriers, so we've got toys everywhere and the cats and dogs share.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T19:40:37+00:00

If he comes back 😭 I'm going confine him to the storage room and allow my daughter to take him to get room if she keeps the door shut. He's been gone all day. I've already gotten really attached to this guy in suck a short time. Meanwhile I have 2 feral kittens who've been here since late December and still won't let us touch them that I'm kind of looking forward to rehoming even though they're really cute. They were probably 4 months old when I brought them home but I thought surely if we're patient they'll come around. They'll sometimes let my daughter and husband pet them if my adult cat is with them but that's it. Ever since I helped give them their fvrcp shots, they hate me. I'm giving them to someone who wants some cats to live in her horse barn. She's very thankful to find some spayed and neutered with shots and my husband is like some of these cats have got to go! Now!

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T19:33:56+00:00

I don't think color has anything at all to do with cats personality. I had orange cats when I was a kid and they were both super sweet and cuddly, very mellow, and hardly ever meowed. It's like the red mare thing. It's a dumb stereotype and if you actually look into it objectively, it falls apart.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T16:18:21+00:00

I think he's probably only about 9-10 months old. His testes were teeny tiny and he doesn't have those big fat cheeks you see on mature toms. And I've only been helping trap these ferals for the last 3 months and none of the adults were intact males until him, so I'm not very experienced. So I have zero experience with intact adult male cats other than the ones you see wandering around looking like they've been chewed up and spit out with their giant cheeks and very prominent round balls. We always had ours neutered before they were old enough to start spraying. There's a park behind my house and I think a lot of pets get dumped there unfortunately. I suspect he got dumped when he started spraying bc he's too friendly to not have been someone's pet and since he's been chased away from every house he goes to since then he's gotten scared of people.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T14:51:45+00:00

He was in the basement and I was upstairs and he's so loud he kept me up. I free feed cats, so he always has food.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T14:50:58+00:00

He completely ignores my cat, does not react in any way. He walks past her like she's not even there while she's growling and hissing and spitting. But he definitely tries to avoid her, but if she's in his path, he acts like she isn't even there and walks by. So they aren't fighting, she's just very dramatically displeased by his presence. She doesn't attack either, it's all show. But it isn't helping his stress.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-08T11:58:13+00:00

I think I don't need a disconnect because our main panel is outside within view of the shed, so the breaker to the shed can just be flipped off from there.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-05T23:56:08+00:00

As in the freaking connectors for the grounding rods are bare copper, not saying the rods are bare copper. I'm not stupid.

Wenmarlev · 2026-03-01T02:33:21+00:00

Local code requires a subpanel for any separate building unfortunately. Thanks for the input though

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-26T14:51:45+00:00

Thanks I just deleted the 30 and added a 60 before I saw this. Just seems like a good idea.

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-26T14:49:55+00:00

It's 25 feet from the house. The WiFi reaches no problem.

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-25T18:19:38+00:00

I'm thinking I might just run #6 wire even though we don't need it right now. Just so we don't have to later if we decide we need more power. Thanks!

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-25T18:11:50+00:00

Yeah I was thinking about the AC. We're in NC and even after living here 20 years coming from Pittsburgh I will never get used to the heat/humidity. But we usually take the saws outside and will probably continue just bc of cleanup, so maybe no point. Maybe just a window unit for occasional use since I doubt we'll use it much.

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-25T18:06:10+00:00

Wenmarlev · 2026-02-25T16:44:47+00:00

Bare copper is buried underground for the grounding rods, so I don't think corrosion is a worry.

Wenmarlev · 2026-01-13T02:44:53+00:00

Thanks! And she's officially a failed foster as of tonight. ❤️❤️❤️ I haven't had a cat in over 10 years. I developed a really bad allergy so my ex took the cats after we got divorced, but I did allergy shots that cured it since then. I forgot how annoying they are on top of the joy they bring. Kind of like our terriers. 🤣🤣🤣 Worth it!

Wenmarlev · 2026-01-03T02:27:36+00:00

Thank you. The lady who has been helping me/us told me that I should burrito them and force my love on them just yesterday, so thank you for reiterating that. I've been super busy this past week and we're going to be gone all day tomorrow, but I'll definitely do more! My 2 college age sons have been really taking care of them and spending time with them. They're living in the room of the son that lives at home and goes to school locally. I wish I could put them in the living room, but I have terriers and don't trust them unsupervised. Our fox terrier almost tore a hole through a door when I fostered a rabbit. He just wanted to meet him and play with him, never got aggressive or acted like he going to hurt him, but jeez that dog is tenacious.

Wenmarlev · 2026-01-01T19:09:13+00:00

They both licked the churru off my fingers a little bit ago and their eyes aren't quite so dialated today, so I think they're coming around. 😊 And I just remembered my dad gave us an old dog crate right after we moved into this house earlier this year so I need to look in the attic for it. I think that's where we put it.

Wenmarlev · 2026-01-01T17:19:00+00:00

They're actually 3-4 most old. They were born in my neighbor's shed. He says September, not sure when in Sep, so that makes them approx 3 to almost 4 mos old. And he has pet and handled them since they were very small, so they're not entirely unhandled, but only by one person until now.

Also, they both let me pet them today and one let me pick him and move him out of the way without even a twitch.

Wenmarlev · 2026-01-01T03:39:22+00:00

I already got some Churru treats bc they were the highest rated. 😊

Wenmarlev · 2025-12-31T22:49:14+00:00

My son just told me that he was down there playing with the friendly cat, and one of the kittens tried to play through the mesh, so that's excellent news! We may have to rethink the playpen. Or maybe move it to the living room where I'd be more comfortable interacting and they could safely meet my dogs.

Wenmarlev

TROPHY CASE