Consider trapping Feral and having he/she fixed. You could proceed from there as far as taming him. Part of me thinks "him" because tomcats tend to wander off for days at a time. It is possible to have an outdoor only cat, but it will take you a long time to get him to let you pet him--maybe never if your dog is aggressive toward him. Feral cats (or any cat for that matter) don't usually think being chased up a tree is great fun. Our once feral cat is now great friends with our dog and they hang out together. There is hope as long as your kitty can stay one step ahead of the coyote.

I agree, I think Feral sounds like a Tom since females tend not to wander much but I'm not sure if that's the same for non-spayed ones.

I think it's great what your doing and it's a good idea to keep up feeding her when you see her, she is learning to rely on you and it's good to be consistant.

We adopted a feral kitten 9 years ago, while she adapted to indoor living quite easily (no desire to go outside at all), she has never learned how to enjoy being held. The only rare moments when she allows us to pet her is usually in the middle of the night when she has a Dr. Jeckle personality change and becomes your best friend. Upon day break she's back to her scaredy cat "don't touch me" personality. Well I guess we all have some issues :)

-Sheila

Good to hear that Feral is doing well. I had wondered about him/her.

I found out last week that my cat (indoor/outdoor) is also getting fed by a lovely old woman who lives down the block. We let him out on Christmas morning, and he stayed gone all day, until evening. He came back with a Christmas bow around his neck! But he's a sweet boy, and I'm glad that he is bringing happiness to someone else (especially since all the other neighbors hate him b/c he uses the bathroom in their flowerbeds!)

I would just feed her when she appears in the window. She obviously knows the signal, and that way you don't have to worry about oppossums getting her food.

I have had for years at least 1 or 2 barn cats.

Last year, one female had a litter of 4 kittens. One day the mother & one kitten was missing.

The next day, another kitten was missing. I was starting to worry that someone was coming around when I wasn't home taking the cats.

Then when I was in the store, someone mentioned that the family down the road was complaining about the old barn behind their house because feral cats were coming to their house.

I decided to stop at the house and see if that "feral cat" was my missing mom.

Sure enough, the mother cat, had been over there, and the people just assumed she was wild and brought her inside and fed her. I guess she liked their food better, or the fact that she was inside, because she then brought her kitten over, and the next day, brought the 2nd kitten over.

So now that these people know I am the owner of the cats, they said they were attached to the one kitten, and I could take the mother home. (the other kitten was killed by their dog). I told her that I will take the cat, but since she is a barn cat, and they have her kitten and were feeding her, she will probalby come back.

Sure enough, the next day the mother cat is gone, and back over at their house, inside again.

They call me up and start yelling at me to get that cat back to my house. This is in the country with farms all around, and I have always had barn cats to keep the rodents out of the horse barn.

Anyway, I try to explain to her, that the cats had a cat door in the barn so they can come and go as they please, and that I cannot keep her locked up, and not to feed her. then, she says to me, indignatly, "then I'll keep her". I said, fine.

Back to my original thought, that the cat, since it disappears for days at a time, may belong to someone, not be feral. If you continue to feed it, it will become yours.

The fact that it come over with a ribbon on it, shows that it is getting attention somewhere else as well.

M

Actually we don't care to tame Feral. We just want the cat to continue taking care of our mouse problem in the storage sheds. If we are indeed sharing the cat with the closest neighbors several miles away, so be it. We will continue feeding the sweet face when it comes to the sliding glass doors.

If we don't see the sweet face, no food will be put out because we don't care to feed other wildlife. As far as the dog chasing goes, our dog loves the fun and the cat seems to instigate the chase! It is a fun thing to watch.

I think it is a male cat. I have had tom cats and females. The females always stayed home although in really bad weather we might not see them for several days. One of my female cats got up on our roof because we accidentally left the ladder out and then got a heavy snow (heavy for our area). I worried about that doggone cat for two days. She finally came out, but wouldn't come back down the ladder. Then I saw her go back to her hideout near the chimney. There is a roof overhang there and she was curled up under it. She didn't come back down until the ice/snow melted.

Our tomcat's MO was to be gone about three days then come home for dinner one or two nights before he went on the prowl again. He had the loudest meow in the world, I think. I would hear him coming up the pasture from a long way off. I guess he didn't come home until he was really hungry. I liked that old cat.

Cut a cat-sized hole in a medium-sized cardboard box, add a few old sweaters, and put the box out in your shed, preferably up on a shelf (secured so it doesn't fall). This'll provide a nice warm nest for your feral cat.

I have to disagree with the posters that say that females don't wander ... my previously unfixed female (now fixed) barn cat would disappear to the barn up the street for a couple of days every time she was in heat. Even after she had her litter of kittens, she would disappear. Then she started taking them with her ...

I finally trapped all of them ... she is now a spayed (spoiled) female barn cat that now stays close to home.

Carol, today I made the box like you suggested and put a fluffy down jacket that I have kept always thinking I will replace the broken zipper - loved that coat!!! Well, now it is Feral's. I put it in the hoop house, but we are slowly but surely moving all the stuff out of there and into our new home.

As we were moving boxes today, I noticed a mattress pad in there that was made into a nice nest, so she made her own bed!

I disagree w/ the sexing of this cat as well. I have a fixed female that will be gone for days on end. Sometimes in the summer she's gone for a good week or 2. Just when you think she's been eaten by coyotes, she reappears. And our 2 male barncats (both fixed) are the laziest things ever. Good mousers, but they never leave the confines of the barn. They like the constant food source and aren't willing to risk leaving it!
Good luck!
I just love barn cats. We only have 4, but they're all well fed and do their job!

We had a fixed female barn cat that we buried after she disappeared for several days. My husband found her body by the side of the road around the corner from our house. He retrieved her and we had a solem burial ceremony out at the edge of a pasture.

No sooner had we returned to the house than guess who showed up at the window?

When our youngest daughter was babysitting a neighbours children the next evening, the kids complained that their new litter of kittens was really hungry because their mom had been missing for a couple of days. She asked "What did their mom look like?" and was shown a kitten the spitting image of both our Lucy and the one we buried.

Lucy lived another 12 years after that and died peacefully at 18.