I have two cats, both were feral (we suspect "dumpees"). It does take a while for them to settle in, both were terrified of everything for a long time. You are doing the right thing by taking her in, please don't release her back outside, in all probability, she'll get killed by something or a car.
We have one we brought in, starving, scrawny, skin and bones. For the longest time, no one could get near her, walk in the room and she'd take off like lightning!! Now she'll follow you around, talking incessantly, is fat as a barrel. To this day (one year later), you can pet her, scratch her, but you cannot pick her up. She freaks out. We're working on it, with some it takes a long time. Good luck! - Ellen

Feral cats can, indeed, be acclimated to a domestic lifestyle and learn to thoroughly enjoy family life. I've incorporated several ferals, semi-ferals, and domestic strays into my household.

The fact that your cat has entered your home on her own implies to me that she is not entirely feral. A true feral would be unlikely to seek shelter that close to humans, so you are probably dealing with a cat who is at least somewhat accepting of human presence. That'll make things a bit easier.

The first thing you need to do is get her out of that crate. Close confinement will increase her anxiety and stress exponentially. Even fully domestic cats can be severely stressed in a crate in which they feel completely vulnerable. If you have a room in your home (the larger, the better) that you can give to the cat for a few weeks or months, if necessary, set it up for her with food, water, and a litterbox, and free her from the crate. Make sure her room has plenty of hiding places (a bed to hide under, a closet, furniture to hide behind, etc.).

Perhaps I should explain the setup in my house that works well for integrating new feline family members. My house is built with a fairly circular flow through the rooms - livingroom/diningroom into kitchen into utility room into master bathroom into master bedroom back into livingroom. So, the master bathroom has doors that open into both the utility room and the master bedroom, and the master bedroom has a door that opens into the livingroom.

When a new feral or stray shows up here on the farm, I trap him (or her) and take him to the vet to have all necessary work done. Back at home, I let him loose in the master bathroom with food, water, and a litterbox. As soon as the cat is using the litterbox reliably, I open the door into the bedroom and expand his territory to include both bathroom and bedroom. I open the bedroom/livingroom door and fill the doorway from bottom to top with baby gates so the new cat can get accustomed to the goings-on of the household and can meet the other family animals from the safety of his own side of the gates.

A domestic stray might start approaching the gates and interacting with the other animals in as little as a week (or even just a couple of days), but a feral may take weeks or months to muster the courage to come out of hiding and start interacting at the gates. The key here is patience in allowing the feral to set the pace of any and all interactions. Once the feral starts approaching the gate during daylight hours, I will spend time sitting on the floor beside the gate on the livingroom side, coaxing the feral to approach from the other side with toys and treats.

The other animals help this process tremendously. As the feral watches the other cats and dogs seek my attention in the livingroom, he learns that I am not a threat. He also learns that the dogs are not threatening to the cats and that the cats are reasonably peaceable with each other.

I do also spend quite a bit of time in the bedroom/bathroom with the newbie, but if the cat is truly feral, I don't try to initiate contact (and neither does he). It generally takes 3-4 months before a feral will initiate or allow physical contact. With a stray or semi-feral, physical contact may occur pretty quickly. You just have to read the cat and respect his boundaries until he's ready to start trusting you.

I incorporated four new felines into the family this summer who strayed onto the farm - all intact adult toms upon arrival. One was feral, one was completely domestic, and the other two were timidly domestic. I used basically the same integration techniques with all of them. The completely domestic one was integrated into the family population within a week. The feral took 4 1/2 months. The other two fell in the middle. I chronicled the stories of their integrations on another pet forum at another site. If you'd like to read them, I'll be happy to email them to you privately. They include lots of info that may prove helpful to you, but they're not a short read. Just let me know if you're interested.

One last note, please research the procedure and potential negative effects of declawing before you inflict that on the feral. It is an amputation of portions of each of the cat's toes, not just nail removal, and may result in lifelong physical and or behavioral problems for the cat.

Good luck with your new girl!

Laurie

I have 5 cats, all of which were either dumped or feral. There are also feral cats living where I work. They have all been trapped, neutered and are living quite well there. Once they were fixed, they gradually tamed down incredibly, (thanks mainly to the manager of the place I work, who is a cat fanatic) and now look forward to being fed, petted and visited daily. I have a couple of sisters that were born to one of these cats, while she was still feral. They were trapped as kittens, spayed, and now I have them. One of them is the friendliest cat I've ever had (up until recently). She loves people and loves to be cuddled in any lap willing to take her on. Her sister is the exact opposite. She's never gotten to like people very well, even us. The only time she lets me even pet her is when I'm in the bathroom or when I feed her. On rare occasions she will approach me or DH and even curl up on our laps, but any little thing, like having to take her to the vet, will set her back and she won't trust us for months. I have one other dumped or feral cat (I haven't been able to figure out what her history might have been, but she was on her own when I got her) that is still quite skittish, and will only let me pet her. She loves for me to pet her on her own terms, but if I make the wrong move, or if DH even moves at all when she's in the room, she's outta there! My latest cat was clearly dumped. He jumped in my car when I was stopped at a convenience store and was getting something out of my ice chest. We were on the first day of a camping trip. There were no houses around, and traffic was quite heavy. I asked the clerk in the store if he knew the cat or who it belonged to, and a customer in the store said, "It looks like it's yours, now." Well, he was right. He was probably only 10 weeks old, but such a charmer. Anyway, he's another cat that doesn't know what a stranger is, and will play with anyone.

All this is a long winded way of saying that it takes a lot of patience - a LOT of patience and understanding. Sure, it's more fun to have a cat that will curl up in your lap and show you love and affection, but that may never happen with a feral. They do have their way of showing love, I think, but it's just not necessarily apparent to us.

The advice Laurie gave is excellent. I used similar techniques as she. I keep all new cats (No more, please!) in the bathroom with water and a litter box, for a few days. I stay with them when I feed them, so they quickly associate me with food. I did start out right away handling the two feral kittens I mentioned earlier. Playing with them, using toys, really helped them to relax. In your case, with the cat being a young cat, this might work, but ease into it. Give them a toy mouse to play with, or something like that. I also then eased the cats into a bigger room once they got used to being with me, and gradually they had the run of the house.

Good luck with it. And, as Laurie said, please don't declaw.

Sally

As Sally's experience indicates, it's a whole lot easier and quicker to tame feral kittens than it is to do the same with feral adults. Feral kittens can and should be handled to help them overcome their fears. Adults shouldn't. Adults have to be given the physical space and time they need to develop trust on their own. A bathroom isn't a large enough territory for an adult feral. Anything that makes him feel too confined and vulnerable and doesn't provide adequate hiding spaces will add stress and make trust all but impossible to develop.

Also, don't expect an adult feral to play with toys. A cat who has never seen a toy is likely to be terrified of it. I introduce toys to a feral by leaving toys on the floor of his room for him to investigate on his own. I'll also play with toys with the other cats on the livingroom side of the baby gates so the feral can watch. Eventually the feral will get up the nerve to start playing with his own toys, generally at night.

When a feral gets up the nerve, he'll start moving around his new territory at night, in the dark, after everyone has gone to bed and the house is quiet. He can get absolutely insane at night, bouncing off the walls and caterwauling at full volume for hours on end. His antics can make for some sleepless nights for us humans, but it's all very good for the cat. It gives him the opportunity to start getting acquainted with his new home. Eventually his after-hours excursions will encourage him to start coming out of hiding during daylight hours, as well. Once he starts getting adequate exercise during the day, his nighttime activities will diminish to a more tolerable level.

The female strays who have shown up here over the years haven't been ferals, but I can tell you that their lack of testosterone makes integration MUCH easier! Be grateful your stray doesn't have those macho hormones to answer to!

As Sally's stories illustrate, not all cats are destined to be lap cats. I personally don't think that has nearly as much to do with a feral background as it does with the innate personality of the animal. I have cats who arrived here as perfectly domestic strays who prefer not to have much of anything to do with us humans, while my ex-ferals are all loves and cuddles. You won't know how your new girl turns out until she gets comfortable in your household. Give her 6 mos, and you'll have a considerably clearer picture of her personality.

Laurie

can't add to the excellent advice & tips, just wanted to chime in that I think Laurie's right:it sounds like she's been around people in the past.

Eliza (named for Eliza Doolittle: when someone approached her with the idea of easing her life & "making her into a lady", she screeched at him in blind, hysterical panic...) was thought to be feral, but she wasn't.

She was just scared to the marrow of her bones & had been for some time.

Even today she's no lap cat, but she's happy & healthy & she makes me smile.

Wonderful advice. Nothing I can add. Just takes patience, patience and then some...My last 2, sisters, were trapped when they were about 3 months old. I help with a rescue adoption organization and we were able to trap the mother and her kittens. The mother was very wild, so we had her spayed and released back to the property only because the owner said he would make sure she was fed. The kittens came to live with me, 1st staying in a very large cage, then my laundry room and then moved to the cat room, my spare bedroom and then eventually had the whole house at their disposal. I spent many, many hours with these girls, even sleeping in the room with them. That's been over a year , 1 sleeps with me and has the loudest purr, the other is more skittish, but she rubs against you, and has the sweetest, softest meow, but you just can't pick her up. I do believe each cat has it's own personality and some are just not made to be lap, overfriendly cats. Our older cat, a Red Persian, was very young when we got him 12 years ago and it's just recently, he wants on your lap....We just love them all no matter what.....
Good luck with your new furbaby....

Dorothy

We've had our 'wild' cat 8 years. She has only started sitting on my lap this past year but she's been sitting on DH's for several. He is calmer than I am.

About 5 years ago, I adopted Speedy, a grey tabby feral, living at the local Speedy Stop. She was freaking, but very hungry. So when she came to us looking for a handout, my DIL picked her up by the scruff of her neck and put her into the kennel. I took her to the vet and got everything taken care of, i.e. shots, spayed, ear mites. I kept her in a big dog kennel with a small litter box for about a month. Then I let her out in the house only. She only got outside once and came running back in as soon as the door opened. She bonded with one of my older cats, Toedot. She loved him and was always snuggled up against him. This past spring Toedot died at age 17, and she got so depressed even though I had other cats. Anyway, after he died, she became the sweetest cat, and every evening she gets up on our laps and wants to be loved. So I would just give your feral some time.

I love feral cat stories; it's nice to know for every idiot animal abuser out there, there is another person with a heart of gold.

This is a wonderful, enlightening thread. Thank all of you who adopt ferals and bring them in. I hope the initial poster finds help here.

I've had my ferals from the age of 2months they're now 6 months, they're brothers, felix he has adapted very well, still doesn't like strangers but he loves a cuddle, his brother paddy, he's more reserved he doesn't like been picked up, although I have picked up a few time, put him on my lap and he's gone sleep, but he is more jumpy than his brother. I've just had them both castrated and their injections done, can anybody tell me when or if I should let them out, only they're sitting on my doormat waiting for the chance, I'm glad I didn't give up on them, for anyone who has taken on ferals, it just takes time and plenty of love. Great website

Here is a link that might be useful: That Home Site

My feral sisters who both died last year were as different as night and day. Emma, the real shy one, took me a month to trap. Then I put her and her food and litter in a small bathroom for a month thinking when I let her go in the house , she'd disappear. Not so. She loved all the other cats and sat on my lap every night for as long as she lived..10 years.She would drape her self over my lap and look adoringly up at me. But I could NOT ever pick her up. She had to come to me. Since I did all the bonding in the bathroom, my husband never got to pet her except at the end when she had to be euthanized due to renal failure. She was the sweetest cat I ever had..Her sister was nice, not as skittish, but i didn't have the relationship w/ her as I did her sister.

Have no advice to add but hope all is going well.

The fact that you say she died from rental failure at only 10 says to me you were not feeding her properly( its okay most people don't know about good pet foods in this day and age even many a vet is clueless), in human years that would make her about 50 or 60, (IMO the vets lifespans of max 16 to 18 years are off because most cats eat garbage diets that are built to help just life until middle age or so, not actually improve it.) if a person died that young in a domesticated setting its useally either diet or genetic related. what was it that you feed? Whole prey animals, for feeding snakes or large lizards are the best of all possible foods for cats, its not the feral diet that kills its the physical hazards of weather, disease and other animals, but this is sadly unrealistic for most cat owners because of $$. Innova EVO, is a good brand of reg cat food along with Orijen or Ziwi peak. Grains kill, but slowly, very slowly, however her past wild living lifestyle could have helped reduce the longevity but 10, I've heard of raw-fed cats living over 20! wet is so much better than dry for cat health so I'd give mostly canned or do raw if u want. www.Haretoday.com is a good place to look at.

As for the one who mentioned De-clawing, its very good that you didn't didn't, even to a feral because ITS AWFUL! (your better off PTS the cat or possibly releasing it (neutered/spayed) back into nature in the case of a feral) its IMO more humane, its actually banned(declawing) in europe and other countries

Just trapped what I believe is a semi-feral. Vet says he is about 12 to 14 weeks. I have been feeding him and his mom and 2 litter mates for awhile. Neighbors don't like it so I was going to catch them and take them to a shelter except none of the shelters want them. The one I caught was my favorite and when I finally had him I just couldn't call animal control so my husband and I decided to keep him even though we already have 3 spoiled cats. I have him in a room by himself with litter pan and food and he is hideing in a desk. Yells all night and keeps me awake and I wonder how long before I can put him in the rest of the house. He has been neutered and is using litter box and eating. Needs to have some worm medicine but that will have to wait until he is not so stressed.