Feral kitten?

[Psyche]

Not sure how old. I've given it cat formula soft and hard food. He's scared. I can pet him but not pick him up. He is in a crate. What do I do to try to get him okay with contact? The shelter will kill him if he bites.

[Aisling]

What worked with our big cat was feeding her often, and initiating a tiny bit more contact a day until she slowly gained trust. Now, she owns us, and is a total attention-monger. :doh :giggle

[Psyche]

We now have it's two siblings too. Between us and two other families we are going to work on them gradually and gently for two weeks and reasess

[itzj]

How big are they? What food are they handling? That will give an age clue.

The most feral of ours was just afraid and time was all he needed (I got one bite capturing him but he was terrified). However, he will still only handle petting but is super sweet when he wants pet.

The smallest we got was really friendly but needed a lot of help learning how to do stuff. He couldn't clean well (especially his face) so I had to use a warm washcloth and used short brisk strokes to mimic his mama. He also needed help learning litter and drinking water. If the ferals will let you these might help them accept contact better.

We also used a loud ticking clock to mimic mom's heartbeat. And for the super scared one I used to leave npr on softly so he could get more comfortable around human voices.

You may want to try hard to find them homes or consider keeping them. Kill shelters kill as soon as they need more room. :cry

[Rabbit]

Gandalf was our feral rescue. Oh was he an angry angry spitball for those first few days. Food and gentle handling brought him around. Even better that you've found some siblings. That'll help mellow them all out faster, as they can take out their natural aggressive play on each other, and get feedback from each other on the limits between fun play and painful fight.

[itzj]

Gandalf was our feral rescue. Oh was he an angry angry spitball for those first few days. Food and gentle handling brought him around. Even better that you've found some siblings. That'll help mellow them all out faster, as they can take out their natural aggressive play on each other, and get feedback from each other on the limits between fun play and painful fight.

:yes

[Psyche]

They drank some formula but mowed down the wet and dry food. They know to use the liter box. After 24 hrs with us the moved to the front of the cage instead of the back. They won't bite with gentle touches but they do hiss. Mycoworker is watching them for the next few days. The vet is going to tell us appx age next week as well as provide contacts for no kill shelters

[Rabbit]

If you post a picture, we could get you a real close estimate.

---------- Post added at 05:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

That they are chowing down on food suggests that they are, at a minimum, 4 weeks old.

[Psyche]

It's on my fb. I can only post from my touch until Monday. They can run and jump so I'm guessing 10ish weeks