Why have I never seen this? I own three cats, and there are three more outside we've been feeding for months. Long story coming up here: (also, "we" refers to me and my mother)
Okay, so all three of my cats were feral kittens. My most recent two (7 months) are siblings, and we got them in a rather unconventional way. Way back in June we saw a small (about 7 pounds) female cat outside our house, so we left her food. She started to come back more and more often, and we named her Myth. Then she stopped coming for a monthish.
In mid September we saw a kitten outside on our step. When we looked outside, we saw Myth with three kittens (we've had their estimated birth date in August, so they were about a month and a half old). We started feeding them all, and they kept coming back for months. We didn't see one of them ("the fluffy one") for a long time, and we though he must have been killed or something.
Then Myth and the two remaining kittens stopped coming for a while. We didn't know where they'd gone, and thought maybe they'd just moved on. The next day, we heard a kitten crying somewhere in the woods behind our house, so we went out, called, and shook cat food. About an hour later the fluffy little bugger appeared at our fence line. He (we thought she at the time) came right in and started mewing, purring loudly, and rolling about under our picnic table. We set out food, and he ate happily. We also played with him from the doorway. This routine continued for about two weeks before we attempted (and failed) at catching him with a cat carrier. We thought we'd scared him away for good, but he came back again the next day, as happy as ever. One thing I remember clearly is sitting outside while he ate in my bare feet. It was about 9:00 and pitch black out, and the only sound was him purring his head off. That was the first night we were able to pet him. He loved it, and shoved his head into our hands. Then he suddenly got up and jogged off. We watched him go, and were surprised to see him climb up into our neighbour's jungle gym to sleep. The next day we got him into our house with food. He wasn't very scared when we closed the door, and surprisingly, he let us pick him right up and carry him upstairs. We kept him in our spare room until our other cat got used to him, and then he was allowed free range. And that's how we got Merridew. (
this fluffy little goofball) Merri has a suprising range of vocalizations; he tends to make something close to "mrrroooooeeeaaawwwwllll!" instead of a meow. He's very fun to talk to (he has conversations with you, no joke). He also follows me like a puppy.
Now onto the second one. We didn't even want a third cat; we wanted to get all three kittens inside and adopt them out. We kept feeding the whole family (by now we'd seen the father, affectionately called Tommy. We know he's the dad since his face markings look just like Merri's.), and after fruitless attempts to get them inside the way we got Merri in, we decided on a live trap. Winter was coming, and we were worried. We caught the black and white one (the only female of the litter), and brought her into our garage (my dad's allergic and didn't want anymore cats in the house) until we could find her a home. When we caught her she was 3 and a half months, far older than most people recommend domesticating kittens. She was terrified, and climbed all the way up the garage wall and sat on the bar in the middle of the ceiling (the one that pulls the doors up, y'know?) for three days. She wouldn't eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. We were very worried. My mom found someone who wanted to adopt her (only if she was a girl, which we didn't know at the time. Her butt is in a weird place... lol), and they came over to visit. She was cowering in the back corner. The man walked right up, grabbed her, and tried to sex her. She (of course) clawed him, and he dropped her. She sprinted off and hid under a shelf. He said that they weren't taking her, end of story, and left. They knew she was a feral kitten to begin with... let's just say I wanted to choke that idiot. We did eventually take her into the spare room, and ended up keeping her since my mom fell in love with her. She was very, very skittish at first, and didn't even come out from under the bed for two weeks. She did start eating in about a week though. Once she did come out, she just loved being petted, although she ran whenever you tried to get close. As time went on, she got better. Now she lets you pick her up/pet her whenever she's on a couch or chair, but you can't touch her on the ground. That's how we got Snickers,
this lovely lady (ref sheet because she's hard to photograph and all my pics of her are on my phone).
As for their family, Myth and the third kitten (Sylaise; he's a very interesting golden-ish tabby. never seen anything like him before) have been coming back every day for the last few days. Sylaise has been sitting on our porch all day... sweetheart rubs on the glass, purrs, and pussyfoots when to say hi to him. I personally think Myth is pregnant again... (she's a balloon). I want to catch her, get her spayed, and release her again so she doesn't have more kittens (or start a colony), but my dad somehow thinks it's a bad idea and will somehow ruin her life. My mom isn't really invested either. I'm just hoping she'll bring us her kittens at a very young age and that we can maybe find the whole family a foster home. We've seen Tommy every now and then, but he doesn't come by all too often. He's honestly the best tomcat ever; he doesn't harass Myth and lets her eat first whenever we put food out. I'd almost say they have a pair bond... but that's unheard of in cats. Myth also seems to be smarter than most cats; you look her in the eyes and she has almost human intelligence. She's very smart looking. I swear she's gotta be an angel or something.
aannnnd end huge long story. (heres some more art if anyone is curious:
x x aand Merri's refAs for our third cat Rocky, I can't give much of a story since I got him when I was six. All I know is we spotted him in a rock drainage pond and ended up keeping him, thinking he was an orphan. We saw his mom the next day... /derp. He's 17 pounds of big cat (not really fat; just big).
I hope some of you people actually read this XD
