Many people that foster kittens also have adult cats of their own. Often they are "failed" fosters (fosters that the foster family decided to adopt for themselves). If you have adults cats of your own that are well adjusted, social cats that actually like meeting your foster kittens, you can use your cats to help you with the feral kittens.
I use my adult cats with my feral kittens in a few ways. I never let the kittens meet my cats until they have been here a few days. I have multiple reasons for that. First I want the kittens to be settled in and comfortable in their crate because not all kittens actually like seeing an adult cat. Most do, but you will come across that rare kitten or litter that hisses and gets upset at the sight of an unknown adult cat. So I want to be sure they feel safe in their "den" before I push them at all. The second reason is purely personal. My adult cat, Charlie, has a severe flea allergy. I want to be sure the flea treatment on the kittens has had more than enough time to work before I let any foster, feral or not, near Charlie and he is usually the one clamoring to meet them.
If you decide to use your cats to help move your ferals socialization along, be sure you pick the right cat (assuming you have more than one). In my experience, my neutered male cats have been much more nurturing and tolerant of foster kittens than my spayed females. My current female, Nigella, is OK with the fosters but really does not want that much to do with them. My two boys, Charlie and Doyle, will clean them and play gently with them and pretty much mother them to a point. That point is usually when a very young kitten decided to "nurse" on a certain inappropriate piece of anatomy. Sorry kiddo, you are not getting any milk from there!
I will say that it does help to have your scared feral kittens see you interacting in a positive manner with an adult cat. Kittens take their cues from the adult cats around them so if they see an adult being petted and showing no fear of you, it helps them to relax. But beware: depending on where your ferals are in their socialization process, showing them an adult cat can also make them try to bolt out of the crate to get to the cat. That is what happened today when Charlie decided to visit the foster room. My long hair tortie tried to bolt out of the crate past me to get to him. I caught her but she was not happy about it. This afternoon I will let them meet Doyle with the cage door closed. He will actually go right up to the cage to meet them and since he loves his "mommy" to snuggle him in my arms like a baby the kittens will see that he is fine with me touching him and picking him up.
Once the kittens are social enough to let loose in the foster room, I will use my social cats to encourage the kittens to approach me on their own. That is not something they will be comfortable with at first. In fact, it is usually the last step they take before adoption (and sometimes after). But my own guys don't want me taking two steps without them being right next to me, so they are a good teaching tool. And I am a firm believer in using what ever tools life hands you.
The other way you can use a social cat to help you is for those rare litters that are so feral they refuse to eat in front of you for an extended period of time and will only eat overnight. It is very important that your ferals eat in front of you because cats are motivated by food. Once I know for sure that my kittens are healthy and eating, they do not usually get wet food unless I am in the room. They never get baby food unless they are actively interacting with me. This teaches them that humans bring yummy stuff and are good. In this case, bribery is a good thing.
But to start this bribery, you need to be sure that the kittens are eating. That is easy enough since if the food is gone in the AM, they ate overnight. If they are not even eating overnight, call your foster coordinator because they might be sick or too scared to eat and will need syringe feed which believe me, if you do not have experience with syringe feeding a kitten that wants to bite you, don't attempt it. You will get bitten. You need expert advice for this. You will need to be taught how to safely scruff the kitten and get the food in its mouth with out getting bitten. (Hint: when the mouth opens to hiss at you, squirt in food.) Thankfully this is rare. What is more likely to happen is that the kittens will be too scared to eat in front of you. They don't trust you enough to let down their guard enough to eat.
This is where the social cat comes in. Grab a wet food that your cat loves and does not get all the time. Put some in a dish for the ferals and put it in their crate. Now place the rest of it in a dish for your cat and put in right outside the crate, as close to where the kittens' dish is as you can. Your cat will gobble up the food with a "yeah, mommy is giving me a treat" attitude and hopefully your kittens will realize it is safe to eat the food with you in the room. It might take a few sessions to get them to eat in front of you consistently but I am willing to bet your cat won't mind. ;o) And you can phase your cat out once the kittens are used to eating with you there then bring your cat back into the picture when you need to teach the kittens to approach you.
The important thing to keep in mind is that you should always be in the room when your own cats are interacting with your ferals. This is for safety reasons and because you want the kittens to realize that you bring this fun adult cat in with you. All good things come from you. Food, soft blankets, warmth, baby food, companionship of an adult cat, toys, treats, and affection.
It will take a long time, but this fact will sink in to your ferals minds and they will begin to want you to be in the room and will start to return the affection. And the first time your feral solicits attention from you or headbutts your hand . . . I can't even describe how wonderful that feels! I am not there yet with my current girls, but taking it day by day and step by step, we are on our way.
One of my favorite quotes to keep in mind when working with ferals is from Lao-Tzu. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
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