From Feral to Friendly - a journey of baby steps

This information was originally posted on a volunteer only Facebook page as a celebration of National Feral Cat Day.  But since I truly do love the feral kittens I foster, it quickly got to be a lot of information.  I decided to transfer it to the old blog that I have not touched in a year so that I would no longer be clogging up the volunteer Facebook feed but that anyone that wanted to follow this litter's journey would be able to see how they are doing as they go from feral to friendly. 

So the first part of this will just be cut and paste entries of the first Facebook posts.  I will add more updates as they progress.  Enjoy!

October 17, 2013 Facebook Post:

Many volunteers have asked me about how I socialize feral kittens. Since yesterday was National Feral Cat day and I picked up two new feral fosters, I thought I would share with you my (admittedly crazy cat lady) take on the steps of socializing feral kittens.

Step 1: Feral kittens trapped and safely surrendered to the shelter - check!
Step 2: Staff vaccinate and test the three kittens without getting bitten - eh, two out of three ain't bad. (Don't worry girls, we will pick up your sibling when it is out of quarantine.)
Step 3: Kittens will eat but only when alone - check!
Step 4: Safely get kittens into a carrier and then in to a crate in the foster home without getting killed - check!
Step 5: Bribe kittens with baby food - check!
Step 6. Kittens relax enough to eat while you are in the room watching them - check! (as long as I do not move). Step 7: Attempt to pet kittens while they are distracted eating - check...wait, random loud noise in house. Go back to Step 5. Step 5 is good - it is hard to bite with a mouth full of baby food. Boy that was a lot of work - time for all of us to take nap. Never underestimate the power of napping. 

Information from questions in the comments - Seriously though, if you want to learn more about the intricacies of cat body language, watch a feral kitten during the socialization process. The tiny changes that usually go unnoticed are key to know whether to go forward a step, stay where you are, or take a step back. And not watching those signs can get you bitten. The two in this photo appear relatively relaxed, but they are in fact very scared. I would be ok trying to slowly reach toward the dilute tortie in the front but would only touch the tortie in the back if I really had to. What is the difference? They both are very alert with their eyes open and ear up searching for any sound that might concern them. But the dilute tortie has relaxed enough to be at the front of the cage even though the door is open, break eye contact and put her head down. The tortie in the back is curled as small as she can get, with her head pulled back close to her body and she is too frightened to not watch the our every move. She is also trying to hide behind her sibling. When we did try to move these two, the dilute was scared but was easily moved. The tortie hisses when we reached toward it, grabbed onto the bars to try to stop up and hissed for a few minutes once in the carrier. Their sibling (not in photo) was at the very back of the cage with its face in to corner and its eyes closed, basically playing "dead", so scared it is trying to shut out the world. This is a kitten at high risk of suddenly turning and biting. In fact, this kitten did bite a staff member and will need to wait out its quarantine before I can begin working on it.

 October 18, 2013 Facebook Post:

Morning post - Kitten socialization improvement for this morning: After 15 minutes of quiet interaction and a liberal application of a baby food bribe, one kitten relaxed enough to stand up and move around in the cage rather than slinking around low to the ground. The second more scared kitten allowed me to clean around her with out hissing. And as I was about to close their crate, I extended one finger to each kitten. Instead of hissing and backing away, each took a small tentative sniff of my finger. Their way of saying hello. This afternoon's socialization goal: decrease the amount of time it takes to get them comfortable enough to move around and sniff to around 10 minutes. The key word in feral socialization is baby steps...and baby food.

Evening post - What is the best present to get a feral foster mom who is feeling down?  A tiny, hesitant, first time purr from one of their foster kittens. 

Questions/Information from comments - this type of hesitent purr is an idication that the kitten is looking for something or someone to replace their mom as a source of comfort and safety and is considering if that could be the foster mom.  It does not necessarily mean they have made leaps and bounds in the socialization, just that they instintively need that source of comfort.  It is definitly a good sign though.  I do not consider a kitten to be truly purring for me until it continues to purr as I move it around on my lap and don't have to make my movements so slow and deliberate in order to not spook the kitten.

Two questions regarding the sibling still in bite quarantine at the shelter were how to integrate that kitten back into the litter and bow to use a wand toy to safely offer baby food from a distance.  They baby food is easy.  Use a good quality baby food like Gerber Stage 2 chicken and gravy and stick the end of the handle of the toy into the baby food to get just a little on it.  What you are trying to do, more that actually feed the kitten, is get it to realize that humans coming into the cage brings good things.  It also allows them to engage the sense of smell without the pressure of you being in their cage.

As for intergrating the siblig back into the litter, I would normally crate the sibiling in a seperate crate for a few days and observe to see if the kittens are wanting to be back together or if they no longer recognize each other as litter mates.  If they are doing well, I would put them back together.  If I felt (or saw) that putting the "new" more scared kitten back with its litter mates was setting them back, I would keep them apart and attempt a reintroduction at the point that all the kittens are social enough to no longer need to be crated

That is all for now.  I will try to post updates with the progress (and inevitable set backs) that this litter makes as they take their journey with me.  :)