I don't really believe there is such a thing as a Feral cat.

[bamademo]

Disclaimer: I could be wrong. This is the internet.

I adopted a cat 5 year ago I saw living in the woods on a mountain around my apartment complex. He was raiding my bird feeder so I started leaving food out so he would stop. When it became winter, I put heating pad on my rocking chair on the porch with a blanket draped over the arms so he would have a warm place to sleep. One night it started sleeting and I heard plaintive meow outside my door. He came right in, ate and jumped in my lap and started purring. He's in my lap right now. No litter box. He goes outside and has never soiled house.

[BainsBane]

1. I stayed at a house infested with feral cats

I'm not kidding. They behaved just like rats. They hide from people and have nothing to do with them. I don't know about your cat, but there was no socializing these cats. They wanted nothing to do with people.

[bamademo]

2. Really? Interesting. I suspect this cat may have had home in past.

But I've been to Rome and seen the feral cat colonies. Little old ladies fed. They were for most part docile.

[BainsBane]

3. there is a big difference between a stray and a feral cat

I've taken in strays.

Staying at that house was my only experience with feral cats. I can tell you they scared the shit out of me. They were NOTHING like strays eating food from old ladies in the city. These were wild animals.

[bamademo]

5. So you think there is no hope of training? Not arguing but curious.

All kitties I've ever encountered are scared then elated to have needs met. I volunteered for Humane Society for a while and we tamed plenty. Found scared little kitten with abscess that I snatched up and cured and got adopted. Also rescued Mom cat who had kittens in mid winter and found all them homes and they settled right down.

[BainsBane]

7. I don't know

If you could catch them and keep them contained somewhere, maybe they could be socialized. Are you sure those were feral cats rather than strays? "Settling" right down doesn't sound like anything these cats I encountered would have done. I expect there probably are different degrees of wildness in cats.

[DalyStephen]

4. thanks

thank you so much for sharing

[bamademo]

6. I don't know if other people in complex fed him or not but he was really wild.

Lived off chipmonks and wild birds in the 1 and 1 /2 years I watched him.

[cliffordu]

8. My beloved Lucy - who's ashes rest not two feet from my hands

was a feral stray......

She adopted me, brought me her kittens, came to greet me on the deck at the end of the workday, every day. I tried off and on for a year to bring her inside and was rebuffed at every turn.

She would NOT use the cat box and tried to kill the other cats in the house.

She died in front of the house, either a car got her or the psychotic asshole across the street killed her. I picked her up and took her to the vet to have her cremated.

That was 14 years ago.

She was wild and, truly, majestic. She was going to live her own life, no matter what.

I think of her every day of the year.

[bamademo]

9. Sorry for the loss you suffered. My baby kitten (he is about 6 now) is so precious.

He goes on walks with dogs and talks to me. I feel bad for the year I left him in the woods because I was pissed that he was killing birds. He was trying to survive. However, I really don't need anymore cute little chipmunk offerings. Seeing tiny little heads with no bodies is kinda disgusting.

[talkingmime]

10. There certainly are. But in this case, it was probably an abandoned house cat surviving...

... as best he could, also known as a stray. I've interacted with actual feral cats and they are about as nasty as you can get and prone to FLV and rabies. If kittens aren't in a domestic situation by about 12 weeks it is almost impossible to convert them. Even 12 is pushing the limit. The only real exception is when a mother is about to give birth. I'm sure it's on instinct alone, but they often seek out a house for warmth and food while caring for the kittens - and then take off. That's a great thing since it gives the kittens a fighting chance to live and also one to become domestic cats.

Yours got lucky by finding you. He's a beautiful creature and I can tell by his eyes that he's not wild. He looks content.