Feral Cat Behavior

Sierra, Taylor and Lei have all been spayed today. In five days the boys go in and I will hopefully be able to pay off the huge vet bill accruing. I am so grateful that my vet is patient with me making payments.

I will say that since building the cat enclosure, our vet bill has gone down considerably! No more emergencies runs to the vet, no more cats being poisoned by nasty bad people, no more cat fight wounds and no more URI.

Everyone was amazed at Lei’s immense size. Mike and I have decided to purchase a pulling harness for her, and start training her next year to pull the small garden wagon around and give her work to do. She is after all a working dog, and I think she is bored just running the property and not having a task or two to do. She can help me haul flakes of hay, pull the horse manure I pitch out of the barn and do small things. I think it will go far into calming her down a bit.

The vet fixed her hernia too, so she is a bit of pain right now. I just gave her the pain meds and now it is upstairs I go to give the kittens theirs.

Both Maya and Cyclone are appearing late at night to feed. They are both very unapproachable at this time. It is going to take some work to regain their trust. I am amazed that they both have appeared virtually days apart after being gone from here for about 7 years. What is about the homing instinct that kicks in and makes these cats feel they have to come back here?

I heard on the news about a cat that was adopted from Wyoming and flown to Oregon. Two weeks later, the cat was back in his home in Wyoming! Now that is a strong homeward pull. I would hope his original owner would keep him around after that episode of loyalty.

I will be working with Cyclone first. He was the tougher kitty to get to know beforehand, and he is absolutely the most feral of the two. I walked in on him last night unexpectedly while he was feeding. He leaped up about 6 feet straight in the air, his claws unsheathed, paws spread and scrambled out of my way. Had I been in the way, I would have been torn to shreds. Here is a photo of Cyclone prior to his release back outdoors 7 years ago-