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Socialising a kitten to humans

  • 20-06-2016 7:01pm
    #1
    Samaris
    Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭


    Hi there,

    One of the semi-wild cats on the farm I live on (not mine, we rent a house on its land) has a batch of kittens. Well, it's down to two now after the whole lot of them got into a car engine and ended up several miles away (rescued two, the other two survived and were adopted elsewhere). Mama cat brought them up to the house two days ago and we've been considering adopting one of them.

    Thing is, I'm not sure if she'll adapt well. There are a lot of cats outside who will have totally different habits (only one of them likes being petted, the rest will come if you feed them, but other than that have little use for humans). She's about seven-eight weeks old now, and mostly weaned from mama. I'm attempting to have her get used to me but unsurprisingly, she's fairly alarmed still. Today, I introduced her to the house to see if she might be able to get used to the concept. She's currently under a bookcase. As the mother is still occasionally feeding them, I'm thinking of bringing her in for half an hour to an hour a day in the evening to let her explore and get comfortable with us, and introduce kibble as the mother stops feeding them, etcetera. I'm not positive if the presence of her mother and the rest of the cats will dissuade her from socialising with humans, so I'm fairly tentative on the whole thing at the moment.

    Obviously, if she really doesn't take to the Great Indoors, she'll be let loose back with the rest of the cats to be a farmcat. There's no point in trying to "force" her to acclimatize past a certain point.

    Does anyone have any ideas or comments about this (very rough still) plan? She's young enough that I don't want to remove her entirely from the rest; they've had a traumatising few days, losing half the litter, poor things.


Comments

  • #2
    Nody
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,337 CMod ✭✭✭✭Nody


    Petting when eating and playing with a string on a rope to get the kitten used around you and work from there.


  • #3
    Samaris
    Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    Brought Mama in briefly to get the kit out from under the bookcase (I didn't want to haul her out unless there was absolutely no alternative). Mama being there soothed her and she had a little explore.

    Unfortunately the farm dog was -way- too interested and went for them as they were exiting to the extent that I think it undid any progress her curiosity may have made.


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