Feral vs Stray

So, my cats are an interesting crew.  I must live in a pretty special neighborhood, because most of them are relatively friendly.  It is clear that most of them are feral, technically.  With the exception of Spaz who very clearly once had a home, given how fond she is of affection and how unafraid she is to run right up and talk to me.  The other cats, however, either are likely to have been born outdoors or it has been confirmed they were (Sugar, for example, I have been told by my neighbor, is the offspring of Milk.  The rest of the family relations I am not aware of.)

Feral cats have a bit of a reputation for being pretty nasty, or at the very least unwilling to be in close proximity with humans.  I suspect the cats in my neighborhood may be friendlier than most due to the friendliness of the humans in the neighborhood.  My next door neighbor has been feeding them for 3 years, and Milk and Sugar in the very least basically live in the crawl space under their house.

In fact, only one of the cats so far is not willing to be within 5 or so feet of me.  Nicky hasn't been around as often as the other cats, which may be a part of it.  I also suspect he is hard of hearing.  I attempt to leave him food in the back of my yard so he doesn't have to come so close to eat, and can walk up fairly close if he is looking away or grooming himself.  However once he sees me he runs very far away.  I've only successfully seen him return to eat the food once.

I never actually expected that so many of the cats would be willing to be fed on my porch, with my sitting there with them.  Milk and Sugar have from the start been more tolerant of me, so I started feeding them on my porch because I suspect Sugar is still under a year old, and Milk is pregnant so I was feeding them higher quality food.  I would put out their food on my porch, which they were more than willing to come up to me to eat it, and put some food out in the back of the yard for the rest of the cats.  But before long the other cats all just started showing up at my step!  Now I come home daily to a warm greeting from Marx an Sugar an often other kitties as well.  Well, Sugar will just look at me from wherever he is relaxing an Marx runs up and starts talking to me.

I did not expect these cats to be anything resembling friendly with me.  I only even tried petting Milk after she up and climbed into my lap to eat the food I was pouring into a bowl resting on my knee!  She sometimes hisses at me when I go to pet her, but NEVER has she swatted at me or tried to bite me.  Marx I have tried touching gently on the head, he runs away but he also does not come after me.  I rather expect feral cats to become aggressive if you try to have physical contact with them.

I'm sure it has helped that I gradually got closer to them, allowed them to approach me closer without trying to touch them, and only tried to interact with them when I was giving them food.  But I have only lived here a month and a half, I excepted getting them used to me would have taken much longer!

Because of how friendly they all are, I like to think of them as strays, rather than feral.  I feel that feral has a negative connotation.  These are not aggressive, scary, crazy cats by any means.

~Kakers