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

No kitten

Well I decided to come on out straight away this morning to see if a kitten was under my porch today but don't see one. Cici was still hanging around though. Now I'm sitting here surrounded by 4 cats.
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Kitten??

As I drove in to my driveway tonight when coming home from a dance, I noticed CiCi was hanging around and I glanced another head behind her under the step.  This cat then ended up under my porch- where I have never before seen one of the cats go.  I am not entirely sure at the moment whether this was a kitten, or if it was Marx and I just didn't notice in the dark.  It was a tabby, but I couldn't get a good look at it what with it being dark.  I caught a glimpse of it under the porch from keeping my car headlights on, and it "looked" for the moment I saw it to be a kitten but not a very young one.  It's possible from the short glimpses I got that it was really Marx and I just couldn't tell in the dark.  I came back out with more food (I am a sucker, I know... they were already fed today.  Twice because one came around that I don't see often.) and looked under the porch with the camera flash light from my cell phone on, but didn't see it under there.

I've never seen Marx or any other cat under the porch itself.  I'm not actually sure that they can even fit under there, as it has lattice all around with no gaps.  I don't think Marx would be able to fit his head through.  So tomorrow when I go to feed them I will see if I can get another look under there!  If CiCi brought me a kitten that's fine by me!

~Kakers

Well, hello mommy!

So, I have already introduced you to the 5 kitties that I see the most.  Now I think it is time to introduce you to the next crew- the mommy cats!  Starting with my dear Milky.  Yup that's right- Milk is pregnant!  A few weeks ago (I don't remember exactly when) I noticed that her sides were bulging out just a little.  Sure enough, she's been getting larger and larger by the day!  I'm not sure exactly how far along she is, but based on when I noticed she was pregnant and how much bigger she has been getting my best guess is there will be kittens sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.

Here she is with Sugar on Tuesday:

Then Thursday:

And Yesterday (as you can see, she is getting rather comfortable with me!)

Today she didn't stick around long enough for me to snap another decent picture, she ate some of her special food (around here mommy cats get kitten food, dry and wet!) but not much and then wandered off.  She seems to be getting uncomfortably large, so I am wondering if she either has a lot of kittens in there or if I have under estimated how long she has been pregnant for.  She is a dear, too, and lets me feel her stomach while she is eating :) Haven't felt any moving kittens, but she sure is getting big!

And as it would turn out- Milk is not the only momma cat around here!  At some point Spaz started showing up.  She startled me at first, RUNNING at me from the neighbors yard through the foliage right up to me and the bowl I was pouring food into.  Not at all timid like the other cats.  She has since damn near followed me into my house and my car and is certainly NOT afraid of me nor is she too proud to beg for food- and affection!

At first I did not know if she was a male or a female, and after I was certain she is just a people loving cat and not one that fools you into getting close so it can bite you, I went to see about picking her up to find out.  Didn't take long to find out either as I right away found that she is lactating!

Spaz is quite the darling kitty cat.  I have not a clue in the world where her kittens are, and am rather concerned for their health.  Spaz is all fur and bones, which is ultimately why I sprang for so much kitten food.  When it was only pregnant Milk, I was feeding her my cats premium food and the rest of the kitten food that my kitten had been refusing to eat.  When I realized just how malnourished Spaz is, I decided she absolutely for her and her kittens health needed kitten food.  She sure does look happy when she has a full belly!

And last we have CiCi, who I just found out today must also be a mommy, by glimpsing her teats as she walked down the steps!  CiCi (C.C.) is short for Conjunctivitis Cat.  The poor thing looks pretty worse for the wear, and I am nervous with her looking so ill and being around my other strays.  She appears to have a problem with conjunctivitis and I noticed today what looks like a small growth coming off her neck... it didn't look very good.

And lastly, I am starting to wonder if Splenda is also pregnant.  She is starting to get some belly on her, and she doesn't eat as much as the other cats.  So I don't know if its from me feeding her, or her being pregnant too.  Either way, I needed an excuse to share this picture from Thursday showing off just how gorgeous she is!

If anyone out there has any tips on what to do with the pregnant/nursing stray cats let me know!  So far I have not seen any kittens, probably partly due to there being no safe hiding places in my yard.  I am considering building a makeshift shelter for the kitties, so they can move their kittens over if they so choose and Milk can have a comfy place to give birth, but I am low on funds and not sure how I could put one together cheaply.  So for now I just make sure to feed them!

Happy Saturday!

~Kakers

Welcome to their world! My Main Five.

Hi there!  I have decided to start this blog to share the ongoing story of the stray cats in my neighborhood with anyone interested.  Our colony of cats is an interesting one, at least to me, and I hope that will interest you as well!  I first gained so much interest in my strays when I moved into this house in May.  One day moving in my stuff a cat was curled up at my side door.  It looked just like one of MY cats!

Since she looks so much like my cat, Honey, I named her Milk.  I have since confirmed that she is a girl!  

As time passed I noticed she was not the only white cat with a gray head in the neighborhood.  I started to see a cat around with a dark gray patch on the middle of his head, and named him (thinking this might be a girl, too, since confirmed he is a boy) Sugar.  So there was Milk and Sugar.  

I thought, well if there is a third white cat I can call it Cream to go with the theme.  Then Cream showed up!  He looks like Sugar, only bigger, with rounder eyes and a gimpy tail.  I will have pictures of him later on.  So I thought the collection was complete, Milk and Honey, Cream and Sugar.  I had never seen another white cat with gray on its head like my Honey before, certainly there couldn't be more living in my own neighborhood!

I was quite wrong.  This is my "Where did you come from?  What am I supposed to call YOU??" picture.  That is Sugar Bear in the foreground, and that, behind him, that is NOT MILK!  So I decided to call her Splenda.  The girls have gray spots that spread in front of their ears, the boys have the one patch right down the center of their heads.

This was around the time that I started to feed them.  The next door neighbor had already said she feeds them and they live under her house, so I figured she wouldn't mind if they were hanging around from my feeding them too.  They were very nervous around me at first, but I would leave a small bowl of food and walk away.  Slowly I wouldn't walk as far, and Sugar and Milk at least began to run into my yard upon seeing me.  They have been two that I have seen more days than not, more so Sugar.  

After I started feeding them, Marx showed up and has not left since that first week when he realized I was feeding them.  He is always in my yard, and now he always talks to me.  He was the odd man out- not white! He is a gray tabby cat.  He just looked like a Marx, and thankfully he turned out to be a boy.  There will be pictures of him later on as well!

Slowly I have been able to get closer and closer to them, more so than I expected.  Sugar now lets me pet him- even sometimes when I do not have food!  And sometimes he even leans in to my hand.  When there is food, he doesn't startle or lash out at me if I pick him up to redirect him to different food.  He only fusses a little because he wants to get back at the food!  Milk usually lets me pet her when the food is out, occasionally she hisses or protests a little but never lashes out.  Oh and there is news about Milk!  But I will save that for another entry.  Marx still is not comfortable with being pet, but he is getting more comfortable with coming close to me- on his terms.

So those are my main five strays... Four white cats and one gray.  There are a few others I see on occasion, you will meet them soon, too!

I think this about wraps up this portion of their story.  Being a cat person, I am quite happy that the strays have become so comfortable with me, as many people encounter strays that are feral and often nasty when it comes to people.  So far most of mine are open to my presence, at least.

I hope you will come back and read more about this darling group of kitties!  They really brighten my day (in addition to my own three cats and thirteen reptiles!)

~Kakers