Semi-feral kitten

[rattling]

We adopted a 14week old kitten from a resue centre 12 days ago. I have experience with adopting adult cats - who at this stage I'd be happy to still be hiding as long as they were eating, but we've been told we need to handle the kitten as much as possible to get him used to it. In many ways it has been easy - when we have him on our knee or (his preferred option) beside us on the couch he is "happy" to be stroked, gradually relaxes till he flashes a bit of belly and settles into a fabulous purr.

His first choice still is to hide though - and that is where the problems start. I can?t tempt him out with food, and hands coming at him (though done very quietly and calmly) to attempt to stroke him where he is just make him wriggle further out of reach so I need to keep catching and picking him up which he finds horrific and has him scratching and biting like a crazy creature. Once you have all limbs tucked up he settles, and he has stopped quivering for a while after which he did on the first couple of days.

On some websites they suggest catching up ferals in a towel, but that seems really like trapping to me, and I think he?s past the need for that. But my method is so upsetting for him I may be very wrong and should be working on the picking up when he is quiet and beside me?

Any advice please.

we took on two kittens from a couple who were divorcing. One was tame, the other they had recently found wandering in a local woodland and was quite feral.

Does he have someone he prefers? I actually had more luck with the feral cat that anybody. I would agree that you should work on picking him up when he is nearby. Food never helped much with our kitten neither. I also had to force him into sitting, but I grabbed him when he was out in the open rather that in a corner. I do think you will make him worse by aggravating him when he is worked up. One day I sat with him for about 2 hours and he got a lot better after that.

He always did stay rather bad tempered and would lash out sometimes, but he tamed a lot and could be handled easily enough. He also got rather attached to a teddy bear, which helped him calm down! I wouldn't really expect your kitten to become the perfect lap cat, but you might have more luck that us.

I've not had semi-feral cats although I have had rescue cats/ kittens and a farm kitten. 12 days isn't very long for him to get used to a new environment, especially from a rescue shelter.

When we took the rescue kitten (10 weeks old) we were advised to limit where she could go and just to keep her in one to two rooms at the start and slowly expand it so she could get used to the new environment at her own pace, put her own smell markers down etc. We were lucky and able to 'shut' her in the living room, kitchen and dining room - she seemed a lot happier having a smaller space to explore. We also just sat around and got on with life (and our other cat) normally, making ourselves available to her whenver she wanted but not pushing her to do anything. Like yours, she was happiest doing stuff on her own terms (like climbing on to your knee when she's ready).

She's now 5 and an absolutely loyal and sweet little cat but can still be very stroppy especially with people she doesn't know or if there's any change in her environment (although surprisingly she's been very good with DD!)