Rescue cat - how long to keep them in?

[MollyintheMoon]

I got my cheeky new cat last Tuesday and I've had lots of conflicting advice about when to let him out. The RSPCA lady said 5-6 weeks, the cattery told me 2-3 weeks and other people have said they let their cats out after only 3 days to a week!

I'm not in a rush to throw him out but he was starved when the rescue got him and so he's now completely food mad. He can also open doors! It would be handy to let him out while we're preparing/eating food.

He's quite confident and seems to have settled in well but it's hard to tell. How long have you kept yours in?

Congratulations on the new arrival . We were told 4 weeks, but I ended up doing 6 because I was scared to let her out.

I would say at least 2 weeks

Thanks for the responses. I'll give it another week and see how I feel about it.

Did you do the butter on their feet thing? And how long do you let them out for the first time?

Ours nearly took the doors off the hinges trying to get out, so we let them out after about five days I think. However, I took their food up beforehand, and also trained them (as much as you can with cats) to come to the kitchen when they heard me banging a fork on a plate, this was their cue for wet food and other treats, and they can hear it if they have wandered a bit out of the garden. I still use this for getting them in at night.

We kept ours in for about 4 weeks I think and then let them out when they were quite hungry so they wouldn't go too far.

I always whistled when I fed them so they got used to that and I can usually get them in by doing that now so it's useful to have something like that.

Letting them out when they are hungry is a good suggestion.

I let mine out after 3 weeks when I knew they had settled in and were happy living with me. So I was fairly confident they would come back home.

We kept ours in for 4 weeks, our male cat was climbing the walls by that time! While they were still inside, I got them used to coming for food by shaking an old baby rattle every time I fed them, then let them out hungry the first time and used the rattle to get them to come back after a while. We've had them a year and I still use the rattle sometimes (I don't like them being out after dark and we don't have a cat flap). I find shaking a packet of Dreamies works well too