Lots of cat questions that I've saved up since getting my cat!

[OrangeFurryCat]

So, quite unexpectedly, we became servants of a rescue cat this time last year. Never ever thought we'd have a cat but we LOVE him. He's the apple of our eye and has 5 willing people to attend to his every whim. There's a few questions though.

How much of his 'feral-ness' might be ingrained - the old nature vs nurture debate? He was taken from an unhappy semi feral situation at about 6 weeks and we got him at about 9 weeks. Although he can be extremely loving and a definite softy, he retains what I'd call feral ways. He could never ever have been an indoor kitty which is what we wanted, because he demanded to go out from early on and developed his opening door skills. However he was easily trained to return on a whistle and only spends a couple of hours outdoors per day. He is a prolific hunter and fighter and although he's tiny even as an adult, he takes on all of the other cats and sees them off. He's the archetypal alley cat when he's out and a rug cat when he's in. So how much of this is nature and ingrained from kittenhood?

Letting him out at night? Arguably it's safer for him as the neighbourhood cats aren't allowed out and there's no traffic around. He is very vocal, yowling from about 4am (not a problem really as we shut him in his own kitty room - yeah really 🙄And can't hear him) but we let him roam around on a weekend night so he can snuggle up to us which he loves. I let him out of our bedroom window in the dark at 5am (can't have a cat flap as no suitable doors) and he came back a few times (window open winter and summer) and really enjoyed himself and now he's sitting in the garden asleep. It would work better for us as he'd be in the house while we are at work. Thoughts?

Holidays - we have a big family holiday planned next year which was planned before kitty came along. He would HATE a cattery (all those other cats) and when he was left at the vet after neutering they rang me to get him because he was so vocal and causing such a fuss - I could hear him howling from outside the vets!
Would it be ok to leave him at home with the roam of a large house and ask our pet sitter to come in twice a day? He'd be shut in for two weeks but with plenty of room to exercise and at the moment he goes out for 45 mins before we go to work at 745, then let out once I come in at 4. He then comes in for food and is in and out until about 6pm when we keep him in all night. Our pet sitter is lovely and likes cats so I have no worries there.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long thread (and any autocorrects!)

Our 1 year old cat is very much an outdoor kitty, he loves to be out and so far we haven't let him out past about 7 pm (because of all the tough night time kitties!) However, although snall

Sorry for the bit of a previous post I started!

I don't think there is a feral nature. It's all nuture that makes a cat feral or otherwise. So the initial six weeks of his life probably has had some effect, but I've taken in lots of cats with similar starts in life and they all turn out differently. It's mainly down to personality.

Cats are much more likely to get killed on the road at night. There may be very little traffic, but any cars there are will be going much more quickly and of course visibility is worse.

You can put cat flaps in walls too you know.

And a cat sitter is always preferable to a cattery from the cat's point of view and it's fine to be shut in for that time.

He sounds like my boy.

Our semi feral never really trusted us and was always wary of us

I suppose what I mean is that he's like Jekyll and Hyde - he's a soft boy in the house, even to the point of stretching out his tummy for us to tickle and sitting on laps, loving comfort and affection but once he's outside he's like a super streetwise cat, fighting and hunting!

I know cats are more likely to get killed at night ☹️ but the traffic here really is non existent. We don't live near any main roads anyway and the only large road nearby has traffic calming so no one can speed. It's something I keep on trying to weigh up in my head as I know the stats and they do scare me a bit. The fact that there would be less cats around is good as he's less likely to risk injury (not that he's ever let another cat seriously injure him, but scratches etc).

I don't really want a cat flap in the wal as it'd cost us a lot of money as DH is not at all handy, kitty would bring in undesirable things and there really isn't any need as he gets out plenty anyway because at worst he's in from 745 until 4 but there's usually someone around, depending on people working or studying at home.