I failed to mention in the last post that 5 of the cats in our closed retirement center came from the show-and-tell feral cat colony we assembled in the barn of our "cat farm". We created the colony in 2002 with 8 displaced feral cats that had permanently lost their natural homes. At that time the cats ranged in age from 1 to 3 years.
Feral cats are cats that had little or no human attention before they turned 8 weeks of age -- the point at which their personalities are completely developed. As a result they are fearful of people and no amount of human attention after that point will change this. That being said, they may accept the person who feeds them -- thinking of him or her as their "mom cat" and essentially exclude their caregiver from the human race.
Feral cats constitute about half of the total cat population yet very few people know they are there -- like most other wildlife they are nocturnal coming out under the cloak of darkness when people won't see them. When people do catch a glimpse of them they often think that they are seeing a lost or abandoned cat that someone "dumped". Since most of our volunteers came to the farm for the geriatric cats, they started off being wary of our allowing cats to live outdoors in an unheated barn -- even if it was equipped with marsh-grass stuffed beds, custom cat walks and a cat-fenced corral where they could play. Observing the feral cats during their weekly volunteer shifts quickly changed their opinions. The cats were healthy, active and really enjoyed sunning themselves in the barn's windows even in the dead of winter.
In 2005, when we reached our decison to sell the farm, we decided to move the feral cats indoors and start the blending process with the geriatric companion cats. To our surprise, many of the volunteers were now wary of our bring the cats indoors to live and depriving them of their natural cat lifestyle. Fortunately the transition to indoor living went smoothly -- we started them in a room adjacent to the geriatric cat room with a removable window screen where the two groups of cats could observe each other.
When we eventually removed the screen to allow cross-access, we found the geriatric cats were spending a good deal of their time in the feral cat room -- enjoying the expansion of their space. After a few weeks the feral cats returned the favor and came into the original cat room learning quickly how to use the cat door to access the enclosed deck and yard. When the volunteers came for their shifts the feral cats would move back to the feral cat room until they left -- not quite ready to sit with people. Although only a few were able to pet any of the cats, everyone agreed that they enjoyed indoor living as much as they had the outdoors. Cats are very territorial and once they learn a new territory -- a process that takes about three weeks -- that's where they want to be.
Three years later they too are geriatric -- the youngest is now 10 years old -- and they have the run of our house with the companion cats. They remain very bonded to each other -- often sharing food from the same dish and snuggling with each other when they sleep. Cleo and Robin sleep with us, but Larry, Emmy and Joyce only allow infrequent petting. All of them hang out in the house areas we spend the least time in.
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