Semi-feral 5yo mom separated from her 14 WK old kittens. 5 days later she hides all day. Did we make the wrong call?
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Hi! I'm fostering a semi-feral mother cat and her three male kittens, and I'd really appreciate input from people experienced with adult feral/semi-feral cats, especially moms.
This is a bit long, but I want to give the full context because I'm struggling to understand whether what we're seeing now is normal decompression or whether separating her from her kittens has negatively affected her.
About mom:
Rhea is approximately 5 years old and has lived outdoors her entire life.
We know she has had at least three litters before this one. We managed to neuter one of the males she was breeding with in the area, although obviously we can't know whether there were other males in the places she travelled to.
She is now spayed as well.
She wasn't living in an established cat colony. She came from a construction site/field-type area.
I'd describe her as semi-feral, although very much on the fearful end of that spectrum.
She will slow blink at us, but if we approach her she hisses/spits very intensely. She has never charged, attacked or swatted at us. Her response to humans is essentially avoidance and fear rather than offensive aggression.
She does not allow touching.
She won't take treats from our hands.
Even on vet-prescribed gabapentin, we cannot approach closely enough to pet her a lot (just a bit). One of the biggest improvements we saw with gabapentin was that she became comfortable enough to eat while we were in the room and to sit much closer to us for example when we were playing with the kittens.
So when I say that she seems "shut down" now, I don't mean that she used to be affectionate or playful with us.
The kittens
She has three boys who are now approximately 14 weeks old.
They're extremely active, eat a lot on their own, play, clean themselves and are making progress with us.
Two approach us quite a lot from the start. They still don't particularly enjoy being touched, but they're curious and very willing to interact.
The third will play with us but absolutely does not tolerate being touched yet. This one was copying mom's behavior the most, hiding with her.
As the kittens became increasingly comfortable approaching us, mom was very anxious about it. It felt like she wanted to monitor/protect them but was also far too frightened of us to actually come close.
She mostly watched them.
She would play with the kittens herself, but never with us in the room (only at night).
Their first 14 days indoors
Mom and the kittens spent their first 14 days indoors together.
They were housed in our kitchen because we have another foster cat in the house who has recently finished treatment for chronic bronchitis, so keeping them separated from her was important.
Unfortunately, the kitchen also contains our washing machine, air fryer and dishwasher.
We immediately moved our air fryer to another room when we realized how terrified mom was of the noise.
We found a very quiet setting for the dishwasher, but we can't relocate the washing machine. Even on the lowest spin speed, the spin cycle frightened her badly.
Our vet prescribed daily gabapentin for her, and we did see improvement. She became relaxed enough to eventually tolerate the machine.
She still didn't want any interaction with us herself.
Then the kittens got sick with conjunctivitis.
Around day 14, all three developed eye symptoms. We took them to the vet and they were diagnosed with herpesvirus/conjunctivitis and prescribed treatment.
Because they're still spicy about handling, giving the medication means catching them and making kitten burritos to safely treat their eyes.
This was extremely stressful for mom to witness.
Whenever we had to handle/restrain a kitten for treatment, she would run away and hide inside a box.
The kittens themselves also hide afterward but they recover and go in play mode. They play, eat extremely well, interact with us and generally seem completely fine aside from needing their treatment.
Why we separated them
After discussing everything with our vet, we decided to separate mom from the kittens.
The reasoning was that the kittens are already around 14 weeks old, eating independently and need regular treatment and human interaction.
Meanwhile, mom was adjusting to indoor life for the first time at ~5 years old, to humans, dealing with unfamiliar household noises, monitoring three extremely active kittenss, watching those kittens increasingly approach humans she is terrified ofw and seeing us restrain them 3 times a day for medical treatment
We wondered whether removing the responsibility of constantly monitoring her kittens might allow her to decompress and start adapting to indoor life at her own pace.
Our biggest ope, if possible, is eventually to socialize her enough that she could be adopted.
However, we're also trying to be realistic about what is fair to a ~5-year-old cat who has lived outdoors her entire life. We don't want to force months of extreme stress on her simply because we would prefer an indoor-adoption outcome.
Mom has now been separated from the kittens for 5 days.
She is in a different foster home entirely, so she cannot see or smell her kittens.
There are two resident cats in that home, but they do not enter her room.
Her foster has provided multiple safe hiding places and is giving her space.
For the first few days after separation, mom meowed/called for her kittens.
Now she spends almost the entire day hidden.
She mostly comes out at night.
She doesn't play.
She doesn't really explore while people are present.
Sometimes she seems to simply sit and stare.
She is eating, drinking and using the litter box normally.
The kittens, meanwhile, appear completely fine without her. They're playing constantly, eating extremely well, interacting with us and continuing their treatment.
The part I'm struggling with
Before separation, mom wasn't comfortable with humans either but she didn't spend time hidden and staring into nothingness
She already explored primarily at night.
She never played with us.
Her main daytime activity seemed to be watching and monitoring her kittens, and she would play with them.
So I'm wondering whether what looks like "shutting down" is actually just the absence of the kittens revealing what her baseline behavior around humans currently is.
Or did we remove the only source of security/familiarity she had in an environment that was already terrifying to her?
It's only day 5 in the new foster, after only 14 days indoors before that, so I realize this is an incredibly short amount of time for a 5-year-old semi-feral cat.
For experienced feral/semi-feral fosters, I'd really appreciate your thoughts:
Would you consider this behavior normal at day 5 after both separation from her kittens AND moving to a completely new environment?
Would you continue the separation and give her more time to decompress, or would you consider reuniting her with the kittens after their treatment is finished?
Could her kittens have been functioning as a social buffer/security blanket, or could keeping them together actually make it harder for mom to adapt because she's constantly focused on monitoring them?
What specific behaviors would you use to distinguish "terrified cat decompressing" from a cat whose welfare is genuinely declining in foster?
How long would you personally give a cat with her background before evaluating whether indoor socialization is realistic?
This is probably my biggest question:
- At ~5 years old, after living outdoors her entire life, having at least three litters, and still getting user to human approach even with gabapentin, would you personally continue trying to socialize her for adoption? Or would you start considering whether a safe outdoor/community-cat placement would ultimately give her better quality of life?
We're not expecting her to become affectionate in days or even weeks. Slow blinking at us and eventually eating in our presence already felt like significant progress!!
I mainly don't want to mistake "this cat needs much, much more time" for "this cat is miserable and we're pursuing the wrong outcome for her."
Our priority is her welfare, even if the best outcome for her ends up being different from the indoor-adoption outcome we originally hoped for.
I'd especially appreciate experiences from people who have fostered adult semi-feral mothers after their kittens were weaned/separated.