Socializing New Born Feral Kittens - Day 8 - 13 | Cat Care, Breeds and Resources Blog

They say that kittens born to feral moms will be feral unless you begin to socialize them before 2 weeks old. And, to do that they say you need to spend 20 minutes a day touching them and talking to them. I’ve learned different with Poppy’s litter. Maybe because she is in the house so they are getting more exposure to human smells and sounds.

On Day 10 I started socializing Poppy’s kittens. Poppy and her kits are in a small room between my kitchen and garage. My husband and I go through that room at least a dozen times each a day so Poppy is used to us although she hisses at us most of the time and spits some of the time now that the kittens are born.

Once a day, I feed a soft-food treat to my cats and give Poppy 1 of her 4 soft-food daily feedings (she has hard food and water 24/7). Whenever Poppy hears me calling my cats for their mid-day treat, she waits for hers at the door. When I open the door, she comes running out looking for her dish. She seems to respect the rights of the cats with their food dishes and will only go for them when a cat leaves it. As I said in an earlier blog, Poppy loves other cats. She must have been part of a litter of ferals that stayed together.

On Day 10, when Poppy came into the kitchen, my husband would watch her eat in the kitchen and I started socializing the kittens. As long as Poppy was eating, she ignored the fact that the door was shut between her and the kittens.

Day 9

That’s when I determined that there are 2 males and 2 females. At 10 days-old, the 2 males were hissing. No noise came out of their mouths, but they were hissing. In fact, the striped one spit — seriously — he spit (which I could hear) and when he did, his whole body spasmed. It was amazing. Poppy was training them well.

Anyway, I ignored the hissing and spitting and held the kittens in my lap and rubbed their bodies and talked to them softly. I tried to keep in touch with all of them all of the time. I also rubbed their faces and softly scratched under their chins. I’d also take one at a time and hold it next to my face so that it could feel and smell my breath. The hissing stopped.

Day 11

On Days 11 - 13, I did the same thing. Poppy was done eating in less than 5 minutes, so I only had 5 minutes a day to socialize her kittens, not 20 minutes. On Days 11 and 12 the males still hissed but usually only once. As soon as I began to stroke them, they stopped. On Day 13, they did not hiss at all.

I’ll tell you more about their progress and show you more pictures next time.

Purrs, Frankie

Lee here. I still haven’t seen these kittens Mom keeps writing about. But I see Poppy at snack time. She likes me. Sometimes she even rubs up against me! I like that! Lee out.