Hi, everyone! I'm currently feeling a little anxious about a dilemma I have, and I'm hoping to get your advice!
There are three cats we have been feeding in our backyard for some time. One is an adult male, one is an adult female who looks like she's around a year old (at the oldest), and one is their kitten who looks about five months old. We are finally trapping them tonight to get them spayed and neutered tomorrow (yay!), and I had planned on having the kitten recover in our spare bedroom with plans to eventually adopt her (we also have two other cats) and release mom and dad. However, as I've been watching them the past few days, I've started to become worried that the mom and kitten are bonded and that it would be traumatic to break them up. The mom is skittish but has slowly started to come up to me the past few months, but I'm worried that she wouldn't want to be tamed. I don't know how she is doing as far as finding food on her own because she was small when we first starting feeding her and was clearly very, very hungry. However, I hate to also return the kitten to a life as a feral when she could live a longer, safter, healthier and happier life with us. What to do? Any advice is appreciated!
There are three cats we have been feeding in our backyard for some time. One is an adult male, one is an adult female who looks like she's around a year old (at the oldest), and one is their kitten who looks about five months old. We are finally trapping them tonight to get them spayed and neutered tomorrow (yay!), and I had planned on having the kitten recover in our spare bedroom with plans to eventually adopt her (we also have two other cats) and release mom and dad. However, as I've been watching them the past few days, I've started to become worried that the mom and kitten are bonded and that it would be traumatic to break them up. The mom is skittish but has slowly started to come up to me the past few months, but I'm worried that she wouldn't want to be tamed. I don't know how she is doing as far as finding food on her own because she was small when we first starting feeding her and was clearly very, very hungry. However, I hate to also return the kitten to a life as a feral when she could live a longer, safter, healthier and happier life with us. What to do? Any advice is appreciated!