Sounds familiar! Thank you for trying to take care of this kitty.
Originally posted by BethR
1. Should I really think about adopting a very shy, stray kitty into a home with 6 people - one of which is a 9 year old who will "love" it and won't be able to keep her hands off of it?
Yup! At such a young age, you have a fairly good chance of getting him/her socialized still so (s)he'll be okay with everyone in the family. Most likely (s)he's going to attach him/herself to the one person who befriends him/her first, but (s)he may still be friendly to the rest of the family. You probably will end up with one of thsoe kitties who runs to hide under the bed when guests come over, but is still lovable to the family.
2. We already have a 4 year old cat - is it a good idea to adopt another? Will they kill each other? 
Our cat is female - what if this little one would be a male? Are there pros and cons?
Yup, it's still okay! If you only have one cat, your new cat will most likely love the companion once they establish a pecking order. You will need to keep the new kitty separate from the resident one for a while at first and do a slow introduction. Do you know how to do that already, or would you like instructions? Also, gender doesn't really make any difference. They'll both most likely fight at first while they establish a pecking order, and there'll be an occasional squabble after that, but given time they most likely will at least tolerate each other and at best become the best of friends. Gender shouldn't make any difference if your resident cat is spayed and if you get this new cat neutered/spayed shortly after getting it (or at an estimated 6 months of age if you can get a good age estimate -- it's actually healthier for the cat to wait until about 6/7 months of age to speuter, but you don't want to let a girl go through her first heat if you can keep from it, so if you don't know the age it's better to do it early rather than late.)
3. And ideas on how to "befreind" this little critter? We have been putting out food and water. Should we add something more "enticing" - like tuna?
Yup! Start by leaving food out for him/her. I would go with moist food for such a young kitten if you aren't already doing so, but if all you can do is dry then that's better than nothing. What I did with Maribelle when I was trying to catch her (the stray that some friends and I caught who now lives with those friends) was use half a can of the Sience Diet chicken kitten moist food. If you do go with moist, I highly recommend going with one of the "higher quality" brands like Science Diet or Wellness or IVD. Best from the general grocery store is probably Iams. Yes they're more expensive foods, but they're better for the health of the animal.
What I would do is start by leaving food out in the same place every evening. Once you've been doing that for a week or so, put the food out again as normal, then back away about 15-20 feet and sit down if you see him/her. Make sure you sit down and stay still, and see if the kitten comes out to eat as long as you're sitting down. If it won't come out while you're sitting down (you will have to be patient and no loud noises), then back off so that you're mostly out of sight. Slowly work your way up like this by moving a few feet closer each night, as close as the kitten will allow. Stay outside while the kitten eats until it either runs away or starts grooming.
After you've been sitting outside while it eats for a couple of days, start speaking in soft, gentle tones. Just carry on a conversation with the kitten, get it used to your voice.
Slowly, you should be able to work your way up to being able to sit less than 5 feet away while the kitten is eating, and you may be able to work your way up to being right next to the plate.
Once you get to that point, it's time to try and start catching the kitten. If you can bring yourself to do so, the best way to do that would be to not feed the kitten for one night, then go get a live-trap (ask at your vet's -- frequently you can either rent them at the vet's or they'll know where you can get one temporarily). After the kitten hasn't been fed for one night, put some tuna and a little bit of its food at the back of the live trap. Set up the trap as per instructions, and try catching him/her with the trap.
The reason I say "if you can bring yourself to do so" is because I never did have the heart to have Maribelle go one night without food
Therefore, it took us several weeks longer than necessary I think to catch her
It's also best to go with a live trap immediately instead of trying to catch the kitten in a carrier. I speak from experience. If you mess up once with the carrier, you'll have a much lesser chance of catching the kitten with anything. We lucked out that Maribelle trusted us enough to finally be trapped using the live trap because after our failure with the carriers we never would have caught her if we hadn't had the trap.
Expect minor injuries when you use the trap. Most likely a small cut somewhere. Maribelle had a small cut on her nose, but it wasn't at all bad. They can't hurt themselves too badly on a live-trap -- that's the point of a live-trap
I would strongly advise against touching the kitten, no matter how much you want to. If the kitten has ringworm, you can pick that up yourself. Ringworm, despite the name, isn't a worm as I understand it, it's a bacteria instead that is easily transmitted to humans.
Also, there are other diseases that you have a chance of picking up from him/her and, while harmless to humans, you could transmit them to your current cat. I'd take a very close look (from a distance, of course) at the kitten and see if you can get a general idea of its health. How do its ears look, what about the eyes, fur? Check the back of the tail for signs of rear-engine problems. All of this without touching the kitten if you can keep from it.
Most likely, those precautions are unnecessary -- the most likely things the kitten will have are worms and fleas, and possibly none of that. But you don't want to take a chance if you can keep from it. That's another reason for keeping your current cat from contact with the kitten if possible until you can have the kitten checked out by the vet.
Now, a lot of this is probably unnecessary -- you might be able to start right away with the live trap and have success. But IMHO it's better to build up a trust relationship with the kitten and then catch it if possible. If it trusts you, you can get it to calm down faster and it might feel more comfortable being confined if it already trusts you. At least, that's what happened with Maribelle.
The time to bring out tuna is when you want to entice the kitten to you and are doing something different. Like when you first stay out with the food, leave a little tuna. When you start getting pretty close, leave a little tuna, when you use the trap, use a little tuna... that kind of thing.
4. We want indoor cats - do you think that this little kitty could learn to stay indoors IF we we would ever be able to get it?
Any other comments on things that I haven't thought of would be greatly appreciated!
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GOOD FOR YOU!!! THANK YOU! Yes, yes, yes, it is entirely possible to turn an outdoor cat into an indoor cat as long as you provide enough things to excite your new kitten indoors. If you want some great tips for that, I'd pick up the book "Think Like A Cat" by Pam Johnson-Bennett. (No affiliation, just a happy customer ) There are excellent cat-care instructions there, including how to keep your cat from getting bored. A bored cat finds no reason to go outdoors most of the time.
This will not be an immediate thing. It's going to take patience, patience, and even more patience. Don't be concerned if you make a mistake and (s)he starts getting skittish again -- you will most likely have several ups and downs in the process. Keep at it, and if luck is with you, you'll have a new family member soon. With Maribelle, it took us about 2 months to get to the point of trying to catch her, and another month or so after that before we actually did catch her (though part of that was delay on our part instead of hers). Maribelle also started out shy and skittish, and she's still rather shy with strangers but fairly friendly with her new owners and with me.
Also, once you do catch him/her, it's going to take a lot of patience and working to get him/her to be gentle. I strongly advise NOT playing with your hands or any other toy that puts your hands very close to the claws and teeth. Maribelle's new parents have several scars on their hands by not listening to that advice as they're trying to train her Warn your kids to be careful as welll because a kitten in the wild learns to MEAN BUSINESS when using claws and teeth, while a kitten raised by hand learns to be more gentle. You can train a wild kitten to be gentle, but it's going to take time again.
Thanks for caring about this kitten!!
If you have any other questions I can help you with, feel free to PM me!
Cali was a stray, but she wasn't shy, we opened the door and she ran right in the house, never to leave, even when Simba, occasionally, jumps on her. She gets him back, however.
Hope you get kitty!
