Can u potty train a feral kitten?

Question

i just caught a feral kitten a month she looks about 4 months man she was so wild we tamed her but she loved her cage we had a dog kennel one thats big enough for a german sheppard , we kept it in the kitchen after 1 week we open the cage and let her out she disapeared and got out the front door , nope haven,t seen her a week later i seen her wild again we set a trap again 5 mins later she was in did the cage thing all over again 1 week later open the cage i have 3 kids who hold her all day long .she would leave the cage and run right back in so after 3 days we took the cage away to big for my house ... shes good but in the morning we wake up its like she lost her memory she freaked and hides , the kids found all of her hiding spots they would hold for about 5 mins then she tamed ... she sleeps on my desk and she plays with us a week later she got out again the kids left the front door open she ran to the garage wouldn,t come out of it 3 days later we heard her meow caught her again and shes scared again we had to do the cage thing again for about 3 days and now shes peeing and pooping in my clothes dirty and clean and her litter box is where her cage was she won,t use it ..so i moved the cage outside since its to big for my kitchen but its to hot for her outside we bring her in all the time i had givin up today and left the front door open let her go back where she came from she ran out and ran back in kept doing this for about a half hr then she layed on the porch.. the kids were on the porch ... ive had her prlly about a month she gets so much attention but shes still wild ... anyone know if this tempory memory lost in the morning normal? shes still doing this .. the kids have to find her almost everymorning but now we keep her in the cage but i want her in the house cage free.. and how to keep her potty trained? she seems to have memory lost and has to learn all over again...i don,t know what to do thanks ...

Answer 1

The best thing to do right off is to keep her in the cage for a while. It takes some time for ferals to adjust to the life of an indoor cat. I have tamed and rehomed many ferals over the last few years, so I know it takes A LOT of patience! The taming process is gradual, and because she is still young, your chances of success are much greater.

Keep her in the cage at all times unless you or your children are playing and interacting with her. Especially overnight when she is prone to hiding. Having to hunt her down and dig her out of her hiding places is stressful for her, and likely to make her regress in her progress.

Provide her a litter box in the cage and she should quickly pick up what to do with it. If she doesn't, place a few of her poos in the litter box and she will quickly learn that she is to use that for her bathroom. Cats naturally want to cover their poos, so she should catch onto this idea.

Make sure to take her to a vet and get her a good checkup, bloodwork to test for any diseases, flea preventative, shots and get her spayed as soon as possible! She is getting to the age where if she gets out, she could be in the early stages of her first heat and could come back to you pregnant. It's best to spay her early not only to keep her from having kittens and adding to the numbers of unwanted cats, but it's better for her health to be spayed early.

Best of luck with your feral! Just keep her in the cage for a few weeks and she should lose her wild ways.  

Answer 2

It is definitely possible to potty train a feral cat, and usually once they are potty trained they do it by instinct.

Answer 3

Cats instintively bury their waste. What you're going to want to do, is put her in a crate with a litter box in it, in your house. You probably shouldn't let a feral cat loose in your house until she is socialized, they won't learn how to become good pets that way. You need to slowly open her up to more and more as she adjusts to home life-- good socialization starts with minimizing her space and slowly giving her more. So crate, catbox, and time. She will learn, its like being dropped in a foreign country with no knowledge of their customs and courtesies :)

And of course, have her spayed.