An aside

This is one of those posts that will have to link directly to my general disclaimer I’m afraid, please read it before continuing.

I will return to Gustav’s story shortly, but in the meantime I’d like to talk about some of the terms I will used in this blog, and the differences I see in various cats termed “feral”

What follows is all theory that I have developed from my personal experience, and should not be taken as fact.

The most common type of feral cat encountered in the shelter system is that I call an “Unsocialized house cat”. This is a cat with parents who were born as house cats, but who has had little or no contact with humans during their life time. They may be wild and frightened at first, but they can be tamed.

In my lifetime I’ve had more experience with what I would term a truly feral cat, this is a cat who comes from generations of feral cats, and though natural selection has developed traits and instincts not normally seen in house cats. They are most commonly found in rural areas, mostly barn cats (although not all barn cats are feral) but can also be found living in the wilderness. A truly feral adult can, in my theory, never be fully tamed, and can only become what I would call semi feral, a cat that is not afraid of humans, but doesn’t fully trust them either. A kitten born from truly feral parents can be tamed, but will likely always have some of the traits of his feral heritage. They aren’t likely to be lap cats or enjoy lavish attention.

When I was a kid I had a theory that domestic cats could be divided into three subspecies. House cats, barn cats and feral cats (and yes I used the term feral). House cats is pretty self explanatory. Barn cats, I felt, had been developing for so long in the farm environment that they had developed certain traits, although not entire unique to barn cats, they were present in all barn cats. These were both behavioral and physical traits.

Behavioral traits: The barn cats behavioural traits are the same as any truly feral cat. From birth, they have an instinctual fear of unknown things, a fear and instinct necessary to their survival. The first time a house cats kittens see a human they will approach it, but the first time a barn cat kitten sees a human, or other wise senses its presence if its eyes are still closed, it will puff up, hiss, spit and do anything it can to attempt to scare it away. But because of their consistent exposure to humans, they often become semi-feral. I see feral, semi-feral and fully tame as a spectrum, one I will cover in more detail, including specific examples at a later date.

The physical traits: Females were thin, even when raised as a house cat and provided with an unlimited food supply, they would always remain thin. The advantage of this trait was that they would require less food to sustain themselves. all though being smaller than the average house cat, they were tall, when you compare their length to their body mass. Males are slightly larger than females, and more muscular. Both males and females have fairly large ears and long tails, for improved balance and hearing, these facilitated their hunting abilities, the key element to their symbiotic relationship with farmers. It was this symbiotic relationship, which has existed for more than a hundred years, that spurned on these evolutionary changes. The farmers provided the cats with shelter, warmth and supplementary food and the cats kept the barns free of mice and rats.

Barn cats also have a unique social structure. More like a lion pride than a tiger. Our colony, when I was growing up, consisted of one alpha male and multiple females. I actually found a book on this phenomena once, but can no longer remember the tile. I find myself once again tempted to diverge from the subject at hand and talk in more detail about the behavior of our colony, but I will have to save that for another time.

From a young age I have felt that barn cats are a separate entity from the average domestic cat, and should be respected as such, a controversial belief among cat lovers to be sure, and a belief that has begun to change, largely because the barn cats habitat has begun to disappear. As the family farm becomes extinct, so will the barn cat, which is something that saddens me.

I will go into more detail about barn cats, including ethics, at a later date.

Feral cats, as I defined them, were once domestic cats, but have reverted to truly wild animals. They are rare, how rare I couldn’t tell you because they are nearly impossible to spot, and I have only heard about them, never actually seen one. My theory, based on what I felt would best facilitate their survive, was that they are small, shorter than barn cats, but muscular and strong. This way they require less food than the average house cat, but are strong enough to take down larger prey, such as squirrels and rabbits. of course this is purely theory and has no basis in actually experience or fact.

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