Feral Kitten

So a family of cats invaded my backyard this summer and took over a groundhog hole. Next you know there are kittens. There was one kitten that was soooo much smaller than the rest. A runt or just was not getting fed by the mother. I mean this kitten was three months old earlier this fall and was literally all bones. I knew it wouldn't survive so I started feeding it. It came to the door dutifully in the AM around 8 and PM around 5. Slowly she began to gain weight. As the fall wore on the mother left, then the one other sibling, then finally the father left a month ago. By this time the kitten was allowing me to pet it while she ate.

I decided to take the kitten into my home and "adopt" her as I don't think she would have survived the winter. I am taking her to get her shots and fixed come the middle of January. In the meantime she is eating fine, playing, sitting on my lap as any other normal kitten would do. She also took right to the litter box which shocked me. Right now she is about 5-6 months old. The thing is after finishing her food in the AM she begs to go outside. She goes out, crawls in the groundhog hole where she was probably born, then comes back to be let in at around 4PM. Crazy. I am afraid she may go into heat before she is fixed. At what point do I stop letting her out? I know the signs of a cat going into heat but you never know. Any help is appreciated.

 

wow.....great forum. Lol.

 

I am just seeing this now. Now sure how I over looked it. You probably already have kitty fixed by now but kitten goes into heat by the time they are 6 months old.
I am sure she is a beautiful cat. It is nice that you took her in and gave her the forever home that she deserves. I am sure she appreciates that. I like that she goes
back to the ground hog hole when you let her out. Won't be long before she outgrows it though, if she hasn't already. Again sorry for the late reply but I didn't see this
post until now.

 

Sorry about the late, reply @JRR In my opinion you shouldn't let her out at all already, so she gets used to the fact she is going to be an indoors cat. Unless you want to let her out when she is older... but you got to know that those cats who do spend some time outside tend to live less and are more prone to catch diseases.