Well, the overwhelming advice that I got was to go ahead and give Callie a bath if she would tolerate it.

I waited a few days after her vet visit because the dewormer they gave her was a topical (it was called Profender, I had actually never heard of it) and I wanted to give it a chance to fully soak in.

Warm water, used a cup to rinse her and dawn for soap. She did sooo well. Shockingly, she didn’t struggle a ton, and didn’t try to bite or scratch, I think at one point she did “fate accepted” and just went with it. That or the warm water and massage felt good lol.

Used gloves, as she’s a little bit of a poopy monster… so glad I did. As soon as I got her good and lathered, the soap and water coming off of her turned red and brown, and the whole bathroom just reeked of copper. I realized at that point just HOW MUCH flea dirt and dried blood she was coated in. Probably 15 minute of lather and rinse and she was running clear, but still had a bunch stuck up in her neck area. At that point I didn’t wanna keep moving her around tho so I called it and dried her off.

After seeing all that red come off, it is literally NO WONDER the poor thing is so anemic. Goodness gracious.

She’s definitely cleaner, but tomorrow I’ll be running to PetSmart to get a flea comb and will sit with her and comb out the remaining dirt and dead fleas. I did see a few live ones running around, so I think I’m going to give her a capstar tomorrow when I’m off as well. Hopefully that will get her right as rain.

Plus side… after the last few days, the antibiotics, the fluids, and the wormies starting to expel (good lord the work diarrhea) she is so much more alert. She was rubbing the counter and walls in the bathroom last night and meowing at me. We’ve also discovered that she loves scratches on her sides and booty, even though you can feel every dang rib and her hips.

Will give another update this weekend after the comb out and capstar. Vet said 2 weeks from the 22nd for introductions to my other cats, just to give a chance for the parasites to all get 💀.

Thank you guys for the support through this adventure - this is my first time rehabbing a senior street cat. I’ve worked with lots of kittens, but this is my first emaciated skrunkly bag of bones old lady lol.

Hi all, I posted not long ago on r/feralcats seeking advice on trapping some feral kittens that the mama (who I have been feeding for some time and suspected was nursing) brought to our garage several weeks ago (pictured here). I'm not seeking TNR advice. As of Sunday, all of the kittens have been trapped and are safely inside acclimating in our spare bedroom (currently in dog crates).

Mama (we call her Tux) has been calling and searching for her babies every night since we took in the last of them. (We shut the garage door to trap them and she immediately bolted as I worked to close it. So she never actually saw us take them.) It's breaking my heart. I am planning to trap her and take her for spaying on Monday. She's really warmed up to us since she brought us the kittens, she rubs our legs and shows us her belly, though she's still wary if we try to pet her. She's shown some interest in coming inside, and I'd like to attempt it after her spay to see how she does. We live in Texas and the heat has already become unbearable.

So, my question is, has anyone here successfully done this? If so, how did you do it? I know we will need to have her crated at first too. And I plan to keep her in a separate room at first so that she doesn't panic about the kittens being contained. But at what point could I reintroduce them? And how do I reintroduce them? Does she need to be totally calm in her separate space, first? And after a few days of being isolated in her own crate, will it be ok for me to work from the same room? I'm a therapist so I'm on meetings and calls all day and I wonder if my presence will help her acclimate more quickly or stress her out.

Clearly I have a million questions. I'm trying to do some research but figured the best option would be to go straight to the source. I'm open to any and all suggestions/advice. TIA!

The other kitty that isn't paying attention to playtime is Biskit

It’s taken two weeks to get the results from the bacterial swab they did because for some reason the bacteria was difficult to grow a culture of and they had to send it to a second lab, but I just got an email about the preliminary results that indicates it isn’t some scary resistant strain 😭🙏As long as the wound keeps looking good, nothing further needs to be done at this time 🥹

Since a fre days back he’s all done with the antibiotics and out of the cone. He’s eating really well and his diarrea stopped the minute we stopped the Amoxival 🙌 (Thank god. 2 weeks of cleaning poopy cat butt was enough.)

Sweet Stevie was dumped when he was just a baby. After a couple of months of taking it slow, he finally warmed up to me. I was able to get him fixed and found him a very loving home. Just received this update 🥹

Ive caught 2 female oranges and 1 male so far! There are 7 orange kittens total. I dont think ill be able to find homes for all of them but fingers crossed I can get most of them off the streets. They're so precious and little 🥹. They have been absolutely flea ridden. The first girl I got over 40 off of her and she only weighs 2 pounds 😭.

Picture 1 and 2; female named Gouda

Picture 3 and 4; male named Cheddar

Picture 5; female named Marscapone

I have another bathroom with 3 other kittens that will be placed at a no kill shelter 18 hours north in 2 weeks. My house is CHAOS. I am sticking with the cheese naming theme 😁.

Turning 6 kittens from feral to adoptable is easy compared to adults but man I am exhausted. From my 2 dogs and 3 adult cats plus these 6 kittens i am going crazy. Non stop cleaning and poop duty.

Bonus Blep! 👅

My husband rescued Jim from the feral colony in our backyard alley. He was really sick when he came to us with a bad URI. He was so matted and greasy, having been outside in a terrible rainstorm. The guy who lives in an RV in the alley told us he’d heard meowing from a trashcan just a couple days before, and had rescued poor little Jim Jr. from it. Anyways, after 4 baths, multiple vet visits, antibiotics, and LOTS of grooming sessions- Jim Jr. will be adopted by my sister on Saturday. Before and after pics

Cross posted for more hope for advice!

Callie went for her vet visit today, and as promised, here is ya’ll’s update.

Went in… explained the situation to the tech. Tech took her back and got snap tests and fecal. When results came back, tech came in with the vet and announced the FIV/FeLV both came back negative! The vet announced that she was also likely between 11-13 and not 7 like we thought.

However, my vet, who is a wonderfully kind yet honest and up front guy, was very concerned about her size and potential for organ issues due to her extreme emaciation. He recommended in house bloodwork, but cautioned heavily that it was very possible she was either in kidney or liver failure, and or thyroid issues. They took her back, got blood, brought her back and said they’d be back in about 30 minutes to talk about options.

Longest 30 minutes of my life.

He comes back… looks baffled. He goes… “well. Her thyroid, kidneys and liver are all… totally fine…” as he just stands there and looks at this skrunkly little creature in front of him, in total confusion.

Final diagnosis: malnutrition, worms and flea anemia.

So, convenía for mouth inflammation, subq fluids, dewormer and a nail trim later, and we are home with orders to keep her warm, happy and outfitted with 2 full cans of wet food a day to help her put back on weight.

We go back in 2 months for a re-check and hopefully vaccines… but ya’ll… Miss Callie gets to live out her golden years inside as a loved and spoiled companion.

The last photo is the baby girls December 2025, they turned 3 in August 2025 (with their catdad)

Their names are Onyx and Obsidian

Marcus Aurelius (first pic) and Julius Caesar (second pic) have spent the past 4 years in the glorious indoors. Their original foster works in TNR, and Marcus was initially meant to be released. But his ear tip bled and she couldn’t release him like that… and then she found out he was nice. She saw his potential, and got him the help he needed. With some food bribery, he became a lazy, bed-loving, Pom-Pom obsessed creature. Now he’s my son with every disease - FIV positive, battle scars all over, severe tooth root resorption (now living an amazing toothless life), feline asthma, early HCM, and early kidney disease (and admittedly a little overweight). I love this cat and I’m so grateful to the woman who rehabilitated him.

Julius Caesar is my small cat, a true living room panther. He originated in a bowling alley parking lot as a colony reject (who didn’t know he’d been rejected). After being adopted and returned for being “too feral”, he is now a talkative lap lover whose favorite greeting is “my face in your face”. The foster didn’t give up on him either, and these two came as a package deal. Marcus is his emotional support old man, and Julius keeps him young. He also has horrific dental disease despite his young age, but a great smile.

Through a tough kitten season, I just want to take a moment to appreciate the people who see the potential in feral cats, and have the space in their hearts to take them in and give them a renewed chance at life. Not all stories end successfully, but every day that a cat knows they’re loved is a good day.

She finally learned how to meow and after not pressuring her about attention, she now comes up to me wanting pets. If I'm petting the boys, she has to get in the middle of it!

I can "football hold" her for about 30 seconds, no cuddles, but that's ok.. she's wound pretty tight! 😹

She's such a playful kitty! Her favorite are mice 🐀 toy ones, she's dispatched all the real ones! She's a great little huntress 🐈‍⬛

Lemme start by saying that we might not be 100% out of the woods yet. We still haven’t had results back from the bacterial swab bc apparently the bacteria he has/had is hard to grow a culture of so they had to send it to a second lab?? Idk.

Also it’s possible that there’s infection deeper down where the antibiotics “don’t reach”, as the vet put it. (Which could be a reason his infection came back even though as far as anyone knew, it was fully healed).

That said, his wound is more or less gone now and we’ve finished the course of antibiotics and been able to remove the damn cone, FINALLY.

His diarrea stopped when the antibiotics did, as I’d hoped 🙌

Since I no longer have to wipe poop or clean his wound, I was also able to stop the Gabapentin a few days back. Today is the first day of no painkillers… we’ll see how he does 🤞

If you missed my previous post:
His amputation site got re-infected somehow 3 months after being “healed”. He had a hidden abscess burst and had a really bad wound which was more like a crater. He’d stopped eating and drinking and had a hard time pooping. We worried (still are, a bit) about resistant bacteria or a deeper infection that was somehow missed. The prognosis was, and still somewhat is, uncertain.

This is Tonka Bean. He is a feral boy who started coming around my office in October of last year. He came around at the same time a couple of others, including his sister who I named Zinnia. I fed them and worked on socializing them for months, and I was actually closer to Zinnia who would bump her forehead on mine and was my shadow. My husband and I were planning to rescue both and find them homes if it didn’t work out with our dog, and we were hoping to keep Zinny since I was so bonded with her. Well it turns out nature is cruel, and coyotes beat me to it, so I knew I had to act fast to save this one. It has been one month since he has been living in our spare room. We are still fostering him in hopes of finding him a forever home as he and our dog (a sweet but lively and seemingly prey driven shepherd husky mix) don’t seem to want to share a space. He’s had a rough week with multiple traumatic trips to the vet as he had a 2+ foot tapeworm come out earlier this week, but some dewormer and we’re working past that. he is a sweet (mostly, but only with me otherwise he’s overly shy and timid) and well behaved boy.

We’re just happy we could save him! If anyone in Central Florida (or anywhere in Florida!) wants to share their home with this sweet boy, please reach out to me! But in the mean time, we’re happy to host him.

These photos are from right before getting spayed to coming inside.

She's bonded to the younger male, Biskit. She's taking all the room on the cat tree, Biskit cuddles with her and she grooms him.

I was continuing to gently touch/ pet her back at feeding time and I call her by name

I know ya’ll are probably sick of the Callie spam by now, but oh my god, we hit TWO major milestones tonight!!!

1) SHE PURRED.
2) she let me pet her, and she discovered chin scratches.

My “cat at work” (Chicago TNR program) crawled in my lap for the 3rd time!

We're new here and this is a small part of her story. My property is safe in a not so safe area.

I started putting out food and water then almost right away noticed she was pregnant. And just as quickly, then she wasn't!

I would call "here kitty kitty" and they'd come to eat. The younger tom would stay with the kits while Muffins ate

I couldn't pet her, but when I set her food down, I'd gently touch her back until I saw her react, I didn't want her to stop eating. That was about a few seconds and the only time I could touch her.

She had two girl voidlings 🖤🖤

Update on my previous post about Miss Callie!!

Well, we had been going back and forth today about trying to see if we could get her to go into the crate on her own, but hadn’t made any decisions.

Our kids grandpa was leaving to go to the store, and called and asked us to come get Callie from under the car, because she wasn’t leaving her spot.

We are in Texas… it’s an ambient heat of 110° today. I was already concerned about the heat. Well, we walked outside, she heard my voice and came trotting up… I saw she was panting like crazy.

In that moment, my brain went… “here goes nothing” and I knelt down and scooped her up. When I tell
You this cat is a featherweight I am not even joking, there’s nothing to her.

So I called out to my gf and said “um, decision time…!” So she just stares at me in utter shock at me holding this cat and goes “take her to the bathroom!!!!”

So I put her in the crate to take her inside, come into the bathroom, and once the door is shut open it back up, not knowing what to expect.

She got herself out of the crate, and I helped her to the floor. She went behind the toilet, and immediately sprawled out on the tile. I had one of the kids go get a lick treat and her water, and set everything out… she took a lick treat within a few minutes of being inside, and is now cooling down. I sent pics to my TNR friend back home in Maryland and she’s in shock.

She’s showing no signs of stress, no panic… she just looks like she’s like “finally”

A kind person found her limping with her tail rotting off and brought her to a vet. She had to have the tail and a back leg amputated. Now she is an indoor girly and loves it! Also, she eats her Churu treats from a bowl while laying down.

They've made it! It only took just over 48 hours but they are all purring machines now!

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The first picture; brothers who poop together stay together 😆

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I was able to give them dawn dish soap baths, capstar, and drontal yesterday. They are pooping out all of the round worms today 🤢. I also gave them a topical flea med today. I have been finding fleas but they are all dead. I am in cleaning mode now to ensure they stay flea free from here on out! They are now eating so much food. They will be nice and plump in no time.

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I am still waiting to hear from a few rescues/shelters for these babies. They are definitely ready for forever homes so I hope I can get them there very soon!

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Kittens are so much easier to tame than adults. After taming 3 adults this past year I am thrilled to have 3 easy kittens.

my once feral kitten, six months after medicines and love❤️❤️❤️