Flora, cold and miserable - trying to keep her paws dry

aw, poor cat. lol have to lay a oath for her - of course, as female cats are queens, would have to be a red carpet!

She's one of the ones who is very shy and never come in the house. Something has attacked her and chewed her poor tail: we tried to get close enough to clean it up for her, but she wasn't having it!

nods, no wonder she's shy, I would be too! one can only hope that she'll thaw with the tlc you're providing, and let you help her.

Ooh bring her in near the fire !

Oh, Rose, if she would come, she'd be welcome, but she's a semi-wild feral cat, and she won't set foot in the house. I think she'd be bullied by the others, anyway.

So sad when they won't let us help them :(

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Oh thats a shame Gattina.

It's really difficult at the moment - the cat flap into the cellar is under a metre of snow, and we can barely open the front door for piled up snow, so whoever is out has to stay there. There are some of the deepest tracks I've ever seen, most of them leading to the cat flap or under the car, which is now frozen to the drive. I've been leaning out of the window, calling and calling, so that any of them that can hear me come and cluster at the door, then I can open and shut it very quickly, but the really timid ones are deeply unhappy at being shut in with no way of escape, and are skittering around, trying to hide or wailing.

I was going to suggest a mini-roof over the catflap, but then the access to that would be snowed under as well - and then I rememebred that catflaps are usually put into doors, not walls, so it'd not be feasible to have a snow arch!

you're so considerate, calling them in, but of course you can't leave the door open for long in that weather. is there somewhere to leave food under cover where it won't get snowed over, for the timid ones? but then the other's'd probably scoff it and still come in for more!

We always leave plenteous supplies of food and water and old duvets on shelves in the outer cellar for the shy ones, but it's never exactly warm in there. We come down first thing in the morning to check on them and put fresh food out, and find them in groups of about six, all piled next to each other for warmth, and all fluffed up, watching us nervously.

aw, poor things; wonder if they're this nevous of everything, or just of people, ie what did some person do to make them so wary of others?

*s* can you get pretected tax status as a registered feral cat sanctuary??

Well, we do have funding from the town hall to get any that we can catch sterilised, and the vets at the local animal refuge look after any that fall ill, usually free, or for minimal payment. In that respect, we ARE recognised as a registered feral cat centre. I wish they'd pay for the food, too, as they do over the border in Provincia di Modena.
These are pretty much wild animals, Fran, you wouldn't expect deer or hares not to be nervous of humans, would you? It's mostly the ones who have known us since they were kittens who come into the house, and not many of those will allow us to touch them, or will sit on our knees. For them, we are something of a gravy train.

Good to know that you're recongised locally, even if only minimally so! the food bill must be considerable. Is there any way to set up as a charity? then yoiu could ask for donations. But that'd probably involve ten tons of red tape and an awful lot of time and money in itself. And all the forms in Italiam legalese would be even harder than English legalese, which can be pretty dense!

Understand about the wld ones: natural suspicion and watchfulness are definite aids to survival. ha, curiousity can kill cats.

I've seen documentaries of lions lying down fairly close to, and in full view of, grazing antelope; they knew the lions weren't hungry and so weren't worried by how close they were. Try getting either to stay that close to a human!