Originally posted by SpencerTheLion:
It can also be a good taming tool.
Yes, I found this out when I fostered some feral kittens. Their mother was dying, and even though they were weaned, the woman whose backyard they commandeered wanted them gone. Me and a friend rounded up the kittens, I took them home and realized they were extremely malnourished (one was othing but bones). Since there were four of them and they had never felt a human touch before, I thought it best to take the worst to the vet. Cats are very peculiar in that once they feel like they are dying, they stop eating. Once that happens usually nothing will save them. The vet said he thought this kitten was days away from that point, and to save him (and his brothers and sister) I was going to have to force feed. He said to make it really good, like some chicken and rice cooked and put in a blender. So I did that. It took a couple of sessions, but Chili finally started licking a tongueful here and again off the spoon I offered him. Each time he ate more, and then I started on the others, even though they had been eating the food I had for them. It only took a few days before they were associating me with this good stuff, and they soon started trusting me and venturing out of their box in the bathroom. After several weeks they had all gained several pounds, and one by one they were tamed and adopted, except for Hissy face who never did completely tame (he would sleep with me at night, and he contracted pneumonia during his time with me and actually got in my lap then). Hissy eventually went to a home that didn't mind that they only saw him at night on their beds, and all the others went to good people who never knew they were completely wild just a few weeks earlier.