Taming feral cats

[jessmarimba]

Thought I'd drag this thread back up for a second! So, my outside tortie learned to meow when she went to get fixed a few months ago. She sits outside the back door in the morning and waits for food, and will yell for the other two cats to come eat. She and the calico will eat from a plate if I'm sitting right in front of it (though I get swatted - without claws - for trying to touch the calico). The dad will walk past me but won't eat until I'm at least 4-5 feet away.

But here's a pic I took of them yesterday at dinner time. They have a nest in the tupperware tub or sometimes sleep in the straw under the shelf. Usually they eat on my patio but since there's about 18 inches of snow on the ground I brought food to their house. The calico is my orange cat's momma, the gray one on the ground underneath is his dad, and the tortie is his half-sister (same dad, her mom disappeared a long time ago).