Only of interest to cat lovers.

If you're happy to take on the responsibility for it, then I would carry on putting out food for it & try to gain it's trust in the hope that you might then be able to get it to a vets for a check up.

Alternatively if your sure it's feral, you could contact your local cats protection & they could come & trap it. They would be able to give you advice & also they're sometimes able to rehome these sort of cats with people such as farmers who are happy to have them as outside cats. They usually make good mousers.

There is an infection which feral cats are more likely to pick up and the name escapes me. Feline leukaemia now springs to mind and could be passed to your cat if this feral cat has it. You did say that he appears to be a bit moth eaten. You have started to feed it and it it now going to expect food from you, either indoors or out. I think that it would be cruel stopping to feed him in this cold weather.

Cats Protection is a good idea but I'm not sure the cat is catchable.

That's alright tanith. Sorry to hear about your experience. I just hope everyone is right and this is a feral cat. I seem to remember some years ago there was a litter of ferals spotted not very far from where I live so I am assuming it probably is.

I don't particularly want an addition to my cat population of one. Riverwalk good idea. I could try leaving food outside.

I don't particularly like the cat but I am intrigued to see how tame it would become. Feel a bit sorry for it as well.

Another possibility is to contact Cats Protection, they'll probably be able to advise you. If need be, they will come and collect the cat for fostering/adoption.

Here's a link to their contact page:

www.cats.org.uk/contact-cp

I apologise for my post petallus for some unknown reason I completely missed your paragraph mentioning the cat was feral... as the others have said maybe check with a vet .

Assuming the cat isn't feral and belongs to someone else I would stop feeding it as you are in fact enticing it from its owner and having had that happen to me years ago I know how it feels, it caused a row between us and a neighbour who when challenged said that she thought we should let our cat live with her as we obviously weren't looking after her properly. She'd even given our much loved 12yr old cat a name a bit like you seem to of done...

You obviously are fond of the cat but how would you feel if someone enticed your much loved little female cat away?

I suppose it depends on whether you want an addition to the family, or not!

You could leave food outside so it doesn't come in looking, if you're worried about fleas.

Ring a vet. See what they say.