Only of interest to cat lovers.

Ring a vet. See what they say.

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.

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 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 .

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Cat protection would use a 'cat trap' which is a humane and safe way to catch them. After saying that the kitten who came into my house (uninvited but here to stay) completely ignored the trap (and the food inside) we set up to catch her.
I can understand exactly where you are coming from petallus but would also be concerned for the health of your other cat if he just came to stay without a health check. I am also a firm believer that cats choose their owners so .........................!

I tamed a feral cat. It took a whole year to become totally tame.

Could you get one of those cat flaps that only your cat can use to stop Blackie coming into the house but still feed him outside? The only problem being that, when I saw that cat programme on the telly a few weeks ago one cat was very upset by the number of cats that treated her territory as their own and was scared to go out; this might happen to your cat. My ex has several feral cats, a couple of which will never allow you to stroke them. Like you, I couldn't not give a hungry looking cat food. perhaps you could build him a shelter in your garden, the way that soop did with Rory?

Just think about soop's Rory.

I was just going to suggest the same as Tegan, petallus. If no-one seems to know who he belongs to, he sounds as if he's a stray and may not even be feral - just picking up food where he can. I couldn't not feed him, either, if I thought this was really the case. I wouldn't see it as enticing it away from its owner (if there was one), if the animal was hungry and in poor condition. It may just be that the owners have moved away and the cat's come back to its original area.

Cat's do tend to 'choose' people and you have been chosen. A feral cat had a kitten in my neighbours garden and I was dead jealous; I wouldn't choose to have another cat but if one knocked on my door it would be most welcome.

You could also try putting some wormer in it's food. May turn it's nose up at it but, if it did take it, it wouldn't do the cat any harm.

Wormer! brilliant idea. It seems ravenous so will probably eat it.

I wouldn't bank on it [memories of trying to worm cats over the years; even the dog will eat a piece of corned beef with a tablet in and somehow manage to separate the tablet and spit it out into a corner..and she's a dog of very little brain, bless her].

A trick my son suggested is to squish some Dairylea (other squishy cheeses are available!) around a worming tablet. Worked every time! BTW, I'd tried rvery other trick in the book!

A great idea. I'm sure there were some tablets that had to be taken without food [usually the golf ball sized ones]. Memories of cats wrapped in towels that seemed to have ten legs and thousands of claws.

Years ago the vet gave me a syringe (minus needle!), and crushed a table into the oil form a tin of sardines, then used the syringe to pump it into the little - er - darling's mouth... it worked brilliantly - she licked her lips a lot, and gave me some dirty looks, but the pill went down every time!

The dog was easy - I wrapped a pill in a bit of cheese, and threw it to him - he caught it and it went straight down. Bingo!

A genuinely feral cat would not come into your house, he's just a stray who probably picks up meals in many places. He doesn't sound like anyone's pet.
If your own cat doesn't mind him then go ahead and adopt him. I couldn't shut out a hungry cat in winter.
If he had fleas he'd have already passed them on to your cat.

and find a proper name, you can't call a self-respecting cat Blackie. Cool cats nowadays are called Dave or Colin or Harold.

I have fallen for a hungry cat and now feed her twice a day. She waits on the deck every morning and evening at the same time as I feed my own cats. I'm not sure whether she is a waif and stray as she seems to be associated with the family whose house is behind ours but she's certainly very hungry and clearly not a pampered house cat. She has now brought her three kittens into the garden – first just to show me, but now they have taken to rampaging all over the deck when I feed her. (They are incredibly cute.) My old ladies, however, do not take kindly to another cat in their garden and Frutiger went absolutely nuts, banging on the sliding doors and growling ferociously at the kittens when they were on the deck yesterday evening. Now it's a problem because I certainly don't want my cats to injure the kittens – mum is capable of running away but they are only tiny – but I don't want my cats to be prevented from going out into their own garden.

I think mum really wants to come and live with us. She stares at the sliding doors when they are closed and has been known to nip in when they are open and I am not looking. We call her LIn (pronounced Ellen), short for Little Intruder.