My boyfriend and I recently purchased a 4 month old Bengal kitten from a breeder. When we went to pick her up we noticed that her and all of her siblings seemed very nervous of people, but we assumed it was just because they were getting used to being without their mother and we were strangers to them. We are currently keeping her confined to our bedroom as our family house is quite large and we also have two other older cats in the house. Our kitten has a crate with all of her bowls, litter tray and some toys in but we have slowly been moving those into the room to try and encourage her to come out. She is fully vaccinated.
We have had her for 4 days now and she is still petrified of absolutely everything. She has plenty of places to hide in our bedroom yet whenever she comes out of her crate she is super skittish and walks with her stomach almost touching the ground. She will not come anywhere near myself or my boyfriend and it is very difficult for us to pick her up if we need to move her from somewhere. She has only just started to come out and explore the bedroom but only at night when we are both sleeping. She is eating fine in front of us (if we don't make eye contact with her) and she does use her litter tray but only for peeing, she does her other business anywhere else in the room except her tray. She will not play with any of the toys we bought her unless we are out of the room. We believe she was never socialised by the people who kept her before as she shies away from any human contact and has a terrified look whenever she looks at us.
I understand that it can take a while for a kitten to adjust to their new home, however she is almost 5 months old and we cannot keep her shut in one bedroom forever. I am going to University in just over a month and my boyfriend is going back to work soon after (he will be working 8pm - 6am and sleeping nearly all day) therefore she will be alone very often. We were hoping to have integrated her into the rest of our family and the house before this point so that she will never have to be alone (one member of the family is always in the house 24/7) however at this rate it is looking like she'll either have to continue being shut alone in one room or we will have to give her away. I'm sure she can become a lovely family cat so we do not want to have to do this, but to stay in our family somehow we need to get her to stop being so afraid of anyone and everything so that we can introduce her to the rest of the rooms in our house, the garden, our two other cats and the 3 other members of our family (all adults).
Any advice appreciated! Thanks
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