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[Bartholomew The Pious]

Okay, I know there is a search function, but I really do no feel like using it since it is such a hassle to get specific answers. Okay Bay 12. Now as the title suggests, upon the death of a person, the cats that crazy cat lady or man slowly becomes stray.
Is this an unintentional feature, a intended delay, something that has not been discovered yet, the fact that I live under a rock, or all of the above? Because at first I wondered If I should suddenly butcher them before they get to adopt another dwarf, or it's just that they have finally matured to a cat. Thanks in advance for clarification.

P.S. Interestingly, butchering such strayed cats just after straying from deceased owner will result in a named skull, as if a kitten has just matured into a cat! Interesting, Interesting, never have I seen this in the wiki.

P.S.S. Somewhat false alarm, one cat has managed to produce 6 meats and the whole nine yards. Weird. The first few cats that strayed still produced only skulls upon butchering.

[Kaos]

It has nothing to do with the cat's age.

A stray cat that adopts a dwarf becomes a named pet. If dwarf owner dies, I think the cat becomes available again to adopt a new owner, not sure if it loses the name and gets renamed again when the cat adopts a new owner, based on what you're reporting the cat seems to become stray but keeps the name hence the named skulls when butchering them.

[Hamsmagoo]

I have plenty of animals in my fort that are "available" but also named.  Animals definitely retain the name when they become stray again.

[Raphite1]

They're not "slowly" becoming stray. All of the dead dwarf's cats, both kittens and adults, immediately became stray upon the dwarf's death. When you get the message "X has grown to become a stray cat," that was just an already-stray kitten growing into an adult.

Juvenile animals always produce fewer butchering remains than fully-grown adults, because they're smaller.

[laularukyrumo]

Cats, though, are small enough that, unless you get lucky with body size variances, they'll typically only drop skulls.

Which isn't to say they're not worth slaughtering, because they definitely are.

[Bartholomew The Pious]

I'm still a tad bit befuzzled about my situation concerning the cat's ages. Eh out of sight out of mind. Fully matured cat or not, all their skulls shall be crafted one day into totems.

[Garath]

it could be due to age. The age they become 'mature' animals is not the age they stop growing, so an animal that just grew up still isn't very big. It could also be that you have a 'very weak, extremely thin' cat instead of 'heavily muscled with untold layers of fat'. It really makes a difference