Miko is a tabby girl with white details and yellow eyes who was born feral on the country side, close to where we live. She isn't used to human contact and is too wild to give a home. That's why I chose to TNR her like the rest of the cat colony living out here. Here's Miko's TNR story.
Trap time
Miko showed up on the wildlife camera at Little Poul's shelter one night. I expected she would return, but she stopped coming to eat. Because of her short visit in front of the wildlife camera, I decided to explore other places at night. I decided to move the camera to another side of our house and sure enough there was jackpot! The first night I got a short glimpse of not only Miko, but also to other new cats: Nuka and Cola. I started to set up shop here and soon all the cats learned that there was a new feeding station. Miko would visit frequently, often alongside my TNR cat Tommy who was already fixed.
In the spring I tried to catch both Miko and Bozzy at the new feeding station, but I didn't have luck with any of them. At one point Miko disappeared on me for about a month. When she finally returned, she had a big belly and I knew I was too late to catch her. Since she and Bozzy reappeared the same night I actually thought that Bozzy was her baby daddy. Little did I know that Bozzy couldn't be the father since she is female herself, haha. In fact she was pregnant too, I just couldn't see it because of her big fluffy fur. So maybe the two of them had made a little mother group.
So I didn't try to catch Miko for a while because she needed to have her little first and then the kittens needed to be big enough to be without their mother for at least 24 hours. So I waited and waited, but Miko kept looking big! So it was a tough call deciding when to give it a go with the trap again, since I had no clue when she actually had her babies. But at one point she started to come around a lot and ate from the trap, so I thought maybe she was telling me it was time. This time it only took me two tries to catch her.
Luckily she wasn't pregnant again as I had feared and she wasn't sick either! She was a healthy girl of 3,23 kg and she got spayed, vaccinated and ear tattooed (this is how we register cats in Denmark. Read more about it in our FAQ). Usually the feral cats I TNR are so stressed and scared after the vet visit, that they refuse to eat. Miko is one of the few who actually ate something before I released her back out again. She was however, also the only one to pee and poo in the cage haha.
Unfortunately my wildlife camera broke right before I caught Miko. So I couldn't use that to keep an eye on her and see if she came to the feeding station. Luckily I saw her walk away from the feeding station the same night that I released her, so that's a really good sign. Most cats who has been TNR'ed will wait at least 24 hours before going back to the place where they were caught, but Miko is a hungry gal. From now on she doesn't have to worry about taking care of anybody but herself.
Today (2021) I see her hang around a lot with Jolly.
Miko is my TNR number 7 and is part of a local cat colony that I have taken myself upon feeding. The colony appears to take shelter in an old barn sort of building at the next door neighbours, but when I asked them about the cats, they told me they had nothing to do with them and I could "take as many as I wanted to". But I've been told that these people are feeding them and I see that the cats are hanging around on their ground. So I've set up a feeding station as close to this neighbour as possible and right next to the house I've seen them take shelter in. They climb up the trees to the roof where there is a hole in the roof tiles where they can enter the building. So they seem to have a nice dry place to stay and they certainly get plenty of food since I've arrived at the scene. But even if the neighbours did provide shelter and food they didn't seem to care about managing the population by spaying and neutering. Maybe they won't take responsibility but someone has to. So that's why I TNR the feral cats and I hope some day soon it will stop growing and it will stay healthy and peaceful. If you see homeless cats in your neighbourhood please don't look away and hope somebody else will help them. Changes are you are their best bet for survival wether it's getting them to a shelter to be re-homed or using the magic of TNR.