Niki, Our Super Savvy and Generous Neighborhood Cat!

In all my years on the farm, I have never met an animal quite like Niki. About 5 years ago, we noticed 2 absolutely adorable kittens on our farm. We were surprised because we have livestock guardian dogs. The dogs don’t just let anyone show up on our property. We saw the kittens run under the house, so we decided to put some food out for them. The next day, we noticed a few more kittens. We decided to keep feeding them while we tried to figure out who the kittens belonged to.

We saw a mama cat who looked quite pleased with the arrangement. I asked her what she’d like to be called and heard “Niki”. She is super friendly, and we enjoyed seeing the kittens. We texted our neighbors and asked around, and sure enough, one of our neighbors told us he was missing them all. He told us he started adopting the kittens out to his friends and that’s when they all disappeared. Niki apparently wasn’t happy with her kittens being sent to new homes. So she took matters into her own paws and brought them to our farm.

Our neighbor came over to get his cat and kittens- but the kittens were quite feral and ran off. The mama cat was saying hello to her person. I asked him what her name was. He said she didn’t have a name, so I told him I’ve been calling her Niki. Funny enough, he then told me that he got this cat from a lady named Niki!!!!!!!

We decided that we would try to feed them in a kennel and see if we could catch them for our neighbor. Meanwhile, I told Niki that she has to go home with her kittens. Otherwise, we will have to use a kennel and drive everyone back. Niki appeared to understand me as she started taking one kitten back at a time until we were left with one adorable orange kitten. We figured that was good enough and kept feeding the little orange one.

Niki always outsmarts me. After a few days, she brought them all back one by one!!! She said she took them back home per our agreement but began bringing them back to our farm again. We gave up because free roaming cats do what they please and the kittens were just too cute. Our neighbor was totally fine with this as well.

My husband took charge of spoiling the kittens. He loved feeding them, so it was his job to feed them in a kennel. We like to get feral kittens in this habit so when it’s time to get them fixed, it’s less stressful for everyone.

After the kittens settled in and became full residents of our farm, Niki went back home. She’d occasionally come join them for meals as we fed the cats twice a day in the barn. We didn’t see Niki for a while until a few years later.

My husband and I had a particularly rough heart-breaking day when one of our alpacas transitioned. We were doing the chores with a very heavy heart.

We heard a familiar friendly meow and there she was! Niki was quite skinny.

Our hearts just melted so we fed and spoiled her as best we possibly could.

Well, it appears she was checking how receptive we might be to more of her special gifts… which we weren’t aware of just yet although her skinny figure should have clued us in. We just loved her and bought extra canned food to make sure there was plenty of food for all of the cats. Within a week… she brought all of her 6 kittens to our farm, again…rather proudly showing them off to us.

I can’t even tell you how much money we have spent on cat food and fixing all the feral kittens Niki gifted us. We love animals so we enjoy feeding them and caring for them, but it was getting a little out of hand as you can imagine.

I told Niki that if she stays here with her kittens, we need to fix her as we can’t keep repeating this over and over. She stayed for a few months and never missed a meal with her kittens. So we decided to get an appointment for her. I thought it was most fair to let her know the date of the appointment and how we’d put her in a kennel at night, go to the vet, and then come home before sunset. Kid you not, the night she was to be kenneled- she and her kittens missed their first meal ever and completely disappeared. We were totally shocked but since she was gone, we cancelled the appointment the next morning. As soon as we cancelled the appointment, guess who showed up hungry???

She did have that strange look on her face that told me she knew exactly what she did. To be honest though, I couldn’t really blame her as she loved having kittens and gifting them to us.

Not that long after, prolific Niki brought a whole new set of adorable kittens to gift us… this time, after the kittens were old enough to be without their mom for the day, we made an appointment for Niki without telling her the appointment date. We were way too maxed out with cats and kittens.

Niki was obviously not happy. She kept trying to reach her paws out to smack my husband who was driving. But all went well and she still comes around to join in the meals when she wants.

She has trained all of our dogs to recognize her and greets them all. It truly amazes me how well she manages to stay safe and get around the farm neighborhood. There are coyotes and many dogs in the neighborhood. Her farm is a good 5 minute walk or more from our barn- and she has brought kittens here many many times and kept herself safe all of these years.

Animals are such blessings and we are so grateful to all of these fascinating experiences and adorable kitten gifts from Niki. Long live Niki and all of her kittens :)