Day 13 - August 7, 2005

Today's entries in both diaries are exactly the same as we had an incident early this morning with Amaretto and one of the babies. I went into the kitten room to do the 7am(ish) feed and when I opened the box, I found Crunchie with his head covered in blood which nearly gave me a coronary. I picked him up and wrapped him in a towel and bathed his head to see just what damage had been done. Very fortunately, it appeared to be a minor scratch and his skull hadn't been punctured which was my first thought. The cause of this was Amaretto. Feeding 8 babies is not easy for her particularly as the babies are quite demanding and have rather horrific fights over the milk bar. This in itself is perfectly normal and the older the kittens get, the more determined they are. The problem is that 8 babies doing this all at once is absolute hell for Amaretto and it would seem that one of the babies has hurt her during the nipple battles and she is rather sore. So when the babies are all grappling for nipples, they are causing her pain, unintentionally, and Amaretto has reacted, obviously nowhere near as violently as I first thought when I looked at poor Crunchie. After bathing his head, there is almost no evidence of anything having had happened to him which is a massive relief. Due to all of this though, Amaretto, the Chocolate Bars and The T's have now all been moved downstairs to the back room. This is where I sit all day long and this way I am with them every minute of the day and can monitor what is happening, as opposed to going up to the kitten room every 2 hours as I have been doing. Retto seems much happier being down here because it means she can go out into the cat run if she wants for a break or she can sit on top of the large fish tank and just watch the box and listen out for any little squeaks. Even though I feel sorry for little Crunchie, I am feeling much more sorry for poor Amaretto because she is the most placid, sweet natured girl in the world and for her to be cranky with the babies to this extent means that they are definitely causing her pain. She is also now on antibiotics to prevent any onset of possible mastitis. I will be so glad when I am able to wean the babies onto more solid, filling foods so as to take as much pressure of Amaretto as possible. We are still doing 2 hourly feeds but quite naturally, the babies still all feed off Amaretto.

Day 12 - August 6, 2005

I won't even describe the trouble I went to with these photos today. Trying to take individual photos of 8 babies is absolute hell, particularly when each baby is also being fed, weighed etc. Mind you, it took even longer to sort them out afterwards than it did to take the darn things. But at least now you can all see just who is who. All of our babies now climb out of the box and when I was doing the main feed/weigh at lunch time, I had to recruit our daughter's help because we had some babies in the box, some babies in the cat bed and as I was trying to feed one, others were climbing out of the bed and the box. I really must start remembering to cut the box holes much higher up. Poor Amaretto is really going to have her hands full in a few days time I think because they all think now that they are able to do exactly what "mum" does and if mum gets out of the box, they do the same and they are not always that successful. The Chocolate Bars are really getting used to being handled by us humans now and when they are awake and lying down in the box, they love it when you stroke them behind their ears and the watch you as you talk to them. They are such happy little babies.

Day 11 - August 5, 2005

We do have some good news in that Amaretto has been eating her dry kitten biscuits today which really is such a relief. Since about 11:00 last night, she has turned her nose up at everything I have offered her and believe me, she's had a massive choice. Our babies are doing quite well and all of the Chocolate Bars are still making acceptable gains each day. As each day passes they are becoming more and more aware of their surroundings and of me and they are all learning how to groom each other now and they are so cute to watch because you see them lying next to each other (or on top of each other) and their tiny little tongues come out and they start licking whichever limb is closest to them and it makes no difference whether or not it is their own or someone else's. Of course, there is always that possibility that they aren't grooming, they are actually indicating that they want food.

Day 10 - August 4, 2005

I'm happy to say that Amaretto is still eating which is such a huge relief for me. I still think it's rather disgusting that she is only eating the Whiskas but better that than nothing at all. I will be much happier when she starts eating her dry kitten biscuits again. There really is so very little to say about the Chocolate Bars at the moment because apart from eating and sleeping, they really don't do a great deal at all yet. I have taken a few extra photos today to make up for the lack of text.

Day 9 - August 3, 2005

Amaretto is finally starting to eat again and what was really sad was the fact that the food that enticed her was Whiskas Junior/Kitten tinned food. She has refused all of the most expensive brands but was happy to eat some Whiskas. Go figure! Today, after weighing time of the Chocolate Bars, our daughter put them back in the box for me while I carried on with the T's, however when I turned around 2 minutes later, it was to see Crunchie had climbed out of the box and was on the vet bed that sits in front of the box looking rather bewildered as if to say "well where do I go now". I think he was looking for his mum because she was in our bedroom and I'm sure he expected to see her when he climbed out and because she wasn't there, he was a bit lost.

The babies are all now starting to get very used to being handled by me and no longer squirm when I hold them. Instead, they look up at me with their beautiful little eyes as I speak to them and you can see them trying to understand what I'm telling them. They are also starting to become more aware of their surroundings now and I even saw one of them (not sure which one) trying to groom his/her own front leg which was so incredibly sweet to watch. We are now giving Nutridrops to Amaretto as well because is looking too thin at the moment although it is no surprise as she has such a massive responsibility with 8 babies and she is quite a small queen herself. Even though we are still feeding all the babies every 2 hours, they do prefer to feed off mum and it is taking it's toll on her. The other problem is that she's not particularly interested in food at the moment. I've tried her with countless different things but nothing is enticing her to eat. We now have a cupboard stocked with nothing other than every brand of moist cat food that's currently on the market. Just as we did today with Tia Maria's babies, we have also sexed (we think) the Chocolate Bars and this is what we have come up with: (the biggest surprise of all being that Twix appears to be female and NOT male as originally thought)

Baby's Name	Colour	Sex
Twix	Oriental Black	Female
Crunchie	Seal Point Siamese	Male
Whispa	Blue Point Siamese	Female
Buttons	Blue Point Siamese	Male

Day 7 - August 1, 2005

It's difficult to believe that already our Chocolate Bars are one week old. Although when I watch them in the box during the times they are awake, they certainly do act as if they are older. You will notice that I managed to take separate photos for each diary today so at least the diaries are a bit more individual. At this stage of their lives, all the babies want to do is eat, sleep and sometimes wriggle about and try to "walk". It can be difficult now to actually think of something to write because the babies really don't do very much at all. Already though, Twix is proving himself to be the most laid back in the litter. With the other babies, when they are moved from the box to the small cat bed etc. they suddenly walk up and start trying to get out however Twix is happy to just chill out wherever he is and being moved around makes no difference to him at all.