Day 55 - March 13, 2006

I really am struggling to think what to write today in both kitten diaries. Mainly because very little has actually changed with our babies As I type this entry they are all sound asleep (peace at last) but for the first time in about a week, they have chosen to sleep on their normal kitten bedding here in the back room with me, rather than sleep on or under Graham's desk. The Pints made me laugh last night after dinner. I was sitting on the floor in the lounge room watching the BIS judging for Crufts on the TV and the Pints were playing chase throughout the house and they were so incredibly funny. I am sure I spent more time watching them play than I did watching the actual TV. Guinness is just so incredibly fast and no matter how hard they try, both Caffreys and XXXX really do struggle to catch her. She is so incredibly agile and can flip and turn in the air, totally change direction, before they even realise she is no longer in front of them. When they did catch her though, then the wrestling and biting began. She may be small but she sure knows how to use her teeth and on more than one occasion she had sent them both running after a nip to the ear or the leg. Their chase games last night went on for a good hour. All 3 of them love Grahams' work surface and they spend an awful lot of time exploring it, climbing in and out of the video units behind the desk, walking all over his keyboard and Guinness has discovered that the small fish tank is a wonderful place to sleep on top of. Our babies are all still on their home cooked meals as well as dry biscuits (which has reminded me to tell you that after Guinness had her dinner last night, she left the plate but then went and had some of the kitten biscuits as well which I was really pleased about) and all 3 seem to have quite good appetites which is really excellent. As per usual, I am still trying to get more weight on Guinness and while she is doing incredibly well, I am just watching her like a hawk, not only at every meal time, but also when she is playing, and also when she is in the litter tray. The poor girl probably feels like she is being stalked because whenever she does anything, I am monitoring her. The reason I am doing this is to look for any possible signs, no matter how remotely small, that perhaps something is not quite right, hence her size. So far though, there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary at all which I am really pleased about. Caffreys and XXXX are absolutely no bother at all with regards to their size. They are progressing very well and I am still convinced they will have their monster father's build whereas Guiness is going to be the typical slender Oriental than she should be. Remembering of course that Orientals are much more "svelte" than Siamese (in my personal opinion anyway).

Day 54 - March 12, 2006

Both diaries are exactly the same today and without any photos unfortunately. The reason for this is that quite simply, I've not had the time to get the diary done. We spent all of this morning and part of the afternoon cleaning out the garage and getting rid of a load of junk and then we spent some time with the fish tanks and those 2 jobs really took up the majority of the day. Then in the afternoon, we had the most wonderful visit from Dave and Jan. It was so great to see them again and they had some lovely cuddles with the babies, some of whom proved that they really as as mischievous as I have been saying, particularly Ned Kelly! It was such a really lovely afternoon just spending time with our friends, and showing off our cats and kittens yet again. They were also able to verify that Graham has in fact "stolen" my babies as they now spend the majority of their sleeping time either on or under his desk. Their play time however is spent all over the downstairs part of the home. They haven't really ventured upstairs yet, but I am sure that will happen during the next few weeks.

Day 53 - March 11, 2006

This morning's diary starts of with the most wonderful news about Guinness. When I gave the babies their 5th' meal of the day yesterday, Guinness would eat it again (this was a home cooked meal), so I went into the kitchen to prepare the Hills A/D for her and by the time I came back into the back room, I was stunned to find her at the kitten biscuit bowls eating the biscuits. She has never done this before so this was just amazing. I am guessing that she thought that as the food on the plate was not to her liking, rather than starve she would have to eat the biscuits. This is not the only good news about Guinness though because last night at around 10pm, I came back downstairs to feed the babies their last meal of the evening and as their previous 2 meals had been the mince, I wanted them to have something different so I opened a tin of Hi Life put it on a plate, warmed it up slightly and took it out to the babies and Guinness, dove in there like a shot and she ate, and ate, and ate. I was totally stunned. Up until this point, she would turn her nose up at everything that was offered to her, except the A/D which she would eat reluctantly, but there she was, around the plate with the rest of the Pints and the Bush Rangers, eating as normally as everyone else. She was also not the first to leave the plate either so she was really enjoying it. This is just the most tremendous news ever and I am sure that when her new "mum" reads this entry today she will be over the moon, because she and I have been in touch with each other constantly via email to discuss Guiness' eating situation and her size. Which brings me to the THIRD piece of good news about Guinness and that is that in the last 24 hours, she has gained 23 grams!!!!!!!!!!!! She has not done this in such a very long time.This morning, when I fed the babies their breakfast, they were given some mince with a little Hi Life mashed in with it. The reason for this is that I wanted Guinness to eat the mince as well and I thought if she could smell and taste the Hi Life as well, then she would hopefully eat the mince, even though she has always rejected it. I was thrilled to see her eat just like everyone else yet again. We do have a long way to go though before I am going to be totally happy with her remembering that she is a lot smaller than everyone else, but now that she is eating normally, I'm hoping that we will just continue to go forwards from here on in. I really should make some comments now on our darlings XXXX and Caffreys before Teresa and Elaine think that I have totally forgotten about their fur children altogether. I just glanced in the lounge/dining area and as I write this entry, XXXX in playing on top of the glass coffee table, whilst Caffreys is playing around Graham's work area, along with the other babies. If I had to describe those 2 in just one word, which is not easy, I would have to say that they are such a delight. They are both very happy, very confident babies with the most gorgeous Chocolate colouring, just like their mum and dad and they are so very playful. You would actually think that as Caffreys is the boy, he would be even more boisterous than his sister but that is simply not the case as XXXX loves to play rough and tumble and she will explore absolutely anything and everything. Having given the babies full house access has made a real big difference to Caffreys and XXXX because they are at their happiest when they are running around the home now. I also have a feeling it won't be long before they have a new playmate because Cointreau discovered the babies for the first time ever this morning. Normally when the babies are roaming about, she has been upstairs asleep, however this morning, she must have heard the commotion (they were hooning around like lunatics) and she has come downstairs just in time to be almost knocked over by XXXX who was being chased by Joe Byrne. Cointreau couldn't believe her eyes at this "little creatures" she was seeing and as she watched them play, you could just see her eyes light up. Remembering of course that despite her rather large and long size (she is as tall as Amarula now and she is only 6 months old!), she is still very much a young kitten. Neither Caffreys, nor XXXX had any fear of her whatsoever and they have been playing very close to her with no problems at all.

Day 52 - March 10, 2006

Both diary entries start off exactly the same today because we've had a rather radical change concerning the Pints and the Bush Rangers. First though, I must say a big thank you to: Kim; Sue of Aupeline Bengals and Sokoke; and Rita of Boberg Siamese for their help, advice and the sharing of their own experiences with me. The only way that we breeders are ever going to continue to breed confident, healthy babies is if we have an open lifeline of support to each other. This is so important for all breeders, regardless of how long or how little they have been breeding. Right, now onto our radical change. As anyone who has been reading these entries knows that I have not been particularly happy with the babies and their eating habits. Some days they will eat, other days they won't and I've always felt that they could weigh more than they do. So I've had a long, hard think about a number of aspects of my kitten raising to try and come up with a solution to solve the weight issue. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems is all this commercial "wet" kitten food such as tinned food and pouches. I do personally believe that they do not help at all when it comes to keeping babies at the correct weight and I think that by feeding these foods I am putting too much rubbish in their bodies. With this in mind, and having been giving excellent advice from my breeder network, I made the decision to stop virtually all commercial foods and as of yesterday lunch time, the babies have been on home cooked meals and absolutely no tinned or pouch kitten foods at all. The home cooked meals consist mainly of different varieties of mince, i.e. rabbit, lamb etc. and with things mixed in there such as egg yolk, a bit of cheese, some natural yoghurt, sometimes some pilchards in tomato sauce which they love. Now these home cooked meals are obviously taking quite a lot more time to prepare but it is definitely worth it and is definitely making a difference. The babies absolutely love these home cooked meals whereas before, when they had the wet kitten foods, only some of them would eat it and others would turn their noses up but as soon as I put down a plate of food for them now, they all can't wait to get to the plate to eat it. Our babies are currently having between 5-7 wet meals a day, so now the majority of those meals are all the home cooked ones, one of the meals will be either Liquivite or Hi Life which is one of my preferred wet foods, and the other will be something like cooked chicken, or scrambled eggs, or steamed fish. The new diet is working wonderfully well so far but the one thing I must be sure of to make sure that they are still getting the correct amount of vitamins etc. which may be lacking in the home cooked meals. I'm very lucky in that Kim is advising me on this and will be making sure that the babies are getting everything they need. I will add here also though that the James Wellbeloved dry kitten biscuits are still left out 24 hours a day in their bowls. I do not want to cut out all commercial foods altogether and I know that some people do have concerns about dry kitten/cat biscuits, but I can say that our adult cats all do extremely well on the James Wellbeloved. Now onto the babies themselves...........................

I am still working extremely hard with Guinness and her eating habits which I am far from happy with. She is the only child who is not touching the cooked meals yet, but then she didn't like the kitten wet food meals either. So she has a diet of her own which is consisting mainly of Liquivite and Hills A/D for the time being but I have every hope that I will soon get her eating just like everyone else. She has made some small weight gains today which I am pleased about and I'm going to just keep working with her until she gets her through her beautiful albeit thick head, that she is going to eat and she is going to gain weight whether she likes it or not. Caffreys and XXXX are changing more and more each day, not only in physical appearance, but also in other, smaller ways. For example, during the day now, it is very rare to see them feeding from either of the mum's. When they have been snoozing in bed with mum and then wake up, after a few minutes of play, I feed them straight away and they are relying less and less on mum's milk. When all 3 Pints are awake now, I must be honest and say that I don't see them as much as I used to because they no longer want to be in the back room with me. They are "big kittens" now according to them so their waking time is spent running about the rest of the home creating havoc.

Day 51 - March 9, 2006

I am only responsible for the last 3 photos in today's entry as Graham took the other photos last night after dinner while the babies were playing. As you can see, they really enjoy their games throughout the rest of the home now and when approached by our older cats, they are no longer phased by them at all. Also, our older cats are fascinated with the babies now and will happily sit down out of the way to watch them play. All except for Toussaint that is because this morning, Caffreys was over near the door about to go into the front entrance hallway when Toussaint, who was on the other side of the room, crouched down in pounce position, took a quick look to ensure that "mum's" were not watching, and she bounded over to Caffreys, right up to him, and then ran away. I do think she was expecting him to chase her because she really is a big kid at heart. Caffreys however, wasn't really interested as he was on a mission. Both he and XXXX are growing quite rapidly although some days I look at them and think they are too small, yet other days I look at them and I think for 7 weeks of age they are as they should be. As we know, Guinness is an awful lot smaller than her brother and sister. I'm going to try a slight diet change over the next few days though to see if i can actually get some more weight on the babies. Not really that much of an entry today as I have quite a big workload to get through today.

Guinness is the first of our babies to go up the stairs. She is such a clever girl. All morning the doors have been opened so the babies can go wherever they like in the home and I happened to be walking past the stairs to find Guinness going up them, she got half way up and then sat down and "surveyed" the world. I stayed there watching to see what she would do and then Drambuie came down the stairs from the upstairs hallway so I am presuming that Guinness saw her mum go up the stairs and figured if it was good enough for mum then it is good enough for her as well. She wasn't even phased when Cacao also came down the stairs and stopped to give her a sniff which was lovely. The biggest problem Guinness had today is when I went upstairs and came back down to be told by Graham that he had to get up and rescue Guinness from her mother as Amaretto did not want her baby out and about and so was trying to drag her all the way from the lounge/dining area into the back room. As I am writing this entry I have turned around to see where the babies actually are and we have: XXXX asleep on the kitten bed; Caffreys asleep in the corner of the kitchen doorway; Joe Byrne asleep in the doorway leading from the back room into the lounge area; Ned Kelly sigging near the radiator in the lounge area; and Guinness in the front entrance running around playing with her imaginary friends.

As you can see (hopefully) from the photos below, our Pints are full of energy and at 7 weeks of age they are turning into "proper little kittens" now. Some days I look at them and think how mature they are, then other days I look at them and think they are still my little babies. For a few hours yesterday, and again this morning the door to the back room has been open so that our adult cats can come in and out and our babies can wander throughout the home. They are really enjoying this extra freedom and are having a wonderful time exploring the rest of the home. So far none of the Pints have ventured upstairs yet but the braver they get and the older they get, they will soon be running riot throughout the entire home, upstairs and down. They are slowly getting used to the adult cats although at this stage, they are still a bit wary of them however they are more than happy to accept our 2 dogs without any problems at all. I have such a total mind blank now and can not think of anything else at all to put in this entry so rather than sit here staring blankly at the page for half an hour as I have just done, I'm going to finish it here and hopefully you won't be too disappointed with the lack of text because there are so many photos to look at :)