Apologies yet again for the rather short entry not going online until the following day. At the moment I'm having a real struggle with Patriot who has been going downhill with regards to the weight and this has been a very concern. All of my time has been taken up with syringe feeding, as well as supplementing but I have made very little progress with her despite everything I'm trying. Everyone else is not doing too badly however the whole situation is made much worse by the fact that Tia Lusso is still in full call, and has been for over a week. She is absolutely relentless and her entire day and night is spent rolling around all over the bedding and chairs, annoying Amarula, and screaming her head off. As each day passes, the calling is getting more and more frantic and this is having such a major effect on the babies as you can imagine.

This is turning into one of those days where I have very little time so the entries are short and the photos are not great at all. All of the babies are very lively and bouncy now, so much so that when it comes to late afternoon, just before dinner, we put our other feline family in the upstairs part of the home and we open up the door to the back room and the babies, and both mums can wander throughout the downstairs. The babies had the time of their lives when they went exploring and the best part was that we really didn't have to worry about where they would go as both mum's were right on their heels keeping a very close eye on their children. We are going to start doing this every afternoon now so that they start getting used to the rest of the home. Normally by now, the door would be opened up all the time so they could come and go as they please and explore, however, I would like them to have a little more weight on them prior to mixing with the rest of our cats.

Patriot gained no weight in the last 24 hours so I am keeping a very close eye on her because of what they have been through, the babies are not in a position where any sort of loss is acceptable so she will be getting extra a/d meals. She is the only one of our babies who hates the a/d and really fights with me when I feed it to her whereas the other 3 Mel's all eat is straight from the plate and do not require any syringe feeding at all now which is such a big relief.

I did have plans to write a lot more today however the photos were so very time consuming that I have just run out of time altogether.

I must start off this entry with apologies to Katie for not having done a kitten video yet. I did plan on doing this but then the babies went downhill and have needed so much extra attention and time, that I've not had the chance to video them. I will try and get some footage of them on Friday if I can. Patriot gave me a scare last night as I popped her on the scales and I looked at the weight chart, found the initial P and saw what the weight had been this morning and according to my calculations she had lost over 100 grams. I was horrified, and checked again, and the calculations were the same. I just couldn't understand it. Then I realised that the weight I had been looking at from the morning, even though it had the initial "P" on it, I discovered that "P" was for Pepper and not Patriot! I had picked up the Condiments' weight chart by mistake, saw the P and thought it was Patriot. I can't tell you my relief when I found the right weight chart and discovered that she had made good gains in the last 12 hours. Just like the Condiments, all 4 Mel's have made very good weight gains in the last 24 hours and they have all been running around the room playing.

Today I am so tired, but it is a good kind of tired because when I weighed my babies this morning, the gains proved to me that syringe feeding every few hours up until 1am was so very worthwhile. I also gave the babies some Nutri Drops with their last feed as well which has also made quite a difference. Some of the gains have been phenomenal, particularly Pepper (who was the only baby not affected), but also Vinegar who had been looking very thin, now looks so much better and he made such immense gains in the last 24 hours. Three of our Mel's are now back over the 500 gram mark, and Patriot who was always the smallest of the Mel's gained 23 grams in the last 24 hours so it is such an improvement. Salt, who is my "worry baby" gained 16 grams in the last 24 hours which does not seem like much at all, but considering that she has been the worst affected by this, then her gain is very good news. I will say right here though that just because we have had such fantastic progress does not mean I can become complacent because a few of our smaller babies are still in what I would call the "danger zone". In other words, the syringe feeding, the Nutri Drops etc. will all go on for quite a bit longer yet until our smaller children are back to normal and I do feel at the moment that we have a long way to go with them. I have also been given some wonderful advice from my good friend, Cathy, because I had emailed her to explain what was happening to see if she had any suggestions (Cathy has helped me so much in the past), and yet again, Cathy sent me a reply which I received this morning, full of useful advice and remedies I can try, not only for this particular problem, but also for other matters that could arise with regards to litters etc. I am so very grateful for all Cathy has done for me. Our entries are the same again obviously but I am hoping that in a few days' time we can resume entries as per normal. Late yesterday afternoon, there were signs of the babies starting to pick up because when they woke up and had created their usual mess with the syringe feeding, I went into the kitchen to start the job of clearing up again and when I came back into the room, I was shocked to see the babies on top of my work surface, having the time of their lives, getting into mischief. This was the liveliest they had been in a few days. I thought it was great, until 10 minutes later, the little monsters would not get off my work top and keyboard and I could not get any work done. You have to remember that the syringe feeding is so time consuming that I'm rushing to get as much work done as possible in between the feeds. In the end, I put all the babies on their kitten bedding, put the mum's with them, and fortunately they settled down for a bit of a nap. When I woke up this morning and came downstairs, I stopped on the other side of the glass doors and couldn't believe what I was seeing because all 7 babies were running around the room and playing (yes, you can tell they have picked up a lot, but again, I will stress that some of them are very thin still and need a lot of work) and I was just amazed. They seemed like totally different babies. It was a relief though let me tell you and as soon as I walked into the room, they all gathered around me and started screaming to be fed, again, this was a first in a while. So I fed the babies, and the only baby who didn't rush to the plate to eat was Salt. Despite me putting her in front of the plate with the others, she still had no interest, however she must have been hungry as she had been running about with the rest of them and she did sniff the plate a number of times, but that was as far as it went. So I went into the kitchen, sorted out the a/d, grabbed a load more towels and started the process of syringe feeding. Even though they ate from the plate, I still syringe fed them as well. With regards to what they are eating at the moment, don't even go down that road please as it's all rather gross at the moment. When the babies had been vomiting and off their food, nothing would tempt them, even though I was putting out about 4 different plates of food for each meal. So now..............................I sort of gave up on that and came to the conclusion that I would just mash it all up together so their meals at the moment consist of a plate of home cooked mince, Hi Life, Pilchards, cooked chicken, Denes and Hills a/d (that's the prescription diet) all mixed in and mashed up together which I know sounds disgusting and to be honest, it looks disgusting as well, especially when I have to get it ready first thing in the morning before I've even had a coffee! However, it is doing the job, and the babies are loving it and that is all that matters. Now their first meal was at about 7:30, as when I get up, the first thing I do is open my my boys in their stud houses and make sure they are okay and have some cuddles with them etc. At 10am the babies woke up again, the little horrors waited until I had just made a cup of coffee and decided that they were hungry. Now I reckon they are fully aware that it takes a minimum of 40 minutes to syringe feed them, and then clean up the mess so while I was feeding the kids, my coffee was sitting in the kitchen going cold. For this meal, my darling little Salt would not get off the bed and go to the plate, so I took her over to it, she sniffed it a few times, she looked as if she were going to try it but sure enough, Patriot decided to join in and she pushed Salt out of the way so Salt just started to walk away. I then put Patriot around the other side of the plate and put Salt back in front and this time she started eating and continued to eat quite a lot. This was brilliant news. Lethal Weapon however, decided that he was not eating it at all, no way. So I didn't push the issue with him, because everyone had to be syringe fed anyway, including him, so I made sure that he was the first with the syringe and he must have been hungry because he had 5 x 5 mil syringes of a/d which was great. Anyway, as this has turned into an epic, I will end it here as I still have loads of washing to sort out (it's 1057 at the moment) plus work to do. There are some photos below, they are not great, and the ones of the babies on the desk were taken yesterday afternoon. The others were all taken a short while ago and they are a bit scary in the respect that hopefully you will see just how thin some of them have become since this started but let me assure you that they have improved greatly on what they were and that should give you an indication of just how bad the situation actually has been.

This is the sort of entry I hate writing because at this present time, I'm not happy at all with the babies' progress so I'll start from the beginning with what's been happening (yes entries are the same again today as this concerns both litters). As you know I've been topping up Lethal Weapon who has been worrying me with his weight, however he is now starting to pick up. As mentioned previously, Tia Lusso came back into full call and has been incredibly restless but since she came back into call, the babies have gone downhill. All of a sudden we had some upset tummies and the babies went off their food. Now I have heard on a number of occasions from other breeders that if a mum comes back into call it can make the milk go sour, so it is possible that could be the cause of the vomiting, or it could just be a simple tummy bug. The only other explanation would be that something that the kittens have eaten but I don't feel this is the case as they have been on the same foods since they started weaning. The worst affected baby has been Salt and ironically enough, the least affected is Pepper who is gaining weight and bouncing around okay, and Lethal Weapon who is also doing just fine. Yesterday the babies did not really move much at all and apart from Pepper and Lethal Weapon, no one wanted to eat at all. It didn't matter what I tried to tempt them with, there was simply no interest. So yesterday was spent constantly syringe feeding a/d to all 7 babies. Today has been much of the same and to be honest, it is very tiring syringe feeding them, in the respect that by the time you have done this with all 7 babies, and then cleared away an incredible amount of mess, towels etc which all need to be washed, it is almost time to start the whole process all over again. Weights are horrendous at the moment, apart from Pepper. I have gone back through recent weight charts as I keep them for each litter I breed as it is a very good comparison for me in situations such as this. I can honestly tell you all that the Planets, who were Sambuca's 1st ever litter were on par for the Mel's and the Condiment's current weights. There is very little between them. In actual fact, one of my Planets only weighed 345 grams on Day 45 and my babies now are bigger than that. That particular "Planet" baby did just fine and is doing incredibly well in her new home and is a year old now. Also, the babies weigh more than the Pints (who recently left me) did at this age and all 3 of them are doing beautifully in their new homes. Having said that, it does not mean at all that I am not concerned about the present situation because let me assure you that I definitely am. Salt is my biggest worry. This morning, everyone else was picking up a little. There has been no vomiting at all today. Pepper, Patriot, Vinegar, and Lethal Weapon even ate from the plate. Salt will not eat anything at all and she fights me every step of the way when I syringe feed her. At this age, the babies are extremely vulnerable in the effect that the immunity that they had from their mum's colostrum has now worn off and as a result they are very susceptible so if they do have a tummy bug, or if they have upset stomachs due to mum's milk, then while it might only seem like a small thing, it is more than enough to just totally knock them for six as the saying goes. So this is where we are with our babies at the moment and it is not a nice place to be in, certainly not for our darling children and I would appreciate any prayers from our diary readers that the babies will soon be back to normal. The photos in today's entries were actually taken early Friday evening as I knew that I would not be able to do photos on Saturday because of the show. The plans were to put these photos in yesterday's entries however, the syringe feeding meant that I couldn't really get an entry online. And just to top it off, poor Mad Max got a horrific poke in the eye, either by Lethal Weapon or Braveheart (not sure which one) as the baby was climbing down the back of the chair so he/she could join the others who were sitting on the chair however the baby was going to fast and put his/her paw out, claws extended straight into Mad Max's eye. He does seem okay however this is something else that I need to monitor.

Apologies for the lack of entry for today. Days following show days are manic and the entire day is basically spent washing, not only the show equipment, but all the kitten bedding, and the normal household stuff. But more importantly a lot of my time has been spent topping up the babies as they have been very lethargic, we have had weight losses and I'm concerned so I did not have a spare moment really to do the diary entries.

Both entries are exactly the same today and there are no photos, well there's not really even much of an entry at all.. The reason for this is that I left here at 6am this morning to go to Cambridgeshire as I was exhibiting Drambuie at the Suffolk & Norfolk Cat Club show and I did not return home until 8pm. This means that prior to leaving, Lethal Weapon had to be syringe fed and then Graham was left with instructions on what to do for the babies. These litters are a bit different in the respect previous litters have all been on a feeding regime and were fed approximately the same times every day and evening. I don't know why, however the Mel's and the Condiment's get fed when they are awake and when they want to be fed. This means that Graham had to keep popping his heard around the corner to see who was and who wasn't awake. When I arrived back home, the babies were all doing just fine and obviously have been in very good hands all day which I knew they would be. I was really pleased to see them though and even though it had been a very long day, the results at the end were totally worth it :)