Here we go again with both entries being exactly the same but hey...........at least there are some photos! Right, a few problems this morning (which is why the entries are the same). The first problem is that Amarula is now back in full call, she was starting last night and I was hoping against all hope that I was imagining it but nope, she confirmed it this morning by wandering around the room like a nomad, screaming her head off, whilst carrying a toy in her mouth at the same time, just like her mum does. And yes, before you even ask, this is having an affect of some the babies so I'm thinking in my mind, "here we go again". Will this ever end? I've not experienced anything like this in my previous litters, okay fair enough we've had the odd problem with upset tummies when other mum's have come into call but never, ever to this extent. It's not helped by the fact that the mum's are calling, over and over again and there is not a darn thing I can give them to bring them off call that would not harm the babies through the milk. Now before anyone asks me and no, it wouldn't be a silly question at all, but you may be wondering, why I am not removing both mum's from the babies altogether until they stop calling. Well I am loathe to do this for a couple of reasons, firstly, the babies are still young, and whilst I am aware that some backyard breeders, and indeed, immoral pet shops don't hesitate to sell baby at 6 weeks of age, in my personal opinion, this does far more harm than good. At this age, the babies are still relying on their mum's not only for security, but more importantly, to teach them all about kitten etiquette i.e. how to play, how to socialise, all of which is extremely important and has a huge bearing on the rest of the baby's life. That life being spent of course with you, their new families. Now I do not want to let babies leave me who are not going to settle into their new homes, nor do our families want babies in their homes who spend the first few months absolutely petrified of people and strange surroundings. Also, the mothers would be very distraught at being away from their children and rightly so. Obviously, this situation is something that I am monitoring very closely with regards to babies' appetites and weights. My next problem is Tia Lusso and the "house freedom". We tried something different this morning. We had Cacao and Sambuca in the downstairs part of the home, we shut everyone else upstairs, I put Lusso on the other side of the door with Cacao and Sami so she could get to know them again. When all seemed okay, I then opened up the door to the kitten room, Sami flew out into the cat run while Cacao joined Graham on his desk. For a good 1/2 hour, the babies wandered around, both mum's were fine, even though they knew 2 other adult cats were in the same vicinity. Next thing I knew, Cacao went for a walk, Tia Lusso had reached her within a split second, followed by Amarula, and you guess it, the cat fight from hell! I grabbed Lusso and Amarula and managed to hold them both while Graham put Cacao on the other side of the door where she was safe. I then put Tia Lusso outside in the cat run, opened the hallway door back up so the babies were still wandering in the home and the other cats could come and visit them. Tia Lusso could then see from her position in the cat run, through the glass door and could see no one was hurting her babies. Amarula was again left in the home with them, and straight away went up to sniff, and have a chat with Sambuca, not a problem in the world. So yes, the problem is Tia Lusso. After giving it some thought, what I am going to try next is when the babies have been fed and want to play and explore, I am going to put Tia Lusso in one of the cat carriers, put her in the main part of the home, so she can see close up, that her babies are fine and that the others won't hurt them. This will have to be done over and over until she is calm enough to let the adults be around them. I also have a huge dog pen, big enough for very large breeds and if necessary, I will bring it inside, set it up with food/water/litter/bed and if things don't calm down, she can go in there during the day while the babies and cats all play together. Now this is obviously a worse case scenario and it's common knowledge that we do not believe in penning any cats (or kittens) here at all, however, this may be the safest solution for all concerned. I think the final straw was when the babies wanted to go back to sleep so they meandered back into their back room to settle down, I let Lusso back in out of the cat run, she jumped straight up on the chair to count her babies and sure enough one was missing. Instant panic station and after a 5 minutes search throughout the home, we discovered Salt sitting underneath Graham's desk. I swear that I've not ever had to put in so much hard work with any other litter at all and these babies have been very hard work, through no fault of their own bless them. In actual fact, the problems actually stem from the mothers with regards to calling issues and social issues. But...............the thing about breeding is that we learn something from every single litter we have and let me assure you, I've learnt an awful lot in the past 7 weeks, some of which I now realise for future litters.

Well today was the start of "Social Skills Training" with respect to opening up the back door and letting the babies go for it. The thing is, that it's such a chore because of Tia Lusso with regards to the fact that she had to be put totally out of the way in a different room. The thought did cross my mind, however briefly, if it was really necessary to give them whole house access because already they are socialised, confident, happy babies who will let anyone handle them. But of course, it can't work that way because as they grow and mature, they need mingle with all of our own cats, and they need to learn that they actually live in a house with lots of rooms etc. and that their little world of just one room is not how it is always going to be. However my earlier theory was proved right in the fact that all along, whenever Lusso and Amarula attacked another cat the snuck into the room (or indeed when they snuck out), Amarula was only following Tia Lusso's lead because when I opened the door and let the babies out, I didn't move Amarula at all, she was allowed to remain with the kids. Even though Cointreau, Toussaint and Ice were all downstairs when the babies were "let out", Amarula did not go for any of them, she was perfectly content to follow all 7 children around the house to just keep an eye on them. As for Cointreau, well she is in seventh heaven as she is such a baby herself at only 9 months of age so to her, whenever we have babies in the home, they are her playmates. Their first foray into the big wide world was very successful and after about 1 hour of playing and exploring in the home, all the babies came back into the back room to settle down for a nap as their exertions had left them rather tired. My plan is to open up the door whenever the babies are awake and have had a meal and I will continue to do this for the next few days. Once I can get Tia Lusso to see that no one wants to "hurt" her children, then the door will be left permanently open so that the babies and other cats can come and go as they please.

Out of all 7 babies, I would have to say that so far, Braveheart and Mad Max were definitely the bravest where the other cats were concerned, whereas Patriot in her typical "Matthew Flinders" style, she went out into the front hallway and contemplated going up the stairs to see what was up there. Of course, one grown from Ice was enough to make her change her mind so she went through to the front room instead. Lethal Weapon just did not know what to do at all and his eyes were wide open with excitement at all these new smells and sights. He put his motor into fast forward and then tore around the whole of the downstairs part of the home, at top speed, and then proceeded to spring out at all the other babies and scare the heck out of them. So mainly thanks to Lethal Weapon, we did have some babies that looked like Basil Brush for a while :) Cointreau chose Braveheart as her "favourite" and I am sure this was because with the first playful slap that Cointreau gave her, Braveheart then saw fit to chase Cointreau throughout the home and when the reached one end of the house, they turned around and Cointreau chased Braveheart back through the house.

Quite short entries yet again, but mainly because the photos have taken me forever to sort out. I even found a few that were taken a couple of days ago that hadn't been included in the entries due to lack of time. We've also had quite a lot going on lately in our home, in the respect that we have now gained 2 new additions to the family. They are called Sage and Parsley and we have been very busy trying to integrate them into our home.

In the last 24 hours, Lethal Weapon has fallen into the water bowl on 3 separate occasions! I don't know why I am saying fallen because having watched him, I'm beginning to think that he is in fact jumping into the water bowl. The upside to this is that I have actually changed things around a little bit under the work surface on the other side of the room where the babies' bed is so the water didn't splash where it normally would and was slightly more contained as a result. Weights are all quite good again and I'm pleased at the moment with the kids' progress.

I had every intention of proper entries today, with photos, however my day has not turned out as planned at all! I also have to go out very shortly and will be gone a few hours at least so if I don't put a short entry online now, it will never get online. I will do everything possible to ensure that tomorrow there are proper entries complete with photos!

Patriot is still doing incredibly well, just like her brothers and sister. I am still feeding the a/d and supplementing with Nutridrops though to make sure that absolutely no one goes downhill at all. The Mel's have been little terrors today when they have been awake and they have been tearing around the room like absolute lunatics getting into absolutely everything.

Before I start each entry this morning, I must say a few thank you's. One is to Kerry who owns Lethal Weapon because I found out via a phone call today with my mate Dave, that Kerry went onto Siamese Cat Chat and very kindly posted a message about Patriot, and asked for prayers from the members that she would be okay. This was such a lovely thing to do and I am grateful to Kerry for that, as well as to our members who have responded. (I've still not had the chance to go onto the board yet to read it for myself but I will do when I can get a spare moment). The other thanks is to a lovely lady named Vicky who owns a darling Schimmel cat called "Misty Blue". I received a lovely email from Vicky this morning which read (and I'm sure she won't mind me reprinting it here):
"I can't offer you any professional advice re darling Patriot - but I can send you and her all our love and prayers. I looked back in MB's weight record and she was less than 500g's at the same stage. You really are a wonderful Super Mum to all the babies you have ever bred -she is a lucky little baby to have been born into the loving environment of your home."
I was just so touched by this message.
Also, a thank you to May, who owns the lovely Guinness, as May also sent me an email this morning which read:
" I'm so sorry to hear that your having a problem with Patriot, I know how upset you get when one of your babies won't eat like the others, I'm sure you will win with the little one as you did with Guinness, She has gone from strength to strength now. I will say a prayer for your baby tonight! take care try not to worry."
People's kindness in such times of worry and stress are overwhelming sometimes. I do hope that all these wonderful people who have been praying for Patriot, as well as the rest of the babies, will take some joy in what I have written below....................................

Yesterday afternoon, Patriot proved that she is starting to feel a bit better because she entered into a rather fast paced game of "Paper Football" with Braveheart and Lethal Weapon. Everyone was asleep except for Patriot and she was wandering around the room looking for someone to play with so I gave her a screwed up paper ball and she was absolutely to delighted and chased it and batted it all around the room. It was not long at all be Lethal Weapon and Braveheart joined in and then the game really commenced. I can't say there was an actual winner because the game ended rather abruptly when they batted their "ball" underneath the fridge. Then this morning, when the babies were weighed (and I confess to weighing them an hour later than I normally do, remembering that they get weighed at the same time each day) and I was absolutely stunned to see that within the last 24 hours, Patriot has gone from 439 grams to 512 grams! And no, I didn't make a mistake, as I checked it 3 times because I couldn't quite believe it myself. I can't wait unti Linda phones me this afternoon for a progress report on her baby so that I can give her the good news. She now actually weighs more than Salt, whom you may remember went downhill herself very rapidly. As of yesterday afternoon, I'm relieved to say that syringe feeding stopped. The reason for this is that all the babies eat the a/d directly from the plate again so no more syringe feeding. Not only has this cut down in time obviously but it's also cut down in washing. At the moment I would like to see Mad Max a bit bigger in the weight department and oddly enough, he is not keen at all on the a/d which is a bit of a problem because it's the a/d that's making such a difference to weights, however if I put down a plate of mince, he absolutely loves it, the same with the chicken. The Mel's are all now back in fine form and the activity levels in the back room have risen dramatically. I'm actually sitting here waiting desperately to sweep and mop the floor however until the babies go back to sleep, it is an impossible chore.

Still very little progress with Patriot. She has gained 9 grams in 24 hours but that is a very small amount. My one consolation with her is that she still plays and grooms herself and goes to the toilet etc. This morning she went to the plate and had some chicken, and she also had some mince from the plate for breakfast prior to that. Since I got out of bed this morning I have been syringe feeding her every 2 hours and will continue to do so until she turns a corner which I hope and pray that she will. As you can imagine, this is very worrying for me and I am not left with a lot of time during the day in which to get other, normal, things like kitten diaries done.The rest of our babies seem to be doing okay and as I write this entry, Lethal Weapon and Vinegar are having huge kitten battles behind me, leaving me with just an inch of the chair to sit on! Pepper has now just joined everone else who is asleep, having just spent 20 minutes creating havoc on my work surface!