Schimmel Siamese & Oriental Cats are Oriental cat breeders based in Oxford, UK. We sometimes have Oriental and Siamese kittens for sale. We also have 2 Oriental Stud Cats and online kitten diaries.

Kitten Diaries

Cacao

December 2003

Birth

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

Cacao's 1st Kitten Diary - December 2004 to april 204

Day 6 - January 5, 2004

Due to the fact that our Havana does indeed appear to be a girl, we have had to change our babies names! Their new (& final) names are now:

Gabriel - Chocolate Tortie (still not 100% sure)

Xena - Black Tortie

Hercules - Black

Calisto - Black Tortie

There is very little to report on our Warrior babies at the moment as there is so little for us to do with them. All 4 little warriors are gaining weight daily, so all we really do is look in on them every hour or so, weigh them once a day and that's the extent of it. Cacao is getting much better when we handle them now. She no longer tries to grab them off us and will let us weigh them without too much fuss. I do make a point though of going in and patting her and then picking up her babies one by one and stroking them so she can see that I am not harming them in any way. Poor Cacao is starting to feel like a prisoner I think as every time the babies are asleep she wants to go out of the room for a stroll to see what else is going on in the house. Another bad photography day unfortunately so at this rate I may as well call the babies "The Blobs" as in each photo, it is impossible to even tell that there are 4 babies in there. They simply look like indistinguishable blobs of dark colours so you will just have to take my word for it that there are 4 lovely little babies in the box with Cacao.

Day 5 - January 4, 2004

We are much happier now we have have removed Tia and her babies from the box. At least Cacao can concentrate on feeding her babes now with no interference from the Charmed Ones. Our 4 new babies are moving around a little more now and are still doing okay with their weight gains. For the time being we are trying to leave them to it as Cacao is taking care of everything herself. I had to remove her from the room today so I could change the bedding in her box. She seemed happy to come downstairs and have a bit of freedom for the first time in days. Still trying to get decent pics of the babies but am still not very successful. It doesn't matter what I do, they end up looking like little dark blobs!

Day 4 - January 3, 2004

Apart from being weighed and getting looked in on, Cacao's babes didn't get much attention at all yesterday as we had to take Tia's babes to the vets and then had to rearrange some rooms so that Tia and her babies could move out of our bedroom. All Cacao's babies are putting on weight and doing really well. The more we look at our supposed Havana, the more convinced we are that she is in fact a Choc. Tortie. Considering they are only a few days old, these babes are very loud, much louder than Tia's were at that age. I think in about 4 weeks time we are going to need some ear muffs the way they are going. Cacao still hops up into bed with us off and on during the night, but only once her babies have gone to sleep. I think they are much happier now that they have their mummy back to themselves instead of sharing their box with the Charmed Ones and Tia. The photos below show just how little room there was in the box once Tia decided to move her family in as well!

Day 3 - January 2, 2004

A bit of confusion over our Havana boys colour so we are awaiting further developments on this. When he was born, his coat appeared to be a solid Havana colour except for one very small, lighter patch on his head. On closer inspection last night and this morning, it's very possible that he is not a Havana but a Chocolate Tortie............in which case, he is also not a boy but a girl!!! All babies are doing very well, we topped up Cassandra last night as even though she appears to be latching on very well, she isn't gaining as well as the others are. As she was the "surprise" baby, she obviously is not as strong as the others as she is a day behind them so we are keeping a very close eye on her. We finally managed to get some semi decent pics of them all today. I took a lot of pics yesterday and not a single one of them turned out. It's really difficult to get pics of them in their box as because of their dark colours they all just look like little blobs of ink so it looks like the photos will have to be done individually. Cacao is as cuddly with us as ever because last night she spent quite a bit of time in our bed and on our pillows. Fortunately though, as soon as her babies make a noise she is straight back in the box.

Day 2 - January 1, 2004

We have now recovered from the shock of our surprise baby and are thrilled to say that all 4 are doing really well. They are gaining at least 10 grams every day, still with no topping up from us, and they are so much easier than Tia's litter was. Cacao is such a great mum and she is slowly getting used to me handling her babies. Hubby has chosen their names, whilst they are here with us for 13 weeks, because we do like to give them names even though their new owners will be changing their pet names when our babies go to live with them. So their names are:

Del Boy - Havana

Racquel - Black Tortie

Rodney - Black

Cassandra - Black Tortie

They are all feeding really well off mum and she is meticulous about keeping them clean and grooms them quite often. She will only get out of the box when they are asleep and then she will eat/drink and use the litter tray. As soon as one of them makes a sound she is straight back in the box. As I did with Tia, I also feed Cacao in her box as well, particularly as she will not move once her babies are latched on and I like to keep her strength up. She had the audacity to wake me up at 4:05am by climbing onto the bed and sitting on my head. Obviously I panicked thinking something was wrong so jumped out of bed, switched the lamp on and checked both her and the babies. Naturally all was fine, they were sound asleep and she obviously wanted to share our bed for a while.

Day 1 - afternoon shock!

It is now 1449 and within the last 2 hours, Cacao, unbeknownst to any of us, delivered another baby girl (approximately 36 hours after she gave birth to the others). There were no indications at all that another baby was inside as we had felt her for any more. I had been up in the bedroom with her all of yesterday keeping a close eye on everything and all was fine, Cacao was eating, walking around, using the litter tray etc. So when I went up to the room to check her again recently I was shocked to see that I now had 4 babies, not 3. The new girl is another Black Tortie (hooray) and weighs in at 90 grams and is already trying to feed. Cacao cleaned up any mess as there is very little signs of another delivery and she is looking really well in herself and has just gobbled up a plate of Sheba.

Day 1 - December 31, 2003

We are thrilled to say that each baby gained 10 grams overnight, with no topping up from us at all. Cacao is doing a super job so far and we couldn't be more pleased with our first Oriental litter. Each baby is absolutely gorgeous and they are also incredibly loud and move around quite a lot. We had to put Cacao and Tia out of the room this morning while we weighed both litters as Cacao, being a very new mum, gets a bit panicky if we take them away from her. I am sure with time, this will change, as it did with Tia and her babies. We really do have our work cut out for us now with 2 litters but now that Tia's are older and as Cacao is doing such a great job with hers, there is actually less for us to do now other than weigh them every day. This will leave much more time to spend just loving them to bits as well as trying to catch up with some much overdue housework!!

Birth - December 30, 2003

Cacao's kittens were born in the early hours of this morning! Litter details are as follows:
Havana = 90g - Born 0444
Black Tortie - Born 0523 (sadly didn't make it)
Black Tortie = 90g - Born 0553
Black = 100g - Born 0653

Unlike Tia's birth, in all reality, it made no difference that we were that at all as Cacao dealt with the entire birth, cords, etc. on her own. She was showing early signs of labour in the early evening on the 29th, however, there were no contractions, no straining, so we ended up with a sleepless night. Or actually, it's quite possible that hubby and I shared about 2 hours sleep between us. We had been lightly dozing when it was discovered that one baby (the Havana) had been born and the other had also started to appear. Within seconds we were very wide awake and just watched in amazement as Cacao continued to give birth with seemingly no problems at all and she was meticulous is cleaning her babies straight away, dealing with any remains and sorting the cords within minutes of the babies appearing. The babes were very lively and whereas with Tia's, we removed them from the box during the birth, we put Cacao's babies back in the box with her, in between deliveries, once we had weighed them. We are really so proud of our girl as she did an absolutely amazing job. It's now 1408 and we are all absolutely shattered. Cacao's babies are latching on with almost no help from us and Cacao is really proud of them all. Again I can only thank Donna from Chinasea for letting us have our beautiful girl and Cacao definitely did her breeder proud today! Also, many, many thanks to Doreen & Keith Sillis for allowing us to take Cacao in to their wonderful boy, Chico. Doreen & Keith took excellent care of our girl and Chico is an absolute dream.

Please Click Here to read Cacao's 1st Pregnancy Diary