Day 20 - October 7, 2006

Minimal photos today sorry, and not much of an entry because we have had a lovely, relaxing afternoon with our friends, Lee and Susie who visited us today. It was really nice to chill out for a little while and just chat about anything and everything :)

Boule's "weigh in" showed that she gained 12 grams in the previous 24 hours which again is very good, although I must admit today that her gains after today's meals are not particularly wonderful so we still have an awful lot of work to do with her. Our Gamblers are really funny now because of the way they all come running out of the box and what is really fantastic for me is that when I go in there and sit down in front of the box, with the towel and the syringe, our Black babies all come out of the box, straight towards me and try to climb up onto my lap which is so endearing. These babies are going to be very determined, strong minded characters as this is already showing in their personalities. Despite their size, these babies are very forward thinking and they are all extremely enchanting. Teen and Tone are going to have so much fun with Roulette because she is going to be a girl who will entertain you for hours as she, and Poker, love to play little games and they spend a lot of time rolling around on their backs, trying to "catch" their brothers and sisters.

Day 19 - October 6, 2006

Well, I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I weighed Boule last night during the Gamblers "weigh in" session. She had gained 16 grams in the previous 24 hours!!! Her biggest gain yet, and one to be extremely proud of. I was just totally over the moon as you can imagine. I also checked it, and re-checked it at least 3 times to make sure I hadn't made a mistake. Everyone else also made very good gains last night as well which is great. It is possible though that I have lost the plot slightly with regards to the 2 hourly feeding because at the moment, after Boule is fed, I then start to top up the other babies also, mainly because I always heat up too much mixture, and if they are hungry, then I may as well feed them while I'm there anyway. Even Roulette and Poker, both of whom have weights that I'm happy with, are being topped up. I'm hoping that someone who is reading this can actually answer a question for me? I think, from memory, that once the babies reach 3 weeks of age, the syringe feeding can spread to 3 hourly as opposed to 2 hourly, but I'm really not sure about this and have no idea if anyone else knows? If you do know, please do send me an Email. Although, even if that is the case, I am still going to feed 2 hourly during the day, and then maybe 3 hourly of an evening. Also, once the babies have reached 3 weeks of age, I am going to start adding some diluted Hills a/d to their evaporated milk mixture as I know from personal experience that it does make a difference with regards to babies' weight gains. It may be a little rich for them to start off with, which is why I am going to dilute it. I look back now and I think back to previous litters, much earlier on in our breeding, and how I was so intent on starting to wean the kittens the moment they turned 3 weeks of age, and how stressed I would become if 3 1/2 week old babies weren't eating from my fingers, and I do laugh and wonder what on earth possessed me. This is why I keep saying with breeding, you are just learning something new constantly. At around lunch time today, I took 2 plates of food upstairs for the respective mums and babies, and noticed that the Gamblers were starting to wake up, so even though it was a bit early, I came downstairs and heated up some milk, went back upstairs only to discover the Gambler's all over their little section of the room! Every single baby was out of the box and running around, trying to get their mum's attention and squealing at the top of their voices. Drambuie was taking no notice whatsoever because all she cared about was her own meal and she wasn't going to stop eating that for anything. So I had one baby in my hands that I was syringe feeding, and with my other hand I was trying to scoop up babies to put them back in the box, but as soon as I put one in, another one ran straight back out. Fortunately, as soon as Drambuie finished eating, she went around scooping up as many babies as she could, and plonked them all back in the box where she promptly sat on them to prevent any more little "wanderings" occurring.

Day 18 - October 5, 2006

Last night, when it was "weighing in" time, I was delighted to see that Boule had gained 9 grams in the previous 24 hours. I had also spent those 24 hours weighing her at every feed to ensure she was staying on track and not losing weight. Again, I'm really happy with this gain, and obviously, I am still continuing the 2 hourly feeding because it is making such a big difference at the moment to her weights. Today, I have not been weighing her at each feed because I did find yesterday, that I was becoming slightly paranoid and was at the point where I actually dreaded putting her on the scales. She loves the milk mixture so much and is drinking more and more of it each day. At her 1pm feed today, she totally shocked me. I had fed Boule, put her back in the box, removed 2 of our other Black babies to top them up (I have been topping them up as well because I don't want to take any chances at all with our smallest babies), and I had one in my hands who was feeding, the other was placed on the bedding in front of the box to ensure I wouldn't mix up who had, and hadn't been fed, and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little Black being trotting along the carpet, a long way from the box where she shouldn't be. At first I thought it was Blackjack as he is not adverse to climbing out every so often, just like Roulette and Poker, and you can imagine how stunned I was to find it was Boule. Drambuie was most unimpressed with her daughter strolling around the room and didn't hesitate to pick her up and take her back to the box where she plonked her down and then groomed her all over. When our babies reach 3 weeks of age, which they will in a few days' time, I am going to compare the weights of all of the Gamblers' with some of our other litters, to see just how far behind we happen to be at the moment. By the way, I will admit here to still not even looking at the babies to see what sex they are, even though I am referring to Boule as a female, she may well turn out to be a male. The only babies' who sexes are definite is Poker and Roulette.

Day 17 - October 4, 2006

One good thing is that Boule is enjoying the evaporated milk mixture, much more than the Royal Canin milk, in the respect that she is hungry and she physically wants to drink it which she had NOT been doing with the Royal Canin which she absolutely hated. I can't say that I blame her because the smell of it alone is enough to put me off it, let alone wanting to drink it! Last night at weigh in time, Boule had gained 8 grams which is her biggest gain since the day she was born so this is an achievement and I am desperately hoping and praying that this means she will start to pick up. It's currently 1519 and there are 3 more syringe feeds between now and the next weigh in so I just hope that when the time comes, she will again have gained at least 8 grams. Everyone else's weights are acceptable at the moment and they do all seem to be doing well. They are certainly a lively bunch, who seem to become louder as each day passes :)

Day 16 - October 3, 2006

Teen and Tone, I'm sorry to have to say this, and although she has a very sweet face, your baby has goggle eyes and a big bum! Are you sure???????? :) But at least her markings are coming through much stronger now and it's going to be interesting watching them develop I think. Last night, after I changed the bedding again, I put everyone else back in bed, went into the other part of the kitten room to change the bedding for the Burps, and I heard an odd squeak, turned around, and here was Poker and Baccarat (although it may have been Two Up as they are still hard to tell apart), OUT of the bed, being followed out by Roulette! To say I was a bit shocked was an understatement. Drambuie didn't care at all they they were climbing out as she was stuffing her face with Hi Life kitten and Gourmet Gold. I very hurriedly scooped up the 3 babies, plonked them back on the bed in their box and explained to them that they are way too young to be getting out of the box and they are to remain in there for at least another week :) To be on the safe side though, I got some extra bedding and placed it in front of the box so that at least if they do decide to go "walkabout", they will hopefully be able to get back into the box. Now as for my little Boule..................I've made a decision with regards to the syringe feeding. I'm sure it is an extremely good product and is obviously designed for newborns and tiny, young kittens, however, for Boule, it is just not working. Graham and I spoke last night about her, and I said to him that I thought I would go back to my old faithful evaporated milk mixture. I know I used to have much more success with getting weight on babies when I had to syringe feed in the past with this mixture. In our first ever litter we used Cimicat, which for us, was absolute rubbish, we switched to the evap. milk, and have used it ever since. The only reason that I have been using the RC baby milk for Boule is because we only recently bought it from the vets, it's supposed to be excellent stuff, however, just like the Cimicat, it is not doing what we need it to do. Graham actually said he couldn't understand why it's taken me so long to decide to revert to the evap milk when we know it's worked so well in the past. For those who are not aware, all that is in the milk mixture is: Evaporated milk, boiling water, egg yolk, teaspoon of honey, and a very small amount of natural yoghurt (goats milk as we prefer that). As you can imagine, after everyone was fed today and floors were washed, litter trays were done, it was a trip to Tesco's to get some evap. milk. For the first time ever, I have babies in the home, and babies expected, and not a single tin of evap. milk! It's now 1322, and I'm waiting for the mixture to cool down and then I'll be using that from now on. It will be interesting to see whether or not it will make a difference.

Day 15 - October 2, 2006

Incredibly short entries, again with no photos as we had a kitten family visiting today and then I was at the vets this afternoon for a vaccination (no, not mine personally). So my entire day has been all mixed up and about all I have had time to do is clean the house, do the washing, and feed babies, mum's and syringe feed our little Boule. Again, she made gains last night, as did the rest of our babies, but so far, she is still not making big gains. At the moment, I am going to continue with the syringe feeding, continue with supplementing her as we really can't do any more than that, particularly as there is no outward signs of there being anything wrong with her at all. The rest of our Gamblers are all doing very well and I will ensure I take photos for you tomorrow before you actually forget what they look like. They are all little sweethearts, and some of them are very determined babies indeed, particularly when it comes to the milk bar.

Day 14 - October 1, 2006

There are no photos for today's kitten diary entry as I've not had a great deal of time today. I am really thrilled that all 6 of our Gamblers are still doing okay at 2 weeks of age and the last 2 weeks have certainly just flown by. I don't know where the time has gone actually. All day today, I have been topping up little Boule every 2 hours. She is still so incredibly tiny and even though she is feeding from Drambuie, she is struggling to make decent gains. I am going to continue to top her up now for the next week or so and will keep doing 2 hourly feedings up until about midnight, when I will then give her Nutri Drops which will definitely sustain her for a few hours while I sleep and then can start up again. Our other Gamblers all seem to be holding their own and they are all lively babies, but obviously they still do an awful lot of sleeping because they are so very young still. Even now, despite having bred quite a few litters, I still worry so much about the first 3 - 4 weeks of the babies' lives because they are so very vulnerable and so seemingly fragile. I spent some time today going back through weight charts for all for all of our previous litters, particularly litters which consisted of 5 or more babies. I must admit to feeling a small amount of relief when I discovered in the past that we have not only had 2 babies at Day 14 who were actually a good 50 grams behind Boule at this same age, but also that we have had a couple who have been roughly the same weight at 14 days of age. All of these babies, including one particularly tiny baby who weighed a mere 89 grams at Day 14, went on to new families and are now massive, happy, healthy babies. What was interesting is that all of these babies are also all of the same Oriental line i.e. Drambuie and Sambuca, so this does lead me to believe that with syringe feeding, supplements, and careful monitoring, that Boule has an extremely good chance.