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

Drambuie

May 2007

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

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Drambuie's 4th (And final) Kitten Diary - May 2007 to August 2007

Litter out of Schimmel True Blue X Ch Schimmel Shesadream

We are 1 week old today!

Day 6 - May 26 2007

I am feeling really tired today, not because of the 2 hourly feeding although that is exhausting, I am tired because Nocello, for whatever reason, chose to spend part of the early hours of the morning dive bombing off the top of the bed head, straight onto my head!! But that's okay, I got my revenge later on because at about 6am, I rolled over, taking the duvet with me and next thing I knew, an Oriental Black was flying off the bed :) Poetic justice I think :) Right, onto our Capitals. I have got to say how wonderful it is that these babies have such a short "theme" name, much easier to type than Sambuca's babies current theme name! Our Capitals are doing quite well, obviously I'm still syringe feeding every 2 hours, but we are definitely making progress, small, but progress all the same. In the past 24 hours, Edinburgh has gained another 5 grams. One of our other smallest babies is London, remember that he was the baby who fought for his life at birth? Well he is still small, but right from about Day 2, he has been making very good gains, the sort of gains I would expect for a baby with his bone structure. I keep examining our other babies to see who will be the next to start to open their eyes and it really is such an exciting part of their life when they are finally able to see the world around them. That is of course, unless they are viewing me first thing in the morning and then they wish their eyes were still shut! I don't quite know how to tell Diana this but at the rate her baby, Washington, is growing, she will be taking home a black panther, not an Oriental Black kitten. How on earth he is managing gains like this when there are 6 babies in the litter is beyond me actually. I have now ruled out one of our Tortie girls as a possibility to live here and that is darling Port-of-Spain so she is available for a loving pet home. That leaves me with Canberra and Dublin and it's still way too early to tell which one will remain here.

Day 5 - May 25 2007

Two of our Capitals are now showing signs of wanting to see the big wide world which is really lovely. Dublin is the first of our Tortie girls to open her eyes, although they are not fully open but they should be by tomorrow. Then Washington is the first of our Blacks to open his eyes, and his are fully open now. Until I weighed the babies this morning, I would have said that none of them would be doubling their birth weight when they hit the "Week 1" mark but now, I do think that Washing will go pretty close. Can that boy eat or what! He is rather large to say the least. All of our Capitals are very good when it comes to "weigh in" time and they are happy to lie still on the scales for me now without any protest at all. Our darling little Edinburgh managed to maintain a 5 gram gain in the past 24 hours which again seems quite small but that's still excellent news and a very positive sign. She does love her evaporated milk mixture and will happily suckle from the syringe with her little pink tongue going in and out :)

Day 4 - May 24, 2007

With all that is currently going on in our world today, He still takes the time to listen to, and answer, the prayers of a very desperate breeder and her friends. I am extremely thankful that the Lord has given Edinburgh the courage and heart that she has to battle along and that He is standing beside us in our fight for life and His loving arms are keeping her safe and protected. Today, I have good news. Edinburgh is starting to gain weight. We have had 3 days and nights now of 2 hourly feeding and prayers, and I do believe a miracle has occurred. We are not out of the danger zone yet and still have a heck of a long way to go, but we are making progress at last. Basically what was happening with Edinburgh was that I would weigh her, feed her, weigh her, she would gain weigh after I fed, but by the time 2 hours came around again, she had lost what she had gained so therefore, she was making no gains at all. This changed yesterday morning because I did the "weigh in" for all the Capitals and Edinburgh weighed 86 grams, meaning that she had gained 2 grams in the previous 24 hours. This on it's own was very good news because it meant that at least she could manage to maintain some of the milk. At the 6pm feed last night, again I weighed her before feeding her and she weighed 90 grams. This meant she had gained 4 grams since the 9am weigh in so this is definitely a step in the right direction. I keep looking at our 3 Tortie Heads and wondering which one will she be. By this I mean which Tortie girl is going to remain here in the Schimmel home. I really have no idea because I've been so busy with Edinburgh that I've not really looked at each of our Tortie girls properly yet. I am positive though that they will have the same vibrant, rich colouring as their mother, and their grandmother as I'm already seeing some lovely reds coming through on the coats.

Day 3- May 23, 2007

I am positive that our darling Capitals would be faring much better if it wasn't for the intervention of Cointreau and Liquorice! For further explanation, see today's kitten diary entry for Liquorice. Let's start with Edinburgh, not a great deal has changed, I am continuing to do the 24 hour feeds, I have also started administering Nutri Drops every 12 hours, and at the moment what happens is she gains a gram or two, but by the time the next feed comes around, she has lost what she gained and is back to where she was. I really do have a battle on my hands with her at the moment, but she has no intentions of going anywhere, so we are going to fight this one as long as need be until she is gaining. At times, when I weigh her prior to feeding, I do tend to despair and feel a bit down, but what makes me remain positive is the fact that this little girl is definitely hungry because she wants to drink from the syringe. In the past I've had babies whereby I have had to fight tooth and nail just to get them to accept any milk, but Edinburgh is the total opposite. Also, I have watched her in the box with her brothers and sisters, and she is equally as active as they are, and despite being about 40 grams behind the rest of the litter, to the naked eye, there is no difference between her and the rest of the Capitals. Everyone else is doing just fine and they are continuing to make gains. We have 2 "large" babies, and they are Washington and Port-of-Spain. I would dearly love to take individual photos of the Capitals but at the moment I don't think it's possible as I do not want to disturb the kids any more than necessary, nor do I want to upset Drambuie or the balance we currently have in the kitten room. You see, if I remove one baby to take photos of him/her, that baby will complain, and then Cointreau will come running over to get involved which Drambuie does not want at the moment. So I am afraid that for the time being, you will all have to put up with "blob" photos :)

Day 2- May 22, 2007

I am desperately worried about Edinburgh at the moment as she is really struggling. Since 12 noon yesterday I have been syringe feeding her every 2 hours. At first, she was making some small gains after each syringe feed, but this morning her weight is remaining exactly as it was, no gains, no losses and this is not good. There's nothing outwardly wrong, she's lively, noisy, there is no cleft palate, no indication at all that something isn't right, so I am going to continue feeding 2 hourly and will be desperately praying she will turn the corner. For the past 24 hours my life has been feeding, sterilising, doing a few chores, and then starting the feeding all over again. If I can get her to gain some weight though, it is definitely going to be worth it. At times like this, the first thing I do is go back and look at the weight chart for Schimmel Goddess of War, as she was such a tiny, tiny baby, she only weighed 60 grams when she was 1 week old! At 2 weeks of age, she was a mere 88 grams (the size of a newborn!). She was from Sambuca's 1st litter (Mars) and she is now a healthy, full grown adult having a wonderful life in her new home, and this weight chart gives me such hope for little Edinburgh. What I need to do is re-read that kitten diary and see if I did anything different then to what I am doing now. So that is where we are with darling Edinburgh. I've started on the diaries early this morning although they won't go online until much later today, it's now 0932 and I have another feed due at 1000. All of our Capitals were weighed at 0900 and apart from Edinburgh, every baby had gained which I am very pleased about. I am considering changing Washington's name however to "Who Ate All The Pies" :) Drambuie coped very well with the house move and was not phased at all. The only thing that concerned me was that for quite a few hours yesterday, she refused to get out of the box, not even to join her sister and her niece at the plates for meal times. By late yesterday afternoon though, she was more than happy to get out of the box, eat some food, stare in horror at Liquorice (who won't leave her alone by the way), and to give a little warning growl to her sister, Sambuca, whenever she ventured to close to the posh box. You can imagine the look of surprise on her face when I was feeding Edinburgh yesterday, and a couple of the other babies decided to wake up and scream for their mum, and just as Drambuie got in the box to feed them, Cointreau came flying up straight over the top of the box (I had the lid off while I was feeding), landed straight into the box, missing Buie's head for mere inches, and then proceeded to groom the babies to stop them crying. Drambuie was shocked and horrified, and couldn't quite see that Cointreau was just trying to "help" her with her babies. So with Edinburgh and the syringe in one hand, I rather quickly scooped Cointreau out of the box with the other hand and all was well. There have been no arguments at all though, all 3 ladies are happy to tend to their children, eat together, and I am extremely pleased that they are all getting on so well in the kitten room.

Day 1- May 21, 2007

Drambuie continues to be an outstanding mum and all of our Capitals have made it through the first 24 hours. I have to say that I was rather surprised when I weighed everyone this morning because 5 out of the 6 babies had all gained weight. The one baby I was concerned about yesterday was London because of the problems he had at birth, and also because he was our smallest baby. However, he actually gained 3 grams which I am thrilled about. Edinburgh is my worry at the moment as she is the baby who lost some weight so I'm going to be monitoring her extremely closely for the next few days. I took the posh box into our bedroom this morning, put fresh bedding in there and I have moved Drambuie and the Capitals into the posh box and removed their cardboard box from the room. I'm hoping later on today to move the Capitals into the kitten room with the rest of the babies we currently have. I really must apologise for the photos because I think all you can see are Black blobs :( I find it so difficult to photograph black babies when they are in the box, and because I took these photos within minutes of moving Drambuie and the babies into the kitten room, I did take them rather quickly as I didn't want to disturb Drambuie any more than she already was. Actually, with the photos, it is a case of trying to ascertain which head belongs to which body :)

Birth - May 20, 2007

Where to start? Well, on Saturday, I had a very long day as I was exhibiting Ashanti and Cacao at a cat show, so I had been up at 5am and didn't arrive home until around 7pm so we went up to bed quite early, at around 9:30pm with a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate the great results that we had that day. By 10:00pm, I could barely keep my eyes open and was starting to drift off to sleep. Drambuie was in her box and according to Graham she spent all of Saturday being extremely clingy and going in and out of the box and while I was at the show and speaking with him on the phone, we did both feel Buie would give birth within the next 24 hours. At about 10:45pm, I got out of bed to check on Drambuie in the box, and sure enough, she was having contractions so I said to Graham, don't plan on getting much sleep tonight. We moved the box as I wanted it on my side of the bed where I keep the standing lights and at least this way, Graham could get some sleep. At 11:02pm baby number 1 was born, effortlessly, and with no help whatsoever from me. We had a beautiful Oriental Black Tortie girl. I think the whole world knows that I have a "thing" about Black Torties, and I had been desperately hoping she would give us at least one in this final litter because prior to this, Drambuie had only ever produced one Black Tortie girl. When Drambuie had finally finished with her first baby (she is extremely thorough), she then started having contractions again, so while this was happening, I was able to sneak baby number 1 away from her, to have a look and weigh her. While I was doing this, baby number 2 slipped out, again quite effortlessly, but this baby was born breech, and while she was cleaning him up, I started to see that the baby appeared to be choking on his own mucous and had bubbles coming out of his nose. At this point in time, he was still attached to Drambuie as the placenta was still inside and she hadn't delivered it yet so I did make a decision, rightly or wrongly, to tear the cord myself and get baby out of the box as quickly as possible to clear his airway. I ripped the cord, scooped him up, I did "swing" him, but that didn't clear it, so I opened up his mouth, cleared it out with my finger, and I then breathed into his mouth and nose gently, a few times. I then swung him again, and now, he was okay and I was incredibly relieved. I've had to swing babies before, but have not ever had to breathe into them to clear the airways. I think, at least I hope, I made the right decision at the time. I then dried baby off very thoroughly and weighed him. He is our smallest baby. By the time this had all finished, baby number 3 was already being born, so I took the first 2 babies and put them on a warm towel on our bed for Graham to look after so that they wouldn't be in Drambuie's way. It is difficult with her because she always wants her babies with her when she is giving birth. Baby number 3 again slipped out very easily, along with 2 placenta's, one was the baby number 3's, the other was the missing placenta from baby number 2, and again, Drambuie did absolutely everything. It was at least 10 minutes though before she would let me dry off and weigh her newest baby. Once I did this, I put all 3 babies back in with Drambuie, but as I was doing so, I noticed that the cord on baby number 1 didn't quite look right and it was starting to look as though blood was going through, so I put that baby back on the towel on our bed, ran into the kitten room, grabbed the dental floss from the kitten equipment cupboard (you have no idea how glad I am now that I sorted out that cupboard last week and put everything back in order), and I ran back into our room, poor Graham was asleep by this time, and I managed to tie the dental floss around the cord. I'm still not quite sure how I managed it because having had to do this once before, I know how difficult it was with 2 of us, so it really is a miracle that I managed it, particularly as baby number 1 was squirming the entire time. A typical, stubborn, Black Tortie :) After I finished and put the baby back, our 4th baby had already been born and Drambuie had started on the clean up job. Can I just add here, that not once was there any sound at all from Drambuie. Another Black! Where the flippin' heck were the Reds????? After Drambuie finished cleaning number 4, I picked her up for drying off and weighing, and sexing (well, my own poor attempt at sexing that is!). I then replaced the baby back in the box with the others who were trying to feed. To give them a helping hand, and this is where I'm actually impressed with myself as I've never been able to do this before, I actually expressed milk from Drambuie's nipples. I was rather amazed because despite having tried to do this countless times with previous queens, I was never successful, but suddenly, after a few years of breeding, I finally got the hang of it and was able to get milk from the 4 nipples that I did try. Drambuie was quite tired by this time as you can imagine, but she was looking fine. I ran downstairs and got her a pouch of Natures Menu which she happily tucked into. I knew there was at least one more baby as I was still seeing movement, but for the time being, Drambuie wanted to snuggle with her babies and have a rest. So I turned the light away from her, put Seinfeld in and started watching that, and continued to check on Drambuie every 10 minutes. She started having contractions and was pushing at about 12:45 but this time she was panting an awful lot and so I flew downstairs, grabbed a syringe, and I then syringed some water into her to try and cool her down and to make sure she didn't dehydrate. I also put some water on her paw pads. At 1:02am, baby number 5 popped out, and to my delight, we had yet another Black Tortie girl. I dried off and weighed this girl when Drambuie had finished cleaning her, and I then took all the babies, and Drambuie out of the box so I could change the bedding. I did this as quickly as I could, put everyone back in the box, I gave Drambuie some more food, and I then took armloads of washing downstairs to the kitchen. Again there was still movement inside so I knew were weren't quite finished yet, so I just sat in front of the box and had a chat with Drambuie and stroked her. The panting began again at around 1:50am and she was looking so hot again so I syringed some more water into her, again put it on her paw pads, and at 2:03am, the last baby was born, and yep, this was another gorgeous Black Tortie girl. How lucky am I? Three Black Torties in one litter :) :) While I was drying off and weighing this last girl, Drambuie got out of the box to have something else to eat and this was my opportunity to change the bedding again. Once I did this, everyone was put back in the box, I examined Drambuie and realised that there were definitely no more babies, so I put her back into the box where she settled down with all of her children and thoroughly groomed each of them. She was content, the babies were trying to feed, so all was well in the world. What a day I've had! I stayed up with Drambuie until 5am, and after that, I managed to get a few hours sleep. So far my day today has been spent updating my web site, doing mountains and mountains of washing, feed mum's in the kitten room, feed Drambuie, and the day is far from over. As we had so many girls in this litter, that threw one of our previously chosen themes out the window, and then Graham came up with the idea of naming them after Capital Cities, but not just any Capital Cities, they had to be ones that mean something to us personally. I loved the idea :) So we would now like to introduce you all to.......................................................... "The Capitals"

Baby	Colour	Birth Time	Weight	Sex
Dublin	Black Tortie	2302	94 grams	Female
London	Black	2338	85 grams	Male
Washington	Black	2408	113 grams	Male
Edinburgh	Black	2427	97 grams	Female
Port-of-Spain	Black Tortie	0102	91 grams	Female
Canberra	Black Tortie	0203	101 grams	Female

As you probably know, we have plans to spay Drambuie after the Capitals leave home. In one way, this will be such a shame as she is still a very young girl, and she is one of the best "mummies" that we have. However, we think she has done enough, and as you know we are concerned about the fact that she bloats when she calls, and the fact that she continues to look quite large once she has given birth, also, she is a prolific caller so this will definitely be her final litter and as such, we will possibly be keeping one of her Black Tortie girls here with us to follow in her mum's paw prints.

Birth Photos

Click Here to read Drambuie's Pregnancy Diary.