We are 2 weeks old now!

Day 13 - June 2, 2007

There is no diary entry for today.

Day 12 - June 1, 2007

Bloody stubborn Oriental Black Torties!!!!! Who in their right mind would want to share their home with a Tortie??????? Yesterday afternoon at approximately 1430 I went up to take another meal up for the mum's and the babies who feel like eating, I also took the mixture up to feed Edinburgh again and I opened the kitten room door and was totally and utterly horrified because the first thing I saw was Washington half way up the ramp of the other posh box, Dublin right on the top of the ramp as it goes into the posh box, and the rest of the flippin' Capitals, including my darling, tiny, tiny, Edinburgh, all mixed in with the Tails of Hans Christian Anderson and Liquorice. I almost dropped the plate of food, and the milk mixture. I scooped up as many Capitals as I possibly could, put them back in their own box, went back for the others and did the same. I then examined everyone and sure enough they were all fine, no one had been squashed or traumatised by their "box move". I then glared at Drambuie with my most evil glare, she carried on eating, I then fed Edinburgh. I finished weighing Edinburgh, put her back in the box, went to get a piece of bedding to put on the ramp of the other babies' posh box as Snow Queen was finding it a tad slippery as she went down it, I put the bedding on there, turned around, and here was Drambuie, jumping OUT of her own posh box with EDINBURGH IN HER MOUTH!!! She carted her straight back to the other babies' posh box and plonked her in there. She then went back to her own box for another baby! I know my girls extremely well, and if I had put Edinburgh back in her own box, Buie would have taken her straight back out. So I had to make the decision to let Buie move her babies in with everyone else (Tone...........the posh boxes are no longer big enough! They are fine for 2 queens and 2 litters, but not 3 queens and 3 litters!). I then came downstairs, went back up with the camera because naturally a few photos were in order. But oh, I am concerned. Not because of the fact that we have 3 girls raising the babies because in all honesty, there isn't a single Schimmel bred queen in our home who wouldn't be happy to share mothering duties with the rest of the mum's. We raise all Schimmel cats to have fantastic temperaments and I would certainly expect each girl we have bred to "adopt" every baby who shares their room. This is something we pride ourselves on. What worries me is the size of Liquorice and the size of the Hans Christian Anderson babies and I am desperately worried that some of our smaller Capitals will miss out on feeding at the milk bar. Especially my Edinburgh as you can imagine. So this is going to go one of 2 ways, either the Capitals are going to start having weight losses in which case a very fast solution will need to be found, or, 11 babies between 3 mum's will mean that no baby will struggle to find a free nipple and everyone should have good gains. Right..............I actually did cheat a little and I typed this part of the diary entry late yesterday afternoon, so let's move on a bit further from that now shall we? Weights, well, I am incredibly, incredibly relieved to see that our Capitals had made decent enough weight gains by the time their morning weigh in session had arrived, including little Edinburgh, which hopefully is indicative of all 3 mum's feeding all 11 babies although it is definitely too early to know for sure yet and it's going to take some careful monitoring over the next few days to see if our Capitals will be able to hold their own against the much older, and much bigger babies. I can't stay in the room to monitor the feeding progress of the babies and the mum's because if I'm in the room, all 3 mum's will leave their babies because they want to have cuddles with me, so today, I have only been going in the room at set times to either feed the mum's or to feed Edinburgh because while this crucial "box settling in" period is going on, it is imperative that I don't disturb any of the mum's and babies so that no feeding times are interrupted. One bonus that I have noticed is that if any of the babies cry because they are hungry, then at least 2 out of 3 mothers go straight into the box to comfort or feed them.

Day 11 - May 31, 2007

Very good news today! Edinburgh has had her biggest 24 hour gain yet. She has gained 12 grams in the previous 24 hours which really is totally, absolutely, marvellous. My little baby girl is making very good progress, and I know that her new mum, Zoe, will be really pleased when she reads this. Edinburgh will be sharing her home with Zoe and Noosa who is from our Racers litter earlier this year. There's still roughly 40 grams difference between Edinburgh and our next smallest baby which is London, however, this is not a big difference at all, especially considering the varying weights of our Capitals. I think poor Canberra and Dublin are sick and tired of being picked up and examined on a daily basis because I'm still trying to decide which baby will stay here with us. At the moment though, Dublin is still winning, because she has a little red patch on the back of her head which I totally adore, she has a partially solid back paw, just like her grandmother, and there is just something about her that appeals to me but I couldn't say what it is because I honestly don't know. All of our Capitals are doing extremely well and I am thrilled to bits with their progress. They don't even object when the other "mum's" sniff them, nor do they mind at all when Liquorice decides to join them in the posh box. Port-of-Spain allowed herself to have some cuddles today with David and Connie who were visiting their new baby, Ugly Duckling. I was really proud of our little girl as she happily went to people she didn't know without any fuss at all and was content to sit there in their hands looking incredibly sweet.

Day 10 - May 30, 2007

You can imagine my surprise when I went up to the kitten room for Edinburgh's 1pm feed and I removed the lid from the box, and lying in the box, sprawled out amongst all the Capitals was Liquorice! Now I know that she is climbing in there herself now as she can reach, but what I don't understand is why Drambuie is happy for her great big bruiser of a niece to share the box with the very little, very young, Capitals. I removed Liquorice straight away and had words with Drambuie about letting strangers in the box in amongst her children. I must make it a priority to varnish the new posh box and get it up into the kitten room asap as the new box may well stop Liquorice from climbing in the Capitals' box. Our Capitals are doing extremely well, and they are at the stage where they now lie in the box and when they are awake and not feeding, they are trying to groom themselves and each other. Also, I caught 3 of them all standing up on their back legs, leaning against the front of the box, trying to peer out, which obviously they couldn't as they are way too small for that sort of thing. Edinburgh isn't doing too badly, there has been a change in her in that now she actually realises that Drambuie has milk and she fights alongside the rest of her litter mates for her own place at the milk bar. Sometimes she is successful, other times she isn't, but she is an extremely determined little soul and I'm really pleased to see that she is now trying to drink from mum. I am still doing 2 hourly feeding though because she is expending a lot of energy trying to feed from Drambuie and I do need to make sure that she is getting more than enough milk to replace what she loses in the nipple battles.

Day 9 - May 29, 2007

There's no photos in today's entries, and the entries are all the same for each of the 3 kitten diaries. I spent most of this morning doing the normal cleaning chores etc., and this this afternoon, we had a lovely visit from our mates, Teen, Tone, and Val of Maroochydore Siamese & Orientals. Tone had made us another new "posh box" which I am totally delighted with. That guy really is a star and it's not often that you find someone so generous with their time and hard work and Tone is one in a million :) We had such a fantastic visit with our mates, as we always do, and Teen and Val were able to have cuddles with all of our babies. The babies did enjoy their visits and did not mind at all when they were picked up and cuddled and examined, and the mum's were delighted to see some new faces in the kitten room and were all vying for attention, particularly Cointreau who is back in full blown call, her 3rd since Liquorice was born! It was so nice to be able to show off the babies and to chat with Teen and Val about colour, show potential, the "cuteness" factor, future possible matings for our girls and for the Maroochydore girls. Of course it was also lovely to be able to show off our darling Ashanti who is sister to "Sheep" who shares the Maroochydore home, and make comparisons between the 2. I was also really pleased to hear that our little Nocello is not really that little at all, and according to Teen, she is not much smaller than her sister, Dingo, who also shares the Maroochydore home. It really was a wonderful afternoon and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Day 8 - May 28, 2007

Edinburgh has made her biggest 24 hour gain yet which I'm pleased about. Up until now, the most she has gained has been 5 grams every 24 hours but when I weighed her this morning she had gained 7 grams. Okay it's only an extra 2 grams but that really is very good news. Also, her eyes are finally starting to open up, just the smallest amount but I do think within a few days, like the rest of her siblings, she will be able to see the world as well :) At the other end of the scale, Washington and Canberra continue to pile on the weight at a phenomenal rate. Now with today's photos, it is simply a guessing game, yet again, to try to figure out which head belongs to which body amongst a pile of blobs. What was really infuriating is that when I had finished taking the photos, Drambuie chose that moment to get out of the box and have a meal. She couldn't have done that before I took the photos could she!

Day 7 - May 27, 2007

By the time Day 5 had come around, I had just one goal that I was aiming for when the babies reached Week 1. That goal was to have Edinburgh back up to her birth weight, remembering that she lost an awful lot of weight in the first 24 hours. I am pleased to say that this has been achieved. She was 97 grams when she was born, and she is now 106 grams. Of course this makes her week 1 weigh gain miniscule, however, again, I looked back at the weight chart for Schimmel Goddess of War, and her Week 1 weight gain was minus 28 grams so at least we are going forward with Edinburgh. If you look at the weight gains below for all of our Capitals, you will soon see exactly who has been hogging the milk bar :)

Baby	Sex	Birth Weight	Week 1 Weight	Weight Gain
Dublin	Female	94 grams	149 grams	55 grams
London	Male	85 grams	141 grams	56 grams
Washington	Male	113 grams	235 grams	122 grams
Edinburgh	Female	97 grams	106 grams	9 grams
Port-of-Spain	Female	91 grams	166 grams	75 grams
Canberra	Female	101 grams	201 grams	100 grams

All of our Capitals eyes are open now, except for Edinburgh as so far she is refusing to open them. I am monitoring her though and there is nothing untoward so I am sure hers will open when she is ready. I must say that our Capitals do all have beautiful little eyes and hopefully, as I have taken individual photos today, you can actually see some of their eyes for yourselves. The thing that worried me about today's photo sessions was that Canberra and Dublin both protested very loudly about having their photo taken. This upset Cointreau and Sambuca, and the language between myself, and the 2 mum's was quite volatile because as I was trying to photograph the girls who were screaming, the 2 mum's were jumping up onto the cupboard trying to take them away. Why is it, that the baby who will be joining our home has to be the most vocal???