We are 1 week old now!

Day 6 - January 31, 2008

When taking photos this morning I cheated a little in that after I took the first pics pics, I then moved the 2 Tarts away from the Airports so that I could try and get some photos of each litter separately. This worked for about 20 seconds and then after that all Jam wanted to do was go back and join the Airports so it was a case of her crawling away from her sister, me picking her up and putting her back and then trying to take a photo quickly before she moved off again.

At the moment, Treacle is showing signs of being more laid back and chilled out that her Tortie sister and while Treacle is happy just to be stroked and doesn't really care what is going on, Jam is much more curious about life and has to know what is going on with everyone. I do love the way how individual little personalities start to come through from such a very young age and it's always so exciting to watch them as they develop and see if they retain these parts of their characters.

Day 5 - January 30, 2008

Our heating is now back on :) :) :) This means that at last I could open up the windows in the kitten room! Now you may think it's odd that the central heating is on, yet the windows are open but there is a very good reason for this. Central heating causes a dry heat in the home which can help bacteria etc. to thrive and it's not unusual for kittens who are kept warm by central heating to start off life with sticky eyes or a bit of conjunctivitis. So if the windows are open it means that lots of fresh air is coming in (yes some heat does escape) which helps to eliminate chances of any bacteria thriving yet the babies are still warm.

There are no photos in today's entries and the entries are quite short because I have had an awful lot to do today, including going to the tip, and we have 2 babies leaving tomorrow so I have a mountain of paperwork to sort out.

I am really, really happy with the progress of our Tarts as they are just doing so incredibly well. Neither baby has their eyes open yet but I don't think it will be too long before they are both fully open. They are such happy little children, still content to feed from either mum although they do naturally tend to gravitate more towards Nocello than Amaretto. Having the 2 mum's for 5 babies is making such a massive difference to their weights which is so very apparent when I compare them with the weights of our 80's Group.

Day 4 - January 29, 2008

I really couldn't tell you just how sweet our little Tarts are. Their tiny eyes are now starting to open up and they will soon be able to see the world which will be lovely. Considering the lateness of their birth, they are doing incredibly well and as per usual I am watching Jam's pattern develop with a great deal of interest. The Tabbies, in a way, are like the Torties, in the respect that you could have 3 Spotted Tabbies in one litter and still their patterns would all be different. The dream to breed the perfect Tabby continues to dominate my life and I think the closest I have come to so far would be Schimmel Myrtle The Turtle.

Treacle continues to be larger than her sister and I have a feeling that Treacle will be quite a big girl when she does eventually become an adult although she has a long way to go before she reaches that stage. I can't wait for our Tarts' personalities to start to develop because I do have a feeling that these 2 babies will be real characters.

Day 3 - January 28, 2008

This morning, each kitten diary will start off with the babies' colours and sexes. The sexes have got to be right because this time around, they were not sexed by me :) Instead, during Teen's visit yesterday, she very kindly sexed each of the babies for me and I trust her judgment far more than I do my own. Before I go into all that though, I would like to say a huge thanks to Teen and Tone for their visit yesterday and also for the loan of their fantastic kitten pen which we will need to use very soon and we'd have been well and truly stuck without it so thanks guys, you are absolute angels.

Now, onto our Tarts.......................colours were never an issue obviously as you can not mistake a Black or a Black Tortie for anything other than what they are, but still, here goes:

The Tarts
Baby	Colour	Sex
Jam	Brown Oriental Spotted Tabby	Female
Treacle	Oriental Black	Female

Nocello is still being a wonderful mum and she and Amaretto are more than happy with each others' company and sharing babies. The fact that the 5 babies are all making weight gains proves that all is going well in the Airports and Tarts' "posh box". Teen and I were only speaking yesterday about Nocello and how for many, many, weeks as a young kitten, everything thought she would never make it and Teen was amazed when she saw her yesterday. Cells really is one of life's little miracles although she is not so little any more bless her. She reminds me so much of her mother in personality, certainly not in looks but Nocello has plenty of moments where she is a very wicked young lady with a mind of her own, yet now that she has babies, she is the most loving girl you could ever imagine. Her 2 little girls are also gorgeous little kittens and if they have a combination of their mum and dad's temperament then I will be over the moon.

Day 2 - January 27, 2008

All diaries are the same today for a number of reasons, the first of which being that we lost Bakewell last night. I don't know if it's because perhaps he/she was born prematurely remembering that her mum delivered 3 more babies 2 days after she delivered Bakewell. As each day passed, Bakewell did not gain any weight and continued to make small losses each day. Losing Bakewell is a tremendous loss of a beautiful little fur child.

The 2nd and 3rd reasons as to why there are no entries today is because yesterday we had kitten families visiting our older babies so it was a very busy day and I didn't actually get yesterday's diaries online until today. Then we will be having the pleasure of Teen and Tone's company very shortly this afternoon which we are both really looking forward to. Diaries will be back to normal tomorrow with photos.

Day 3 & Day 1 - January 26, 2008

Bakwell (formerly Treacle) is concerning me a bit in the respect that he/she does not seem to be getting anywhere as far as putting on weight is concerned. At Day 3 I would expect to see much better gains and at the moment I will put this down to having an upset in the respect that new babies were born and new babies are now in the box. Treacle and Jam both had small losses today but this is only the first day of their lives so I'm not too concerned just yet. Having said that, I am considering topping up the babies periodically until I see some decent gains on them.

The one bonus is that the 3 Tarts (I really do love their collective name) are all quite lively babies and seem to be happy enough so hopefully as everyone settles down after yesterday's shocks (myself included!!!), gains will improve.

Day 2 - January 25, 2008

This morning brought a massive shock on 2 fronts and even now we are still rather stunned at today's events. The first shock was the fact that another of our ladies unexpectedly gave birth this morning, however, while that was going on, Nocello went into labour again and delivered 3 babies. Unfortunately, the 2nd baby was stillborn, the largest baby I have ever seen in my life, perfectly formed but sadly had died in the womb.

We looked at Nocello yesterday and she still looked incredibly large considering she had given birth but we were not unduly worried as her own mother, Drambuie, still looks very large after she gives birth and this line is prone to "bloating" when calling and after labour. As such, we both figured she was just taking after her own mother. You really have no idea of the shock I got when I took breakfast and milk mixture into the kitten room only to discover a brand new very wet baby in Nocello's box, as well as the next baby in the middle of being born.

I put down the bedding, checked and weighed baby number 2 and he/she was looking to be just fine and by the time I had finished that, the next baby was born and I removed him from Nocello straight away as he was stillborn. Nocello then concentrated on her newest child whilst Treacle was feeding, and so I went downstairs to sort out our adult cats and received another massive shock. When I went back into the kitten room for Nocello, I arrived while the next baby was halfway through the birth process. Once Nocello had dealt with this baby, I did the usual weighing and was pleased to see such a large baby.

After that I changed the bedding again in Nocello's box, flew downstairs with yet another load of washing, and then went back into our bedroom with our other new mum. Upon reflection, it really shouldn't be any surprised that Nocello decided to wait another day or two prior to finishing giving birth because some of you will remember that her own mum, Drambuie, was born 36 hours after the rest of her litter. We find it rather ironic that Nocello decided to follow in her mum's paw prints when it came to her own babies.

Obviously, this litter does now need a "theme" as Treacle has 2 siblings and we decided that these babies would be called "The Tarts". The problem with this though is that Treacle's name had to be changed to Bakewell because now that there is a Black baby in that litter, that one must obviously be called Treacle. So we are of course now still in shock but delighted to introduce you all to..................................

The Tarts
Baby	Colour	Birth Time	Birth Date	Weight	Sex
Bakewell	Brown Oriental Spotted Tabby	0705	23/01/2008	78 grams	?
Jam	Brown Oriental Spotted Tabby	0855	25/01/2008	80 grams	?
Treacle	Oriental Black	0950	25/01/2008	108 grams	?

Nocello's maternal instincts have well and truly kicked in and she is being a superb mum. She also now has some new "room mates" in her posh box and another new mummy to help her and things are going beautifully.

Of course there are no photos at all today because I had more than enough to do, running between rooms and assisting in labour for 2 ladies and photos were the absolute last thing on my mind!

Day 1 - January 24, 2008

Yesterday afternoon at 1500 I made the decision to top up little Treacle as I just couldn't bear to watch him any longer. Throughout the day I spent such a very long time trying to soothe Nocello and get her to accept her new baby, as well as trying to entice Treacle to latch on but we were getting absolutely nowhere. I already had a kitten mixture made up in the thermos in the fridge so I warmed some up in the microwave and then took it upstairs with a syringe and I fed Treacle.

After Treacle had satisfied him/herself with the milk mixture, I took Treacle back to the wardrobe and I smeared his head, neck, and back with the milk mixture. The idea behind this was that Nocello would be interested enough in the smell to want to lick it off him/her, which means she is also "grooming" him/her. I put some of the mixture on her nipples as well and sure enough, Cells started grooming her child whilst Treacle tried to feed from Nocello. After this, throughout the afternoon, Cells did seem much more interested in her baby although she is still lacking the maternal instinct at the moment but is doing better now than she was yesterday.

I'm not feeding Treacle every 2 hours because that would defeat the purpose. Treacle has to want to feed from his/her mum and if he/she is full of my milk mixture, then Treacle will have no interest in feeding from Nocello. The baby feeding from mum goes a very long way to helping with the bonding process, to say nothing of the colostrum that mum produces for the first 3 days which is so essential to any babies' immune system.

We took Nocello and Treacle out of our room last night and set them up in their own posh box in the kitten room. This did of course set Lucy off in the respect that she knew straight away there was another baby in the room and within seconds of me settling mum and baby in the box, Lucy was in the box and was picking up Treacle to take him/her back to her box. After some persuasion, Lucy stopped doing this and settled back with her own babies although she was constantly watching Cello's box.

I really was beginning to despair of Nocello ever taking to motherhood and at 2200 last night I spent an hour sitting on the floor in front of Cello's box, encouraging her to lie down whilst trying to latch Treacle on. By the end of the hour I was almost in tears of frustration as Treacle would try and try, but still just did not get the hang of feeding. We then had a breakthrough and Treacle finally latched on to one of the nipples I had been expressing milk from. Remember that babies go by scent only when it comes to the milk bar so I had been expressing milk from as many of Cointreau's nipples as possible so that Treacle's nose would lead him/her to a nipple. I really was so relieved it worked.

Having said that, when I got up this morning and went straight into the kitten room, Nocello was not in her box and neither was Treacle. Nocello was walking along the work surface and Treacle was in Lucy's box. I took Treacle out, put him/her back in Cello's box, she went straight to the box and settled down with her baby. Tia Lusso is a very possessive and very determined lady when it comes to babies and I do think that Nocello, being a brand new mum, defers to Lucy where the babies are concerned, even to the point where she will allow Lucy to steal her baby.

Again, I spent time in the kitten room settling Nocello and Treacle in their box and then came downstairs to warm up a milk mixture. When I took the mixture back upstairs, I fed Treacle 4 mils and then put him/her back in with Cello, knowing that Treacle would still be hungry and would hopefully fight for a nipple.

Things have been very calm in the kitten room since about 1030 this morning, Lucy herself was so much calmer and relaxed and was no longer frantically trying to take everyone else's children. As such, it's now 1305 and I have been popping into the kitten room periodically and each time I have gone in there, all 3 mum's have been in their own boxes with their own babies, including Nocello. I do think that now, maternal instincts are kicking in and Cells is realising that her baby depends on her. We do have a long way to go though to go before Nocello is being a proper mum, but things seem to be heading in the right direction.

Birth - January 23, 2008