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

Sambuca

April 2005

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

Day 103 - July 16, 2005
Yet another sad day here in the Schimmel household as Neptune left me today to live with Sam, Dean, and fur kids Luna (another Schimmel baby), and Domino. She looked so tiny as I put her in the carrier and to be honest, I had gotten so used to seeing her around the house that she had just become part of our family. I know that Tia Lusso is going to be upset because she did enjoy Neptune's company and they would spend a lot of time playing and wrestling with each other. Fortunately she still has her brother Athos to annoy as he won't be leaving us for a little while. I am sure that Neptune is going to have a great time with Sam and Dean and hopefully it won't be too long before she has made herself right at home. What this does mean is that we have now finally reached the end of Sambuca's first kitten diary and what a diary this one has been. The first few 2-3 weeks were so incredibly sad, and our fight to keep Mars going was also so incredibly difficult. Some litters are just full of heartache right from the start and I can say that this was definitely one of those. By about the end of the 3rd week of the Planet's diary, I was wishing that I had never mated her in the first place. Having said that, a few weeks later, when I had my 5 little Blacks running about the house, creating havoc, giving me kisses and purrs, and eating me out of house and home, I realised that I was so very lucky to have 5 such beautiful babies who brought me so much joy and who, no doubt, are doing the same for their new owners. Looking at Mars on the day she left me, she was my "success story" in this litter because she and I fought so hard at the start and by the time she left me, she was larger than 2 of her other sisters. I know that my Planets are going to be loved and cherished for the rest of their lives and I'd like to thank all of their new owners for having one of our babies and for giving them a home full of love, for life. Many thanks also to my wonderful vet, Dr Andy Garton, Kim and Donna for all their help and support when we had those difficult times. Also to Graham, for all his help right at the start with the syringe feeding, and for the support he gave me when I lost 3 of my little ones in this litter. I am always sad when we come to the end of another Schimmel Kitten Diary, however, I will now look forward to beginning 2 new diaries in about 10 days time as Amaretto & Tia Maria are both due to give birth. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read Sambuca's kitten diary and I hope you have enjoyed keeping up to date with our Planet's progress.



Day 96 - July 9, 2005
Not a wonderful day for me at all, nor for poor Neptune who, by tomorrow, will be our sole remaining Planet. Saturn left me this afternoon to go and live with Michelle, Darren and their other new fur child, Harrie. I am so very pleased that Saturn will have someone to play with as he really does love feline company, as do all Orientals and Siamese. Then, after dinner, Marsaili and Ian arrived to take our darling Mars home with them back to Scotland. She had everything she needed in her carrier for the long journey, toys, blankets, water, food etc. Letting Mars go certainly wasn't easy because even now, I remember the battle I had with her for the first 3 weeks of her lives when everything was touch and go and so very difficult at times. Yet to look at her now, she is bigger than Neptune and Jupiter and she came on in leaps and bounds. I can't believe that they have both gone now. No matter how many babies we breed, every single one is special to me in their own way and letting them go to new homes is still one of the worst parts of breeding and one that I do not find very easy at all. We have almost come to the end of yet another Schimmel Kitten Diary. There will be no more diary entries now until July 16th, when Neptune will be leaving me. On the 16th, I will be doing our final entry for the Planets. It is always so difficult letting our babies go and all I can do is hope and pray that I have made the right choices with their new families and that our babies will be cherished and loved for the remainder of their lives. As this is Mars and Saturn's special day, the only photos in this entry are of those 2 babies. When Neptune leaves me, he will have his own "special photos" in his entry.



Day 95 - July 8, 2005
Today has been spent mainly on paperwork and nothing else. Three of our babies are leaving us over the weekend and 2 of those leaving are Mars & Saturn which will be sad. Saturn is the first to go as he is being picked up tomorrow afternoon by Michelle whom I know is going to spoil him rotten. He's also lucky enough to be sharing his new home with another new baby so he will have a companion for the rest of his life which is lovely. Mars is leaving us on Saturday evening to go and live in Scotland (I don't think I've ever homed a kitten in Scotland) and she is going to have a wonderful time on a small farm with dogs, children, sheep, hens and ducks to play with. So quite naturally, all I have done is prepare their "folders" which actually takes up much more time than most people would realise. Perhaps I might have had it done sooner had Saturn & Neptune not wanted to "help" mum. Every time I printed things off, they would be walking all over the printer and sticking their heads in to see how far they would go. That was amusing and only slightly distracting. The biggest problem was when Saturn fell off the printer, straight into my cup of coffee, splattering it all over documents that I had just printed and then had to re-do. At this stage, I thought it was definitely time to put the babies out of the back room until I finished.

Day 94 - July 7, 2005
The start of this entry should no doubt prove to you just how insane we cat breeders are and that all it takes is to have a litter in the house and we totally lose the plot. Last night, as per usual, I came downstairs to lock Ice's house up, and do a head count. Normally, the kittens and cats have been in the bedroom with us for visiting time, yet last night, they were all banned from the room (see Tia's kitten diary for the reason why). So after I finished with Ice, I came back inside and started to count and realised something was very badly wrong. I could only count 2 Oriental Blacks, went through the entire house, every single corner, upstairs and downstairs, double checked that none were in our bedroom and Graham assured me that they weren't, came back downstairs and spotted another Black baby, although obviously this could have been one I had previously counted. I managed to get 2 of them on the chair together, then counted a third running down the stairs, went back up to the bedroom to tell Graham that we have most definitely lost 2 of our Ori babies and was starting to panic slightly at this stage. After 25 minutes of searching, it suddenly occurred to me that we no longer HAVE 5 Black babies, we only have 3 as 2 of them are now in their new home! I can not put into words how stupid I felt hunting for babies who don't even live here any more :( At this point in time, I figured it was definitely time to return to the bedroom, the TV, and a glass of wine!
I would just like to add our hearts go all those involved in this morning's explosions in London and our prayers and thoughts are with the families of casualties and those who lost their lives



Day 93 - July 6, 2005
The Planets were not overly happy with me yesterday, nor were the Musketeers for that matter, because they were confined to the upstairs part of the house for quite a lot of the day. The reason for this is that all 4 aquariums needed some attention. As it has been so busy here recently, it's been at least 3 weeks since we'd spent any time on them and normally, each aquarium is maintained once a week. There is just no way we can have the cats running about when we are doing the tanks because on one occasion, Drambuie fell into the largest aquarium, then only recently, we had a the lid off one of the small tanks that houses our Siamese Fighting Fish, one of the females jumped out and before we could get her back in the tank, Amarula had scooped her up in her mouth, ran away and eaten her! All within a matter of about 30 seconds. So obviously, we have learnt our lessons about keeping the cats and kittens well away. This is also why there are no photos for today. (so much for getting entries back to normal!) You will however, be pleased to hear that we have finally ordered a new digital camera which apparently "does the lot", so provided I can ever figure out how to work something that technical, the photos will be hopefully of much better quality. Although knowing my luck, the camera will arrive one day after the babies all leave.

Day 92 - July 5, 2005
We're sort of getting back to normal now with diary entries and fortunately, photos again as well. The next of our Planets to leave will be Saturn although he isn't going until Saturday afternoon which will give me some "breathing space" to get lots more paperwork out of the way. At this stage of their lives, the babies are on just one wet meal day and this is at dinner time. The rest of the time they are eating the kitten biscuits which they have access to 24 hours a day. All of our Planets have spent today either out in the cat run, or upstairs snoozing in the radiator bed. With Jupiter and Venus no longer in the house, it is actually much easier to tell our remaining 2 black girls apart as they are so very different in looks. Saturn has developed into a lovely black teddy bear now. He's grown quite a bit and his face does resemble a teddy that you would take to bed. In case some of you are wondering why on earth there is usually more photos of the Musketeers than the are of the Planets, well let me promise you that for each photo I take of the Musketeers, I take the same amount of the Planets. The problem is that most of the Planets' photos don't turn out particularly well and end up looking like indistinguishable blobs. I still am unable to take a decent photo of any Black babies. Mind you, the camera I'm using doesn't really help matters.



Day 91 - July 4, 2005
Well at 13 weeks of age today, 2 of my babies have already left me which leaves only 3 remaining, although these 3 are not leaving until the weekend. I must say that it does make head counts much easier but it still feels odd without 5 of them in the house. Mind you, their mum, Sambuca is back in full call yet again, screaming her head off so we had to make the decision to mate her and she is currently on her honeymoon with Ice, having a fantastic time. Our remaining Planets don't seem to have noticed that their sisters are missing but as there are still 6 babies in the house, as well as our 2 older babies, Sheridans and Amarula, it's no surprise that no one really notices that 2 have now gone. I have now found the camera at long last. It must have been sitting in the lounge room when we were having our big clean up and I had obviously sat it in one of the wall unit cupboards out of harm's way and then totally forgot about it. Quite naturally the batteries now need charging again but hopefully tomorrow we will be back to normal with photos in the diary entries. Both litters registration papers arrived in the post this morning which is great news as I still wasn't sure that they would be back in time for this weekend.