We are 5 weeks old now!

Day 34 - October 4, 2007

Sorry guys, there are no photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries and the entries are the same for our older litters, and our Chefs/Ray J's diaries are the same. It has been an exhausting day as I had to be at the vets at 9am with some of our ladies who were booked in to be spayed. When I came back from the vets I had to move the babies around and thoroughly clean both kitten rooms and the upstairs part of the home. I started the cleaning at around 10am (much later than normal due to the vet appointment) and I didn't actually finish the cleaning until around 1430. I also have to go back to the vets to pick up our girls and settle them in the upstairs room to recover from their ordeal.

Sorry guys, there are no photos at all in any of today's kitten diaries and the entries are the same for our older litters, and our Chefs/Ray J's diaries are the same. It has been an exhausting day as I had to be at the vets at 9am with some of our ladies who were booked in to be spayed. When I came back from the vets I had to move the babies around and thoroughly clean both kitten rooms and the upstairs part of the home. I started the cleaning at around 10am (much later than normal due to the vet appointment) and I didn't actually finish the cleaning until around 1430. I also have to go back to the vets to pick up our girls and settle them in the upstairs room to recover from their ordeal.

Today was "moving" day for our Chefs and our Ray J's and let me assure you, it was far more traumatic for me than it was for the babies! I first had to thoroughly clean and scrub the main kitten room. Once that was done, I had to swap all the litter trays/food bowls/water bowls around so that the babies had all their own stuff with their familiar smell on it. When the room was set up, I then started putting the babies in there, 2 at a time as that was all I could really manage to hold as I stepped over the hoover and other bits and pieces. The look on our babies' faces was priceless. Their little eyes were opened with wonder and awe as they stared at their new room. Once all babies were in the room, I waited to see if they found where everything was i.e. litter trays, food etc. but they were more interested in climbing on top of the big scratch pole. How do such little babies manage to climb so high? They were even on top of the work surface. Both mum's are thrilled to be in the big room and the babies have been having the time of their lives. We did have a few problems with their bed as I obviously didn't put it in the right place. The first place I put it was in a snug corner between the wall and the scratch post. I thought that would be ideal. When I went back up half an hour later, I discovered Sambuca had led all the babies to a corner underneath the work surface and she was feeding them there as they all lay on the carpet. So that's okay, I picked up their bed and put it in the new place under the work surface. I then went back in an hour later to feed the babies, only to discover they were sound asleep curled up on the carpet underneath the chair. So while the babies were all gathered around the tray of food, I moved the bedding yet again to underneath the chair and hopefully, that is where it will remain.

Day 33 - October 3, 2007

Our Chefs, bless them, have decided that the place to go to the toilet is behind the door. I have now put a small litter tray, a show tray actually, in that same place where they were going because this way, the babies will start using that little tray. It will be irritating having a tray behind the door, which I will no doubt forget about each time I open the door, but far better to have a small inconvenience than a carpet that needs constant cleaning :) I don't know why they made the decision that is where they should be going, but once they are all using the small tray, I can at least then start to move it away from the door, bit by bit, until it's next to the other tray. They really are incredibly funny little children and as they mature, they are become an awful lot more talkative, particularly Heston who screams at me when she wants to get my attention. How can such small children have such big mouths? I was hoping to share their weights with you again today, but I realised that in a couple of days, our Chefs will be 5 weeks old so that will be a good time to share weights.

Day 32 - October 2, 2007

Gordon has decided that he should not be "imprisoned" in the kitten room at this age, and all day so far, as I have gone in and out of the kitten room, Gordon has run out with me. Naturally he is scooped up and put straight back in there much to his disgust. After this afternoon it will be even more imperative that the babies do not escape because our older litters are being vaccinated this afternoon and once we come home from the vets, they have to be kept right away from the Chefs and Ray J's so that the no infection as a result of the vaccine is passed on. All of our Chefs, including Heston, are doing splendidly at the moment and it's so lovely to watch them playing with each other and running about. I wish I had half their energy. Of course it does mean that taking photos is getting more and more difficult because they move so darn fast that I do end up with quite a few blurred shots.

Day 31 - October 1, 2007

You will have noticed I totally skipped yesterday's kitten diary entries? We had a kitten family visit, and we had friends visiting, so I had the day off :)

Antony now has a lovely new home waiting for him and we couldn't be more pleased with his chosen family. Originally, Amie had her eye on one of our Ray J's but it would appear that Antony totally won her over. Even though I had met Amie before at a cat show, I'd not seen her in ages and it was so great to meet her daughter, Hannah, and to meet Liam as well. Hannah is a lovely child and I'm sure, given half the chance, she would have happily taken all the babies home with her :) I was so pleased that the babies were awake while Amie was visiting, but as per usual there always has to be some who want to spend their time wrestling behind the TV unit. Antony is going to have a wonderful, if not manic, life in Amie's home, and he will be totally loved and adored. Let's just hope when he does move in that he plays nice with Amie's other gorgeous cats and doesn't teach them any bad habits! At the moment though, Antony is much better behaved than his brother, Gordon, so there is hope for him :) Our Chefs are all doing extremely well and all 6 of our Chefs will now eat directly from the plate. This does surprise me because up until Saturday, some of the babies still refused to eat any of the kitten foods. Now they all come scrambling over to the plate, which may now have to be changed to a tray just to accommodate all the kittens and the mum's :)

Day 29 - September 29, 2007

I want to talk about weaning today, just to really bore you all :) The thing is, I often receive emails from breeders with their first litter, asking about weaning etc. so wherever possible, I do like to go into this process in detail in the kitten diaries. Now the first thing I must say is Antony has obviously been sneaking food while I haven't been looking because last night, I fed the babies/mum's, then went back into the room to empty and bleach the litter tray again, and to my surprise, here was Antony eating from the plate as if he had always been doing it. I couldn't quite believe it because as you know, I'm not really weaning the babies as I'm happy with their weights so it's up to them to decide when the time is right to eat. Obviously Antony felt that last night was the right time and ever since then, he has eaten from the plate at every single meal. He actually eats quite a lot as well. Onto Heston now...............well I am happy to say that the syringes have now all been sterilized and packed away again, in fact, this was done a couple of days ago. Heston now eats from the plate at every single meal. Sometimes he needs a little encouragement, at other times, he just remembers what it is he should be doing and he happily tucks in. At the moment his weights are acceptable, they are not fantastic obviously, but he still continues to make gains every day. It really is so very heart warming to see him around the plate, alongside his brother, and the Ray J's, and enjoying his meals. The "weaning" food is virtually the same at each meal. Basically it is Natures Menu kitten, Hi Life Kitten/Junior, sometimes Felix kitten, evaporated milk mixture, sometimes with egg yolk and glucose, the kitten foods are mashed up on the plate, the milk mixture is warmed up and then mixed in with the kitten foods. It probably doesn't look particularly appetising but the kids love it, and so do the mum's. I also mix in freshly cooked fish, not with every meal, but certainly once every 2 days and the babies do love the fish. Sometimes I also put a small bowl of freshly cooked mince down as well, so the kittens can choose whether or not they wish to eat the mince or the kitten mixture. In this coming week, they will also be offered roast chicken which we always have in the home because we cook this every day for our adult cats and older kittens.

Day 28 - September 28, 2007

I must first warn you all that there will probably be no photos until Monday now. Reason being is that today has been a very hectic day, tomorrow I have quite a lot to do, and we friends and a kitten family visiting on Sunday so I really don't have a great deal of time at all.

Today was a special day for our Chefs because they had their first "proper" visitors. Up until now it's only been friends visiting, some of whom are kitten families for our much older babies, so this was their first visit from an official kitten family. It was so fantastic to meet Kate and Chas today and Kate is everything I had imagined her to be. We had such a lovely long chat while we were up in the kitten room and I think we covered almost every single aspect to do with Siamese and Orientals. It was great that the majority of our Chefs were actually awake during Kate's visit because babies at this age sleep for such very long times so it was nice for Kate and Chas to be able to see the babies moving around. The Ray J's put on a good performance by having a few wrestling matches behind the tv unit whilst Gary and James were interested in checking out our new visitors. It can sometimes be quite difficult to choose a baby however we are delighted to announce that James will be sharing his home with Kate and Chas. James is a lucky boy as he has a very sensible new mum and dad and I know that they will love him and spoil him. In some ways, this visit was possibly one of the most interesting I've ever had, in the respect that Kate had a list of questions for me, as a breeder, relating to our own cats, our breeding, and heath issues, almost like an interview in a way. I am presuming that Kate and Chas felt that my responses were adequate as James will be going to live with them at the end of November. How nice it is to see a kitten family take so much interest in their new furry family member and I do know that sometimes kitten families don't feel that it's appropriate to ask questions of their chosen breeder, but really, they should. Kate provided some lovely references, including one from her vet, and I have no doubts that the right decision was made by allowing Kate and Chas to be James' new mum and dad.