Day 6 - April 15, 2006

Yet more very good weight gains during the last 24 hours and now Pepper is the only baby whose eyes are not fully open. Salt and Vinegar can now see their little world as both their eyes are open now. Today I was actually able to name the Condiments in the photos below, mainly because of Pepper's eyes because at this point in time I can tell the difference quite easily between Salt and Vinegar. Once Pepper's eyes are open though it might not be quite so easy although at the moment in my opinion, the babies do look different and seem to have different head shapes. Colouring is becoming much more pronounced now and it does appear we do have a Seal based baby in amongst the Condiments whereas I had been thinking they might all be Blue/Blue Tabby. The problem I find with breeding Seals and Blues in the one litter is that sometimes, early on, the colours can be a bit difficult to tell apart so I will be watching very closely to see how they are developing.

Day 5 - April 14, 2006

Day 4 - April 13, 2006

You will notice that for the first time, I have managed to take photos of the right babies for each entry because I am a genuis :) Today, I put the mum's out of the room into our bedroom, I weighed all the babies, I then took the bedding out of the box, complete with babies on it. I put new bedding on the box and I put the Mel's back into the box with the new bedding. I then took photos of the Mel's, whilst making sure the Condiments didn't crawl off their bedding. I then put some more new bedding in the base of a litter tray (no it was not a used tray!), and then put the Condiments in there and took photos of them. It all went much more smoothly than I thought it would and it means that I now have a way of getting the correct babies in their own entries instead of joint photos.

Our Condiments made fantastic gains yet again last night, including Salt who managed to put on yet another 20 rams which is just amazing news. Also, if you look very closely at the photos below, you will notice tiny little slits starting to open up and I am sure it will not be long at all now before Salt, Pepper and Vinegar all have their eyes open which wil be really lovely. I have to be honest and say that I am just so relieved that they are all doing so well because after losing Tia Maria, I have actually dreaded this litter because Lusso is Tia Maria's daughter and I was waiting for all sorts of things to go wrong but so far, the Condiments' progress is just wonderful, exactly as it should be.

Day 3 - April 12, 2006

Thank you to everyone who said some prayers for Salt, my smallest baby of Tia Lusso's who I was a bit concerned about as he had only gained 6 grams. I'm thrilled to bits and so very thankful to say that when I weighed the babies this morning, he had gained 20 grams in the last 24 hours which is just wonderful. Obviously it took him a little longer to get the hang of this whole feeding lark. His brother and sister also made very good gains during the past 24 hours and while I am not becoming complacent at all about the babies, I have relaxed just the tiniest bit. Tia Lusso was yet again a nightmare when it came to weighing and I had to call our daughter in to pick her up and take her into our bedroom so I could get the job done. While I had Patriot (one of Amarula's babies) on the scales, Tia Lusso flew into the box (she had been eating breakfast) and she grabbed Lethal Weapon (another of Amarula's babies) and started carted him all around the room. She really is just impossible to have in the room if I want to do anything with her children but this is only because she loves them so much and is so fiercely protective of them which is perfectly natural for a first time mum. I am confident that over time, and as her babies mature, she will be much more accepting of me handling them. If I go into the room and just put my hands in the box and stroke them all, she is perfectly fine with that and doesn't mind at all. It is only when I remove them that she goes ballistic.

Again, both diaries are starting off the same today. Whenever you see the text split in two, then you need to remember that the text at the top will be exactly the same in Tia Lusso and Amarula's diary (just trying to make sure you don't read the same thing twice and think I've lost the plot). As all the babies are in the same box it's extremely difficult to know which Siamese is which, without picking them up and looking. Tia Lusso's babies have all been marked with permanent marker underneath their front legs. Two babies are blue and the other is red :) What I do not understand is how come the permanent marker fades overnight and has to be re marked every single morning, yet I can't get the darn stuff off my own skin (I now have blue and red markers on my hands!). When the Siamese colours start to come through, then it will be a lot easier to tell which on is Mad Max. This will also make it much easier for the photos because at the moment, apart from the Orientals obviously, I have absolutely no idea which Siamese I'm actually taking a photo of which is why there images of all the babies together in both diaries, and probably will be for a week, although if I'm right and if Mad Max turns out to be a Seal then his colours will start coming through very soon and I'm still convinced that Tia Lusso's babies will be blue/blue tabby. Speaking of photos though, many apologies for the ones in both entries today. They are dreadful, made worse by the fact that I had changed the bedding this morning as I do every morning and the bedding is a very dark navy blue which means that you can't even see Lethal Weapon or Braveheart in the photos but let me assure you, they are definitely there, truly :) The other reason that the photos are so bad is because of the mothers. Up until Tia Lusso's babies were born, Amarula was more than happy for me to handle her children and to weigh them etc. whereas Tia Lusso goes absolutely nutty. She thinks I am taking her children away from her and it's impossible to explain to her that all I want to do is make sure they are gaining weight. But unfortunately, Amarula is now following in her footsteps. This morning, I went into the kitten room as soon as I woke up at around 0700 just to check that the babies were all still alive and okay which they were. I then came downstairs and started deboning the chicken, put the washing on, checked the emails, and fed the Pints and the Bush Rangers and then I went back upstairs with a plate of freshly cooked chicken which had been simmering away for half the night. I figured that if I went up there with food in my hand then both mum's would be more interested in the food and would forget about the children for 10 minutes or so which would have given me enough time to change the bedding and weigh them all. Both mum's rushed over to the chicken because they do love it and it is so very good for them, so I changed the bedding which only takes me about 10 - 15 seconds as I'm quite adept at that now. But as I started taking out the babies to weigh them one by one, Tia Lusso flew into the box like a lioness while Amarula jumped up onto the little table to try to take the baby out of the scales. Both mum's were quite distressed but I am hoping that as time goes by, they will become more comfortable with me handling them. I think though that I might put them in the bedroom during the weighing sessions because what concerns me is that as I'm trying to weigh them, Tia Lusso is taking them out of the box and carting them all around the room, in a rather rough manner I must admit, as she is looking for somewhere else to put them so she can hide them from me. Then of course, once that's all over, both mums just about sit on the children in the box to stop me taking any more, even though I've finished now, and all I want to do is take some photos but it's rather difficult with the mum's in the way.

Last night when we went upstairs, I made Graham come into the kitten room with me so that we could attempt to sex the babies and what we have come up with is this:

Salt	Siamese	Male
Pepper	Siamese	Female
Vinegar	Siamese	Female

Now please remember that these are guesses only and it's common knowledge that sexing babies is not my strong point, despite having had 14 litters (now 16), I still struggle to get it right so you will all have to bear with me on this but don't be surprised if they all appear to suddenly "change sex" when they are about 3 weeks of age. Salt is our smallest baby and he also is the baby to have made the smallest gains in 24 hours as he only gained 6 grams, but it's still a gain and that's okay however I will be keeping a very close eye on him to make sure that he is okay and that he is latching on alright and continues to gain. While ever he is gaining, I don't want to step in and start topping up because it's much better that he feeds from the mum's, particularly at this early stage of his life when he is getting the colostrum that will keep him protected for the first few weeks. I would appreciate any prayers for him though that he makes some bigger gains. Pepper and Vinegar both made good gains, Pepper gained 11 grams and Vinegar gained 12 grams so I am happy with this.

Amarula and Tia Lusso's diaries both start off the same way as yesterday afternoon, Lusso and her 3 children were moved into the kitten room. When I moved Lusso and her babies in, Lusso was not a happy girl and she had a great deal of interest in Amarula's box and the babies that were in there. I must admit that I was really concerned that she was going to steal them and claim them as her own. Amarula was really happy to greet Lusso which is good because if just one mum is in the kitten room on their own with babies it gets very lonely for the first 3 weeks. After the greeting and sniffing however, Lusso went a bit nutty, she went back to her box, stuck her head in, and grabbed one of her babies and carried him/her to Amarula's box where she almost literally threw the baby in there. A mere three seconds later, she'd grabbed the same baby, took him back to her box and threw him/her in there. I must admit that I was concerned about the way she was carrying this baby. I had 2 choices, either move her and the kids back into our room, or leave the room altogether and hope that if I'm not in there, she will settled back down in her box with the babies. I am very relieved that prior to moving the babies in there, I had remembered to make them with permanent marker because I was worried that if both mum's decided to share a box, which is normally what happens, then Amarula's baby would get mixed up with Tia Lusso's and I wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Anyway, I made the decision to leave the room and when I went back in 20 minutes later, expecting to see babies all over the room, I was really pleased to see that Lusso was in her box, and her 3 children were trying to feed, so I left rather quickly and didn't go back in for another hour or so. Late afternoon came round and I went back in to check on everyone only to discover that Tia Lusso was out of the box having a snack, her babies woke up and cried and Amarula went rushing out of her box to the other side of the room and went into Tia Lusso's box to feed and comfort her children. Tia Lusso then went into her box, grabbed a baby and took him/her out and put the baby in Amarula's box again. I then put the baby back and Tia Lusso climbed into her box and settled down beside Amarula. This now meant that Amarula's children were now orphans as they had no mother in there box. At this point in time, I totally gave up and just picked up all 4 of Amarula's babies and put them in the same box as Lusso's babies and wouldn't you know it, within seconds of doing that, both mums and all babies were perfectly content with the world...................and I needed a strong drink!

Tia Lusso's babies all gained weight overnight which I'm really pleased about as quite often, babies will lose within the first 24 hours. Two of the Siamese made big gains and the other Siamese had only gained 1 gram but considering they are only 24 hours old this is brilliant news. Tia Lusso is a very good mum and just like Amarula, she only really leaves the box for food/drinks and to her the litter tray. When it comes to weighing time, Tia Lusso does get a little worried as she is a very possessive mum and at this stage, doesn't like the babies to be taken out of the box so the whole process has to be done extremely quickly and with as little fuss as possible. When I had come downstairs yesterday afternoon having just checked on our new children, Graham told me he had thought of names for Tia Lusso's babies which actually was a relief because I didn't really have the energy to put a lot of effort into thinking of names and I must admit that I like these ones. Our 3 babies will collectively be called "the Condiments" and are now known as:

Salt	Smallest Baby
Pepper	Middle Baby
Vinegar	Largest Baby

Now it's just a case of waiting for that exciting moment when colours start appearing, although at this point in time I'm going with Blues and Blue Tabbies. We did have good intentions to try and sex the babies last night but was just too tired so we may get around to doing that at some point today.

This has been such an incredibly easy birth, particularly for Tia Lusso who quite literally shelled them like peas as if she had done it a thousand times before. There was no need for me to do anything at all other than take photos and just watch the whole process which was also over quite quickly. For the first time ever though, she actually delivered the first baby, totally unbeknownst to us as she wasn't in the bedroom. I am guessing that at some point in time during the early hours of the morning when either Graham or myself got up to go the toilet, she must have slipped passed us out into the hallway and we haven't noticed. Graham got up at 0700, went out into the hallway to go to the bathroom and next thing I knew, he was calling for me to come out. Tia Lusso was lying in the bottom of the cylinder post that lives in the upstairs hallway and lying in there with her, squeaking away was her firstborn child. Goodness only knows what Toussaint and Cointreau (who both slept in the upstairs hallway) thought of it all. There was not even any evidence she had given birth as everything was so incredibly clean. We brought the cylinder thing into the bedroom, I took Lusso out of it and put her straight in the box. I then picked up the baby to have a look and he/she was perfectly fine and I popped the baby on the scales and thought to myself what a lovely big baby we had. Going off the state of the baby when we first discovered him or her, we are going to put the delivery time at 0630. Lusso looked as if she hadn't even just given birth, she was not tired, she was happy to groom her baby and to be back in the bedroom with us. Then at 0920, Tia Lusso started pushing again and out popped the 2nd baby, tail and feet first so I sat back on the bed and watched. Lusso just cleaned the sac of the baby, started chewing the cord, ate all of the placenta, and then carried on cleaning her baby. When she had finished, I put the baby on the scales and thought "wow, you are even bigger than the first". I put the baby back in the box with her, went downstairs and started the first load of washing, came back upstairs and a few minutes later, Lusso slid the 3rd baby out and again, all I had to do was take photos as she did the lot. When I weighed the baby, I was stunned at the size. This 3rd baby is the largest we have ever had to date. I took Lusso and the babies out of the box, placed the bedding and put them all back in and Lusso just groomed all the babies and lay down so they could feed while she put her front legs around them. She then settled down and had a bit of a nap and basically, that was it, birth over and done with and 3 beautiful Tia Lusso children. I am very thankful that this one was all so easy, particularly after the problems we had with Amarula's birth. I just hope and pray now that the babies will be okay. They are very lively children and while the last 2 were being born, the firstborn was already latched on. An hour or two after the births were over, all 3 babies were either feeding or trying to feed so this is a good sign. Tia Lusso has eaten a tin of Hills a/d this afternoon and had a bit of a walk around the room and there are definitely no more babies in there. She just looks so darn good as if nothing had happened at all.