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

Tia Maria

May 2004

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 1 3

Tia Maria's 2nd Kitten Diary - May 2004 to august 2004

Day 27 - June 5th, 2004

As usual, it's been a hectic day due to "things" that have been going on here (not to do with cats) and I think I will be glad when this weekend is over to be honest. I learnt a valuable lesson today. Do not try and clean the kitten room now when the babies are in there as it just doesn't work. First I tried sweeping the floor and the babies kept running in front of the broom and walking through the mess I was sweeping up, then they started climbing my legs you can just picture it can't you? There's me trying to avoid sweeping babies across the floor while trying to remove babies who are hanging off my thighs at the same time. After the sweeping I then tried to mop the floor. At this point I scooped up all the terrors, put them in the cat bed and put that on the lounge thinking that would keep them quiet while I mopped. Not quite! As soon as I had put the mop in the bucket, I had to go back to the lounge as the babies were out of the bed and trying to climb down the sofa. From now onwards, I shall be putting the little brats in a cat carrier while I do the floor I think. It's much safer. Tia wasn't very happy with me today because while she was finishing off the remaining kitten food, she left me to monitor the R's and I lost one. Once she'd eaten, she did a head count and then let out this horrible wail. After I then counted them I realised that yes she's right and one was indeed missing. So Tia and I were frantically searching to try and find the little one. After a minute of searching it occurred to me to look behind the ottoman and sure enough that's where the missing baby was. So I got the baby out, gave him to Tia who was pleased to see that he was safe, but was very annoyed with me for losing him in the first place. Does she think I have eyes in the back of my head!! I've since moved the ottoman out from the wall so that if the babies do go behind it, there is now plenty of room for Tia to go and fetch them back. Those of you who are observant will have noticed in the photos below that in the cat bed has been changed. The reason for this is that when I was tidying up in the room, I turned my back for a few minutes, only to discover that one of my little treasures decided to leave me a little surprise.......bless him! So the bedding had to be changed straightaway obviously.

Day 26 - June 4th, 2004

Late yesterday afternoon I tried the R's on mashed up dry kitten biscuits with a bit of milk mixture and they loved it and all of them ate like there was no tomorrow. I'm so proud of them and they are such clever babies. It's the first semi solid meal they have eaten so I'm really excited. It's mad I know, but every time they do learn something new I am just so incredibly proud of them. I'm sure other breeders can associate with this. Birchy was very funny because he decided that after a while he wasn't prepared to share the food with his brothers and sisters so he stood in the plate of mixture, with all 4 paws and then started eating so no one else could get their head in at all. I'm also thrilled to say that Rolly appears to know what the litter tray is for now as I've seen him go straight to it on more than one occasion and he does appear to be going to the toilet in there so that's just great. It looks like the others are now following suit in the litter department as last night, at one point there were up to 4 babies in the litter tray all at once, all going to the toilet and I was so excited that I went and told hubby (who was in bed) and our daughter (who was in the shower). They seemed to be pleased but not quite as thrilled as I was. Again today, the R's have been gobbling up the mashed up kitten biscuits so weaning progress is going so much better than last time around. It took so much longer to wean the Charmed Ones in comparison to the R's and I'm putting that down to one of two reasons. It's either because The Charmed Ones were our first litter and the R's are now our third litter and I am so much more relaxed and confident this time around. Either that or........my cooking has gotten much better and my food is now more appetising to the babies :) The majority of today's photos are of the R's playing the "Limb Biting" game.

Photos taken last night

The quality of these photos isn't great but you can get a general idea of how the R's are developing. When I took these last night I still had a problem with the camera but thought you'd like the pics anyway. Fortunately I've now fixed the camera problem which turned out to be nothing more than a dirty lens.

Day 25 - June 3rd, 2004

Some of the R's have now started venturing into their small litter tray. It doesn't look like they're going to the toilet though, they just go in there, walk around and sit down but at least it's a start. I've now removed the large bedding that used to sit on the floor as the babies are so much older now they they really don't need a massive quilt, particularly when they wee all over it! So now they just have their cat bed which is large enough for all 6 babies and mum, and they still have the sofa bed, (not that they can get up on there yet, but I'm sure it won't be long, as well as other bits and pieces. At least this way I will no longer have to wash the large bedding on a daily basis. It's so much easier to just wash the floor every day. The R's now move about all over the place and whenever I leave the kitten room now, the babies see me heading towards the door and they all run after me, squealing as if to say "Don't go, take us with you." Little Birchy nearly made it out the door with me last night as he was so quick. When I did the first weaning session this morning, 4 of the R's went straight to the saucer and started lapping it up, the other 2 were busy exploring the room, but when they found the saucer, the first thing they did was walk straight through the mixture! As the weaning (and the weight gains) have been going so well, I'm going to start introducing other foods tomorrow into the milk mixture. I will be using things like, mashed up dry kitten biscuits (that was a favourite with the last 2 litters), tinned fish, wet kitten food, small amounts of mashed up chicken and hopefully the R's will take to all that as quickly as they did to the milk mixture. Tia's dry food bowl is now left on the floor where it used to be, I had previously moved her dry food and water to the work top. I remember with Cacao's litter that they automatically started eating the dry food at 4 weeks of age so I'm hoping the R's will do the same. The water is still on the work top though because I do have this fear that one of the R's will fall in it and drown. I don't know why because I'm sure with the last 2 litters I left the water bowl on the floor. Perhaps I'll move it to the floor during the day and put it back on the work top of an evening until I'm sure it is safe. I did have another look at the R's colours last night to try and ascertain exactly what I have here but I'm not really any wiser. I'm sure that someone who has been breeding for years would know straight away what they were. As it is, I'll just muddle through with it and see what they end up. Anyway, this is what it looks like at the moment and I'm happy to say that we ended up with 3 tabbies and 3 solids. The photos don't really do justice to the R's colours unfortunately. I had a bit of a nightmare with photos today. I took 2 sets of photos and in the 2nd set, there were about 30 pics of the R's playing. However......I don't know what I pressed on the camera, but every single photo ended up with a soft light that blurred out half the images. All I managed to salvage was 2 photos so I'm not very happy because there were quite decent photos for a change.

BABY	COLOUR
The possible Chocolates could turn out to be Blues.
Gino	Seal Tabby
Rosie	Seal or Chocolate Point ?
Daisy	Lilac Point ?
Rolly	Seal Point
Birchy	Seal or Chocolate Tabby Point ?
Danny	Seal or Chocolate Tabby Point ?

Day 24 - June 2nd, 2004

I had a bit of a break from the R's late yesterday afternoon as I took our daughter to see the new Harry Potter film which was really brilliant. Weaning is still going very well but the first session this morning was incredibly messy. Up until now they haven't been too bad but every single baby, at some point, walked straight through the saucer sending the mixture everywhere. Some of the R's still need to lick it from my finger before going straight to the saucer but others now go straight to the saucer as soon as they smell the food. Having given it much thought, I've come to the conclusion that the R's are much more vocal than the Charmed Ones were. These babies really know how to use their voices. Every time I enter the kitten room, they scream at the top of their voices and come running over to me, climb all over, screaming until I cuddle them or stroke them. With only 2 hands I can't stroke them all at once which means that while I'm stroking some, the others are still screaming. As it stands at the moment, the ones who scream the loudest get attention first just to shut them up :) There's no photos today sorry as I simply haven't had the time.

Day 23 - June 1st, 2004

I ended up having 3 attempts at weaning during the day yesterday and each attempt was a great success and have done quite a few today as well. So far, not a single baby has refused to lap from the saucer so I'm really pleased. I'm going to give it another couple of days sticking with the milk mixture and will then start introducing other foods to see how they go with it. Of course, now when I go into the Kitten Room, the babies think that they're going to get fed which isn't always the case. It's really lovely that when I sit on the floor with them now, the majority of the R's will all come over and sit on my lap and all babies now purr when I stroke them. The first time they purr is a wonderful feeling. I have quite a bit to do today so it's not a very long entry but I'm happy to say that the R's progress is going really well. Some of the more lighter babies are now darkening up quite a bit and are looking like they could possibly be seal and seal tabbies. Originally it was looking like we only had one, maybe two tabbies but that seems to be changing now and it looks like we have more tabbies than I originally thought so I'm really pleased. The first of the R's new owners will be coming to view them this weekend which will be interesting. I must say that I think I am getting more and more protective with each litter. (If that is it all possible!) The more I think about it, the more I don't want anyone to see them because I'm being rather selfish and don't actually want to share them with anyone just yet. Obviously their new owners are lovely, wonderful people who managed to pass my over zealous kitten booking policy (and yes I know that my booking policy causes interesting discussions amongst certain other breeders but I really don't care, these are MY babies that I have loved and given everything I have to so I figure I'm within my rights to only let them go to what I feel are the best possible homes. New owners are either prepared to prove to me that they will give these babies love and care for the rest of their lives or they can take a hike and go elsewhere. I personally couldn't care less!!!!!), however I simply don't want these babies to ever leave me. I must constantly remind myself that these precious little gems are only on loan to me for 13 weeks or so and that all I am doing is preparing them for lives with their new owners.

Day 22 - May 31st, 2004

I've had to put a second litter tray in the kitten room now as the R's are now starting to just do little wees wherever they happen to be. They do seem to be attracted to going in one particular spot though so I've put a litter tray in there and whenever the babies are awake and walking around, I'll be able to put them in the tray so that they will soon realise what it's for. I have found though that it's best to wait until they are just about to go to the toilet, and then put them in there. Today was our first day of weaning and it went far better than I could have dreamed of. I remember the first time I tried to wean Tia's first litter and we had quite a few weaning problems but it was totally different this time around. I started with Rosie as she is our smallest baby and was delighted to see that within seconds of licking the mixture off my fingers, she was straight on the saucer lapping it up. As that was so successful, I took Gino out of bed, dipped my fingers in the saucer, straight away, he started licking my fingers and again, within seconds he was lapping it up from the bowl. I repeated the exact same procedure for the rest of the R's to find that every single baby was soon lapping from the saucer. It was absolutely brilliant and I was so thrilled. They got the hang of it so quickly and it was well worth the few bitten fingers I got in the process. I was also surprised to see that it was nowhere near as messy as the 2 previous litters were. The only slight problem I had was that once Rosie had enough to eat, she kept walking in the saucer, as you can see by one of the photos below, and splattered the other babies with the mixture. I'll be trying again much later on this afternoon and am hoping that it goes as well as it did this time around. I was planning on doing quite a few weaning sessions today, however, it's been very hectic as in between looking after babies and weaning, I've also be supervising a honeymoon which has been hard work.

Day 21 - May 30th, 2004

Our R's are 3 weeks old today and I'm absolutely thrilled that they are all doing so well. The hard work will begin now that we're at this stage of their lives as I'll be starting to wean the babies in the next few days. Although to be honest, I'm looking forward to the weaning, the part that is always annoying is the cleaning up of the mess afterwards. Hubby will not be impressed as whenever it's weaning time, it means that I go into "his" kitchen to make up all sorts of weird and wonderful kitten concoctions. I should add here, that hubby does all the cooking in our house as he's an excellent cook and the kitchen is his domain. Tia has already started being over protective and I think she is refusing to let the R's out of their hooded bed so they can walk around. It's the same as her last litter, she simply refuses to let them grow up. The reason this is so apparent is that every time I go into the kitten room now, and call out to the babies, they all come scrambling out of bed and go for walks around everywhere, yet when I first enter the room, they are all in the bed, with Tia sitting at the front, refusing to let them out. Cathy came around yesterday afternoon and we had a look at the babies to try and determine colours, still to no avail unfortunately. The only colour we are sure that we have at the moment is seal and seal tabby. The rest are either blue, lilac, chocolate, or some of each. It's really very difficult to tell at the moment.