We are 8 weeks old now!

Day 54 - January 6, 2008

Very short diary entries today due to lack of time etc. This coming week is quite a busy one but I will try my best to get diaries online each day as per normal.

Chunky Monkey is the first of our Monkeys to be eating the kitten biscuits and during the past 48 hours I have often see her at the bowls munching away. I'm really delighted about this because normally our babies have started on the biscuits much earlier than this. I'm hoping that her brothers and sisters will see her and start eating the biscuits as well. All 5 of our Monkeys are still very active children and they are constantly running up and down the stairs, climbing the new scratch posts, and trying to trip me up wherever I walk. They may be tiny little beings but they have no difficulty at all in making their presence known.

Day 53 - January 5, 2008

Both entries are the same today. Today has not gone as planned at all and I did not have time to take photos of any of the babies or do a proper kitten diary entry. The babies are all doing quite well and the Indians and Monkeys had the time of their lives early yesterday evening as we were putting all the new scratch activity centres together. Even the little Monkeys were climbing right up onto the top platforms and Punky Monkey was adamant that her job was to help daddy put them all together. It's safe to say that the new centres are a huge hit with both the adults and the kittens. The only problem is that when they were first put up and the babies were all on them, I took some amazing photos and have somehow since lost all of them which I am really gutted about.

Day 52 - January 4, 2008

Yet another brand new day with Monkeys creating havoc wherever they can. Punky Monkey is the first of our Monkeys to full explore the main back room where Graham and I sit and she chose to come in again last night whilst Jag was outside having his dinner. Mind you, she was in here late yesterday afternoon as well while Jag was snoozing and I guess she figured that would be a very safe time to go and sniff him and see if she could determine just what this monstrous animal is. The problem with Jag at the moment is he still only a puppy, albeit a massive dog, but at his age, he is still very playful and boisterous so we have to be extremely careful with all all interaction between Jag and the babies.

The Monkeys really are very funny little children and they do look so cute when they are running up and down the stairs. They are all still quite energetic children who, like most babies, are at their most angelic when they are sound asleep! Their one saving grace is that unlike the Indians, I don't have to go on hunting for any of them as they do all generally come to me when I call them. They are very good little children who actually listen to me which makes a nice change ;)

One thing that has not changed with our Monkeys since birth is their incessant need to scream at me whenever they want something. I remember when they were tiny and learning to walk and we had a couple in there who were particularly loud, with Punky Monkey being the worst. Well Funky Monkey is much louder than Punky, but when they are in the mood, all 5 of them won't hesitate to use their voices.

Day 51 - January 3, 2008

At 7 weeks of age, Funky Monkey has now learnt "feeding on demand" bless her. During meal times, the door to the kitten room is shut so that none of our older kittens or adult cats go into the room and eat the babies' food. When I feel that enough time has been given for a meal, the door is opened back up again and everyone will come and go as they please. Naturally, our other cats will eat the remaining kitten food which means that if the babies go back to the tray a few hours after they have eaten there is usually nothing left in the tray. When this happens and Funky Monkey is hungry, she comes straight down the stairs to find me and when she does find me, she looks up at me at screams non stop until I go into the kitchen and prepare more food. While I'm in the kitchen getting the meal ready, she sits outside the kitchen door screaming at me to hurry up. I then come out of the kitchen, with a tray in one hand, and I pick Funky up with the other hand and carry her up the stairs back into the kitten room to eat again. As of yet, I've not seen any of the babies eating the James Wellbeloved kitten biscuits which are permanently left down and I'm hoping within the next week or two, they will start eating those.

Day 50 - January 2, 2008

Right, now that all this whole "Christmas" stuff is over and done with, things can now start getting back to normal thank goodness! It really is so very hard to get back into the swing of doing kitten diaries. We've had so much going on during the past few weeks and I just don't seem to have a spare moment to get diaries done lately. I think this is possibly the first time ever that I've not kept any kitten diaries up to date.

I don't even remember where we were up to with the last update on our Monkeys, nor can I be bothered to look! We had a few "scary" moments with our babies recently due to both mum's coming into call. In fact, Drambuie is still calling on and off. Even though our Monkeys eat solid foods, they all still rely on mum's for milk, mainly for comfort more than an essential meal and when the girls came into call, the Monkey's continued to drink and started going downhill a bit. They all went off their food, they certainly were not 100% and weights could be better. This is something I have seen countless times during litters when the mum's call and apart from waiting it out, there is very little you can do. The main thing was to make sure none of the babies became dehydrated so they were all put on evap milk mixtures with glucose and electrolytes and this was mixed in with their kitten food. They all seem to have passed the danger zone now but it will be a while I think before they regain the weight that they should be.

Our little ones still continue to go up and down the stairs and explore down here although yesterday Skunky Monkey had an encounter with Jag, our Rottweiler on the stairs and Skunky was not impressed to say the least. I have a feeling that very soon the babies may start to spend a lot more time downstairs as we have order 3 large, new active scratch centres for the cats for downstairs.