That’s the kittens 10 weeks old now – what a scary thought. It seems like no time at all since we were crossing our fingers for an easy labour for Katie!
Soolay has overtaken Lainni in size again, and is getting on for 1kg in weight. He loves his food and is seldom to be found very far from the food dish. Mind you, he makes up for it whenever he does leave the dish for a while, by racing around the place, pouncing on anything that moves. We took the kittens along to the girls’ room last night, so that we could keep both groups company at the same time, and Soolay hit it off with Kia. The two of them went racing around the room at high speed, jumping on and off every piece of furniture, which was very cute. Alek just came and cuddled up with us on the bed, and went to sleep!
The kittens love the new arrangement giving them access onto the landing at the top of the stairs, although Alek has already figured out how to jump up onto the top of the gate (it is something like 60cm tall!) and get out. The other two just stand behind the gate crying to be let out, unless there is washing on the banister, in which case Lainni climbs onto the top of it. If ever there was a good incentive for getting our laundry put away once it is dry, instead of leaving it hanging on the banister, it’s watching Lainni balancing on the top of it!
The kittens prefer to spend their time out on the landing rather than in their room, because the landing lets them watch what’s going on down below. We’ve moved a couple of the kittens’ little beds out there, and those have become the favourite sleeping spaces, with both baskets usually containing at least one kitten, and sometimes all three.
At least spending time on the landing should help to continue the process of getting them used to the normal sounds of a house – ordinary things like the toilet flushing, doors opening and closing and the washing machine running. I’ve also continued trying to give them different experiences, including their first baths, which they were surprisingly un-bothered by. Actually, they are more miffed about being bundled up in a towel afterwards than they are about the bathing itself.
I finally got around to putting up an advert on kittenlist, but have yet to contact the breed clubs to see about getting listings on their sites. We are members of the three Asian Group clubs, though, so hopefully it shouldn’t be too difficult to get onto the sites.
Pregnancy Update
Throughout last week, Kia became increasingly firm in the abdomen, and was starting to pink up. Unfortunately, she started spotting blood on Saturday, and continued doing so until yesterday. I spoke to the vet to check if there was anything to worry about, and he suggested taking her temperature, and if that was normal, and she seemed otherwise well, just to “let nature take its course”. Her temperature was fine, so the obvious explanation is that she has been going through a miscarriage, which does happen periodically with maiden queens, especially. Disappointing, but at least there is no danger for her. She’s certainly lost the firmness from her abdomen, and is much more hyper than she was before the weekend.
There is no missing the fact that Dàrna is pregnant – she seems to get larger by the minute, and has slowed down a lot. She also goes from super-cheery and purring to a moody cow in seconds, so it appears that she is experiencing the same sort of hormone-related mood swings that humans can do. Considering the level of morning sickness that she had early-on in her first pregnancy, that wouldn’t seem an unreasonable assumption.
Assuming that we are correct in our assumption about Kia, I would expect her to start calling again in the next couple of weeks. If she does so, then I will get her booked in to revisit the stud on the next call after that, which will probably be around early October. I am hoping that Breckin will be calling by then as well, which means that she could perhaps go to stud at around the same time. On the other hand, the results of sending two girls off together have not exactly been encouraging so far – perhaps we should send off one at a time from now on?!
Since we have had issues with the kittens being reluctant to feed properly, and now Kia’s miscarriage, I am going to have a full faecal panel run on a couple of the cats to check for any issues. It is perfectly possible that we have just had a string of bad luck, but I want to be completely sure of that before Dàrna’s babies arrive, and before we send the Ocis off to stud. If nothing else, it will give us peace of mind that we have done everything possible to ensure a healthy litter next time around!
Teesside Show
As I mentioned last week, we went down to the Teesside show on Saturday, where we had Annas on exhibition, but also Breckin, Xaria and Monty entered in the show. All three did well, although we didn’t bring home any certificates – Breckin got another Reserve Grand, Xaria got another Reserve Imperial, they all won their Best of Breed and Monty also picked up a Best in Show nomination. Xaria and Monty also won another PC each.