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July 6th 2010
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Being her usual ‘alarm cat’ self, Isis (Ch. Mikkar Ladylynx) woke us up this morning by giving birth to Harry’s kittens, starting at 6:50 with the birth of a girl (97g, usual), followed shortly by her sister at 7:08 (96g, usual) and ending with their brother (103g, usual) at 8:03am. Mother and kittens are all doing well, in fact the kittens are suckling so well they’re all ready packing on the weight! :) Once she’s given them a good feed and a clean up and they’ve all had a little rest I’ll see if I can get a few photos of them all... :)
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July 7th 2010
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The kittens have had an excellent first day and during those 24 hrs have been gaining grams and grams, it seems Isis ‘milk bar’ is just what they want most of the time. So they are now all cute and podgy with big milk filled bellies. In fact they have all gained in the region of 10g’s so far. The other things they are good at so far are sleeping and belly crawling around the kittening pen! I can tell they’ll be a joyous handful in a few weeks time at this rate... ;) I took a few group photos them at 12 hrs old and will try and take some individual shots later today! :)
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July 8th 2010
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The kittens are now over 48 hrs old and doing very well indeed, they have all gained in excess of 20g’s since birth and are oh so chubby! :) They are a pretty lively and active litter for one so young and as such are busy ‘swimming’ around their pen part of the time between feeds. At this rate they’ll be walking in no time! :) However being this active does make my job of taking the occasional photo of them pretty hard, but I did at least manage 3 more! :)
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July 9th 2010
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Now 3 days old the kittens are all continuing to gain weight rapidly and are looking fantastic. Now all well over 135g’s they are utterly delightful to behold! Isis is so relaxed as a mother that she and the kittens happily carried on feeding while we vacuumed the house, including right around their pen. All this early introduction to the noises of ‘life’ in a busy household help kittens to grow up into calm and relaxed cats. So during their time with us we do our level best to make sure they experience most things, while enjoying every minute of having them here and making the most of the great photo opportunities! :)
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July 10th 2010
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This morning started with Isis bringing the kittens to us in bed, it seems by about day 4 or 5 she thinks her kittens need to start learning how an Abyssinian cat likes to spend their days, and her first priority has always been to wake us up in the morning for her fuss time, along with her brother Ramses shortly followed by her daughter Setra! Anyway it’s quite delightful to have a plump warm kitten to fuss in the morning, so after everyone had their cuddles and we’d freshened the kittens bedding, we weighed them to find that they now all weigh well over 150g’s so are sure to have doubled their birth weight within the first week if they carry on at this rate! :)
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July 12th 2010
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The kittens had a lovely first weekend of life, although it was very hot and all the cats were pretty quiet. This meant Isis was only too happy to nap in the kitten pen and the kittens therefore had pretty much constant access to the ‘milk bar’. In turn this led to a lot of feeding going on and an impressive level of weight gain! So now all the kittens are now close to double their birth weight... :)
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July 13th 2010
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Yesterday the kittens spent part of the afternoon in the study with me and the girls in their big carrier. It seemed that Isis wanted me to watch over her showing Setra how to help look after the kittens, which I managed to get a few photos of! Now that she’s sure that the kittens are safe with their big sister guarding them for a bit Isis occasionally lets them stay with her while she takes a rest close by... The kittens are now a week old and have just doubled their birth weight, plus they get stronger and more active each day! :)
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July 15th 2010
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Between last night and this morning all of the kittens eyes have opened at least in part. It so changes their faces and shows off so much more of their budding character, that it won’t be long now until they are all named as well. They are still ever so sweet and snuggly though and had a lovely long cuddle with me yesterday evening and a shot one this morning too. They are all extremely calm and relaxed kittens, as well as being very clean thanks to their big sister, Setra helping their mum, Isis, out and learning how to be an outstanding mother! :)
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July 16th 2010
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The kittens now have names! The little boy is Fflam-Bo (Bo), and the girls are Ffanci-Me (MeMe), and Fflur De-Lys (Fflur). They are starting to respond when we talk to them and are busy packing on the grams and exploring their little bit of world under the close supervision of their devoted mother, Isis. At this rate I think they will have found their feet in a very short while, as they are already quite mobile. However they are very fond of falling asleep during their fuss time, showing just how relaxed they are! :)
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July 17th 2010
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Bo, MeMe and Fflur had a lovely cuddle with us this morning, just before their second breakfast! ;) They are all gaining weight and leg strength, so we’ll start giving them a few hours in the kitten play pen of an evening soon, so they can practice walking! :)
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July 19th 2010
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I finally managed to get some pretty reasonable photos of each of the kittens, so you can now see each of them individually. Fflur was most interested in the camera, hence the slightly amusing angle to her shot! ;)
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July 23rd 2010
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The kittens are now all around the 300g mark and are gaining strength all the time, at this rate they will be moving into the kitten room in just a few more days, where they will have plenty of room to toddle around until they get this walking thing firmly under their belts! ;) They still all get very excited at ‘cuddle time’ and are starting to vi for the first turn to be picked up, they are just such a joy! :)
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July 24th 2010
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We had Bo, MeMe and Fflur toddling around on our bed yesterday evening and since they’re getting pretty fast on their paws now, if still a little wobbly at times, so they’ll be moving into the kitten room tomorrow. There they will have plenty of space to toddle around on, plus a little tiny litter box of their own to learn all about and loads of cat toys to start playing with! :)
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July 28th 2010
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The kittens are getting used to spending their days in the kitten room with their mother, Isis, and big sister Setra who just can’t resist helping out with the kittens. They are getting pretty fast on their paws now too and can toddle their way across the room quite well before the urge to sit down catches up with them. They are now extremely playful between feeds and naps and are even starting to get the hang of some of the cat toys, though mostly they like to use the ‘cat cheese’ as a place to nap still! :) They are also starting to show a little interest in what Isis is eating, so I think it’ll only be a week now until they start weaning onto solids. In the meantime there are some more photos of the trio on the kitten photo gallery! :)
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July 31st 2010
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MeMe, Fflur and Bo took a huge step forwards in their development yesterday evening, firstly having their claws clipped for the first time and secondly trying their first solid food. The latter came a few days earlier than we usually do when starting weaning our kittens, but since they were all busy chewing my husband’s fingers, I thought they were ready for solids and boy was I right! They have all taken to meat straight off and ate veraciously, especially for such youngsters. We will now be offering them a little meat twice a day, building them up to 4 meat meals a day as they wean themselves off of milk and onto solids. Luckily we managed to get a few photos of the kittens, including one of Fflur testing the food on offer. Sadly the camera’s battery went flat before we were able to capture a photo of MeMe and Bo just about diving into the meat! ;)
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Aug 3rd 2010
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The kittens turned 4 weeks old today, they are now all well over four times their birth weights and getting to grips with solids. They now have 2 small meat meals a day and as soon as they start needing a little more per meal, we will add in a lunch time meal and late supper too. All three of them are now pretty fast on their paws, and as soon as we go up to the kitten room and call them they do a slightly slow-motion stampede of the gate, though it won’t take long before they master running more fully... They love their cuddle times, especially in the evening when they come down for family time. :) We will endeavour to get some new photos later this week, so you can see their development over the past few days - they are far more little cat shaped now! :)
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