Kitten Update!

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all doing well. Sorry for the break between posts- it was my busy week, what with the paper being published and it's the week before the mini, which you know means lots to do and lots of stress!

I have a lot of fun things to update you on, but I have had several requests for kitten updates. I thought I'd let you know about my daily kitten schedule so that you can see some of the things that they've been up to.

When I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do is clean up Jolie's litter box. She always makes a stinky mess of it overnight! We just use sand, as litter is expensive down here, so I dump it out and then clean the pan in the faucet outside our apartment complex. I use dilute bleach just about every other day, to keep things smelling good! I keep a pail with a lid on the porch filled with sand, and I top up the litter box from that.

Then it's inspection time! I check over Jolie first- she's the one doing all the work! I also clean her up a bit- she gets a bit messy from nursing five kittens. She seems to enjoy being wiped down with a damp cloth and I spend a few minutes fussing over her and telling her what a good cat she is. She's spectacular with the kittens, and so trusting of all visitors! I rinse her food and water bowl, and top them up. She drinks and eats a LOT.

It's pretty warm on the porch in the morning- but don't worry! There's plenty of shade so Jolie and babies are very comfortable. I just get very warm standing in the sun and taking care of them! I pull the kittens out of the box one at a time to look them over. At other times of day they'll stagger their way out of the box to see me (they aren't QUITE walking yet, but they're nearly there!), but in the morning they're sleeping and enjoying the shade. I just fuss over them, make sure they have fat, milk filled bellies, and that they seem alert and healthy.

After that I sweep the porch. Jolie's a bit messy and kicks sand everywhere, which then gets tracked into the house if I'm not constantly sweeping it up. I also will sweep and clean the litter box again in the evening if it's needed.

Throughout the day, I constantly check on them. Jolie's water needs to be refilled about 2-3 times a day, and I try to make sure she always has food available. Unfortunately I am not feeding a very high quality food down here, but that's all that's available. Nursing cats are supposed to be feed high protein, fat, and calcium diets. The food we have... well, it sort of stinks. So I supplement in a few ways. I'll soak her food in a bit of milk once a day (very little, as cats have trouble digesting dairy products) and give her a bit of chicken, turkey, or cheese every day. I'm doing the best I can with what I have- and I have the ingredients ready to make a homemade kitten milk replacement just in case she starts to struggle to feed all her babies. So far Jolie is doing GREAT!

I also spend lots of time handling and playing with the kittens, so that they're very friendly and tame! Each kitten gets at least ten minutes of individual handling each day, as well as group playtimes! I try to encourage Jolie to take a little bit of relaxation time every day. I put her out about twice a day. Sometimes she'll follow while I clean her litterbox. Other times she wanders the apartment complex. Many times she just relaxes by our door. She's never out longer than about 15 minutes, but I think she'll take longer 'breaks' as the kittens get older. She'll also come in and lay on the floor and supervise as I cook and clean up around the house. When I left the door open to the porch once, she moved two of her kittens behind the couch! It's pretty normal for mother cats to move their kittens around fairly frequently. Jolie REALLY likes it under our bed and keeps trying to sneak into the bedroom (where she's not allowed due to Ryan's allergies) and sulks when we close the door in her face. She'd love to move her kittens there!

Ryan and I decided to name them after famous genetic scientists (we are both bio geeks!), so here are their names! There's the biggest one, a black male named Darwin, for Charles Darwin obviously! Then there's his sister who is nearly identical to him, who is Rosalind, for Rosalind Franklin who contributed to Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA. The little tiger and white male is named Gregor, for Gregor Mendel, a major researcher of inheritance patterns. You can blame him for drawing all those punnett squares in biology class! The black and white female is BB, short for Barbara McClintock, the discoverer of 'jumping genes'. Last but not least is the little tiger. We're not quite sure if the tiger is a male or female... we jokingly call him Side Effect, in reference to the dewormer we gave to his momma before we knew she was pregnant! Really, he's (she's?) named Francis, for Francis Crick. That way he can be either Francis or Francine, as needed! This little guy is our favorite... shhhh! Don't tell the other four!

Enjoy the photos! They aren't great quality for a few reasons... First, I took them at night, so the flash is casting funny shadows. Second, it is very hard to take photos of kittens that keep crawling as close to you as they can get! Third, it's just tricky taking pictures of things that close to the ground. As you can see their eyes ARE open and they can sort of stand (with shaking legs) but they are still moving with that half crawl, half stagger. Poor Darwin is the only one who hasn't QUITE mastered it... he's so much bigger and weighs so much, and it takes a lot to support that weight.