6 Weeks Old

(sorry about the colour- it was dark, the photo didn't come out and I had to tweak it. The colours are all wrong but you can at least see the kittens!)

As you can see from the weights this week, we've had a great improvement! Now that they are all well away on the solids they are piling on the grams, with no kitten gaining less than 100g over the course of the week and some gaining over 150g. They have three meals a day now, breakfast, dinner and tea, with kibble available 24 hours for snacks.   This will carry on until they leave, when you can drop it down to two wet food meals a day if you like, as long as biscuits are freely available. My cats get the wet food once a day and are entirely biscuit fed other than that, so it depends on what is going to suit your family.

Two meals are kitten food and one is chicken, but I shall be phasing out the chicken in a few weeks time- it's a great weaning food, but not terribly nutritious long term as it doesn't have the complete range of vitamins and minerals a cat needs. They do love it though!

and... *whispers*... toilet training is going much better! I thought they'd never get it, but they are now pretty reliable with poos and are no longer peeing on the cat tree since I put their food on there (that, incidentally, is quite a good trick- kittens do not want to eat in a lavatory so if they are going somewhere inappropriate, and you can't put a litter tray down there,  put their food dishes there instead) We're not 100%, but it's moving in the right direction, certainly. (Famous last words... this is where I find they've set up a toilet behind the sofa or somewhere...)


Liesl

Birth 96g
1 week 172g
2 weeks 226g
3 weeks 250g
4 weeks 325g
5 weeks 420g
6 weeks 586g

Friedrich


Birth 101g
1 week 187g
2 weeks 239g
3 weeks 271g
4 weeks 349g
5 weeks 449g
6 weeks 630g

Kurt

Birth 102g
1 week 205g
2 weeks 280g
3 weeks 341g
4 weeks 448g
5 weeks 570g
6 weeks 740g

Louis

Birth 82g
1 week 157g
2 weeks 219g
3 weeks 260g
4 weeks 334g
5 weeks 394g
6 weeks 530g- Louis has discovered kitten food isn't poison after all...

Brigitta

Birth 83g
1 week 179g
2 weeks 248g
3 weeks 301g
4 weeks 374g
5 weeks 497g
6 weeks 641g

Marta

Birth 91g
1 week 178g
2 weeks 249g
3 weeks 311g
4 weeks 389g
5 weeks 468g
6 weeks 603g

Gretl

Birth 81g
1 week 150g
2 weeks 220g
3 weeks 269g
4 weeks 342g
5 weeks 402g
6 weeks 516g- Gretl is also now eating. Mama Indie is relieved! I am also relieved.

Comparison:

Birth

REM litter 83g-103g. Average 92g

Von Trapp litter 81g-102g. Average 91g

1 week

REM litter 182g-217g Average 195g

Von Trapp litter 150g- 205g. Average 175g

2 weeks

REM litter 257g-294g, Average 272g
Von Trapp litter 220g- 280g, Average 240g

3 weeks

REM litter  338g-390g. Average 359g.
Von Trapp litter 250g- 341g. Average 286g.

4 weeks

REM litter 437g-524g. Average 466g
Von Trapp litter 325g-448g. Average 365g

5 weeks

REM litter 539g-604g. Average 581g
Von Trapp litter 394g-570g. Average 457g.

6 weeks

REM litter 712g- 792g, Average 752g
Von Trapp litter  516g-740g, Average 606g

Food, Glorious Food!

Now, all the sites I've seen have recommending starting to wean the kittens at around five weeks. But- well, my kittens seem to be weaning themselves. One day I put down some chicken for mama (she's still on one meal of plain boiled chicken a day to boost her appetite for her other food... I dropped it one day and she ate hardly anything) and Wendell tucked in like he'd been doing it all his life. Kensey was a little more tentative, and baffled by the plate I think, but he had a few good chews as well. Well by now there's a scrum when the chicken gets put down... all the kittens are straight there.

It was never my intention to give the kittens this chicken... nutritionally it's pretty blah, it's not a complete cat food, and it's had most of the goodness boiled out of it. But that's how it's worked out. It would be daft to STOP them wouldn't it, when they are eating of their own accord?

Really I'm not too concerned, other breeders use a baby cereal to start their kittens off which is equally bland- so I reckon boiled chicken is equally inoccuous. At this stage they are getting all their nutrition from milk, and food is more about exploring tastes and textures than anything else isn't it? However, now I'm starting to think it's time to introduce some other food... after all I do NOT want to be handing on kittens who will only ever eat chicken- their new families wouldn't thank me for that hehe.
Anyway yesterday and today at Indigo's meal times, I've mixed some chicken with a can of kitten mush to see what happened... and again Wendell was right in there. The others have had a sniff, a few have had a lick and it all seems to be going rather well.

As for the dry food... well lots of sites say start this at around six to seven weeks. Someone really ought to tell Hope that... hehe. She loves the biscuits- Royal Canin Babycat, specially sized for tiny mouths. As you can see, she likes to get right into the dish...

Oh! And we had a POO IN THE LITTER BOX yesterday!  And we've had a couple of wees as well. Hurrah! I am pathetically pleased by this. After the dramatics of Friday, I'm just pleased that I seem to be doing something right!

Clever Kittens

Originally posted on my private blog- posted to http://indikon-tonkinese.blogspot.com/ on 06/01/11

I vacuumed yesterday. Yes, I know, scintillating, and what has that to do with cats? Well Indigo HATES the vacuum cleaner, and having laminate flooring, I don't often have to use it in 'her' room, I sweep and sometimes (ok, occasionally!) mop, but don't usually vacuum. But the sofa was very hairy and needed a good clean, so out came the dyson and away I went.

Because the kittens are fully capable of getting out of the nest,  I put them in the cat carrier and in the hall. These two combined stressed Indigo out no end, so when I was done, I popped them all back in the nest and put in a plate of chicken for Indigo to calm her down.

Well, I think Wendell ate more than Indigo did!

The kittens have all had a good sniff at Indigo's food before but have not tried to eat any before today, but my goodness, Wendell managed a good meal! Kenneth tucked in too, although he tried to bite the plate a lot at first, which was pretty funny. The others all seemed uninterested, which is fair enough.

As for Hope, she wasn't even IN the nest. No, Miss Hope discovered how to get out the other day, and since than has spent more time under the sofa than in the nest. But she's not hiding, under there. She's playing. With Theo! She's such a funny little thing.