9 Week Bump

Poor Inds! She's huge, uncomfortable, and her bump has dropped- this is the equivalent to the head engaging in humans. As a result she's going to the toilet frequently as there's just no room inside her for anything but kitten. Unfortunately for me she has decided to toilet pretty much anywhere but the litter trays, despite them being clean... *sigh*... so I've been doing a lot of cleaning up and washing.

I have put down some relaxing spray stuff to see if that helps chill her out a bit as I'd really rather she used the (perfectly adequate!) litter trays, as opposed to my jacket, her beds, my (fabric) computer chair...

Still. The nest is ready, the sofa cavity is stuffed up with blankets so she can't get underneath there, ditto the cubbies in the cat trees. I will be sleeping in with Inds for the next little while and getting up every hour or two to check on her. The emergency vet number is programmed into the satnav, the equipment is sterilising, all the kittening supplies are ready and waiting. We're all set. All I need now is for Indie to do her thing and we'll have us some kittens!

Ava. In. A. Box.

Washing... one must be perfectly clean before settling down, you know...

Snuggle- perfect fit.

Ava does like a good cardboard box!

Unfortunately, two minutes later, Bad Boy Theo came and pounced on her and she retired, hissing, to under the bed... poor puss! Little brothers are a pain...

Sigh

Just as well it's roomy eh?

Erm, Theo?

...that kittening box isn't really for you, lad!

Indigo makes do with the little bed! Reckon I'll need to have a few words with Theo- ie remove him whenever I see him in the bed- otherwise Inds will be having her kittens under the sofa...

Treat?

Sniff? You has a treat for me lady? I am eating for... well I don't know exactly but its a lot...

Omnomnom

8 Week Bump

She's  massive! She's so big now I even went back to check my dates AND last year's photos and notes to make sure she wasn't due this week as opposed to next, but my dates are fine, she's just huge.

Poor kitty. she lies down to wash herself now (it's pretty funny) as she tries to contort round her bump and I even had to wipe her bottom for her last night! Oh the indignation!

As one might expect, she is sleeping a lot these days (in her nest! Yay! she has weed in it a few times though lol) and when she isn't sleeping she's eating. She's putting piles of the kibble away now, but since changing it to the kitten food she's had no more nausea. Her poops aren't exactly as I'd like, but all pregnancies are different and this one for some reason just hasn't sat too well with her. I'll be glad when the kittens are safely here. Still, she's still pretty healthy given that she's eating for about... oooh 15, by the size of her!!!!

Poor Inds!

I Has A New Camera!

Theo disapproves of all this photo- taking shenanigans

Google

If you type 'Indikon' into Google, I'm the third entry. Given that it's just the name of a colour, albeit in another language, I'm pretty pleased with that actually!

If you type 'Tonkinese' in, well, lets just say I stopped looking at page 20. Hehe. Ditto 'Tonkinese kittens'. The top 20 pages of images  for both don't have any of my piccies on either. Not quite conquered the market yet then...

'Tonkinese blog' puts me right at the top though... and second and third, actually. Whoo! Even 'Tonkinese diary' I'm on the second page. I'm hoping blogging is my niche- it's not that no-one else does kitten diaries, they do, but... oh I dunno. I think my families last year really liked having a daily update on their new baby anyway, so it was worthwhile to do it!

Erm... and that's today's entry. Not really a point to it, but that's just how we roll here hehe

Only Just

Indigo can just about still manage this, the classic butt- licking position that kitties seem so fond of. I'm sure it won't be many days though till she just can't get past that belly of hers!

How Do You Solve A Problem Like...

... naming the kittens!

Reader Joy made a reference a few days ago to one of the naming schemes I have in mind for Indigo's kittens, but only if I have a litter of seven, and then only in the combination of five girls and two boys. It won't work otherwise. So I'm unlikely ever to need this naming scheme. But the teenager is a fan, and I promised.

Anyone else fancy a guess as to what these names might be? Erm... no prizes though, sorry!

(Oh, and all my other possible naming schemes are Top Secret hehe. But if you've got some good ones, please do share, I may well use them!)

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye...

7 Week Bump

Not a great pic, (camera still missing *sob* and I don't think I'm using this camera phone at all the way I'm supposed to, all too clever for me) but you get the general idea. ie she looks as though she's swallowed a rugby ball. Hee! She's very much got the pregnant waddle now, and takes a long time to find a comfortable position to snooze in because her belly gets in the way. Poor Inds!

She's had a few tummy troubles this week, a bout of vomiting (but without the collapsing she indulged in a few weeks back, my God...!) and diarrhoea, and I suspect she's having trouble keeping up with the amount of food she's having to eat. So I've moved her onto the kitten food now, which is much more calorie dense. Hopefully she'll have to eat less of it to get the nutrition she needs, which will lessen the strain on her digestive system.

She's also getting wet food at night just before I go to bed, which means the others have to as well. Theo starts nagging me about 9pm for this despite the fact I don't generally go to bed for several hours after that! Blooming cat! I've got plain chicken ready in the freezer, but want to keep that one up my sleeve for if Inds starts to struggle feeding so many kittens after a couple of weeks, like last time... it worked a treat! And there will always be the Christmas turkey...

I'm still trying to guess how many kittens she's going to have. I've had a thorough, but gentle, feel of her other side whilst the babies were particularly vigourous this morning, and I think I felt two, (if not three) distinct areas of movement. With the three I think she has on her other side (cats have bicornate uteruses, two- horned, one on each side, and the babies grow in one or the other) that makes a whole lot of kitten! Five, possibly six, I'm guessing, this time!

Of course I guessed last time and got it wrong. Vets can tell, I believe, from quite early on, but I am not a vet and I'm not about to go prodding at my cat to find out, lest I do her a mischief. Besides which, cats regularly resorb fetuses. In fact I read somewhere that cats start off having 20 or more fetuses, most of which then die off in the early stages to leave the strongest to make it to term. Very clever. Even at seven weeks I believe this can happen (or an unborn kitten can die and become mummified) so five or six distinct wiggly areas now does not necessarily mean that number of kits in two weeks time.

But it is fun to speculate. And Indigo likes nothing better than to have her tummy rubbed at the moment, so any excuse really!

Feng Shui For Cats

Indigo continues to enjoy her new tub... only now she has accessorised! With her Giddy Kipper and a feather teaser toy. She makes me laugh this cat! Doesn't she look pleased with her new decor?

Nest

I went to get the kittening box today ( a large, shallow plastic tub) as Indigo has been showing increasing interest in climbing into small spaces and scratching about; nesting behaviour, in fact. So it was time to provide her with a nest, lest she decide to use the bathtub, towel cupboard or any other such unwanted place. Anyway I took it down from the wardrobe and realised it was cracked right across the bottom. Bah!

So I plundered the teenager's room and 'borrowed' a nice plastic underbed storage tray. It's actually bigger than the last tub, so more room for her to stretch out- just as well as she's massive and still  has two weeks to go! I can't see her having a small litter, I wouldn't be surprised if it's six again by the size of her. Of course I'm now going to look a complete berk when she has two...

I was a little concerned Indigo would object to a different tub, but she seemed to know exactly what it was and settled in it most happily. She hasn't gone to the toilet in it yet (one must mark ones territory, lol... she did last year anyway!) but I suppose that won't be far off. Ah well, that's why I use plastic, and blankets wash! I'll pop it in a warm, quiet corner and drape blankets over the side as well, like I did last year, and it should make a very nice snug little nest for mama and babies.

Sorry for the delay

A lost camera (which is still lost, am trying to get used to my camera phone in the interim) some extra work and a very needy Indigo have all conspired against getting anything on the blog. I have a nice 6 week bump picture, but it's on the lost camera! I'll post it when I find it. Yes, I do mislay things quite often... hehe.

Other than that we are all well and getting used to cooler weather. The cats all have their thicker winter coat and are looking fluffier as a result, this is particularly marked in Theo of course. We also lost Theo's walking harness and had to hastily email over to my US relations to send one- the ones we use you can't buy over here any more. Of course we then found the harness- in the washing machine. Theo still has his daily walks throughout the winter, but they are shorter, in the summer he would happilly stroll about for some time, in the winter ten minutes and he's done... which suits me fine!

I was cuddling Indigo earlier with my hand on her belly and there's very definitely some movement there now. In fact, I thought I could detect three seperate patches of movement- on the one side that is! Of course that's only a bit of fun, last time I was sure she was having four kittens... she ended up having six. I shall still try and guess though. Simple pleasures for simple minds!

I Know...

... it's ridiculously early, but either Indigo has a very overactive muscle in her belly or I just saw the first twitchings of a kitten. She was lying on my desk, right in front of me, stretched out. The little thing did the fandango, on and off, and randomly, for about 5 minutes before settling down again. I couldn't feel it, but I could see it.

Yes, I KNOW she's only 6 weeks. She was 7 weeks before I noticed anything last year, and all the websites etc say you can only tell in the last week or so, but I'll eat my hat if that wasn't a kitten.

A very active kitten, too. Oh Lord... we're having another Wendell!!!!!

Kittyloaf

What?

Genetics: Feelin' Blue

I thought I'd better make more of an effort to write these posts. You never know, someone might be interested one day!

Ok, so we've looked at how there is one colour gene for cats. We've looked at how this gene can express itself in different ways, brown, chocolate and cinnamon (not in the Tonkinese) And we know that the orange gene can mask this colour gene and make a cat orange.

Added to this, there's a gene called 'dilute'. It does exactly what it says on the tin- makes the colour of the coat less intense. Thus black ('brown') is diluted to a grey colour cat fanciers call 'blue', chocolate is diluted to a paler browny- pinky- grey called 'lilac' and cinnamon is diluted to 'fawn'- a light beige shade.

Which starts to explain some of my cats, doesn't it? Ava and Theo are blue cats- they have the brown allele plus dilute. Indigo is a lilac, she has the chocolate allele plus the dilute. All three have other 'bits' going on as well... tabby and colourpoint, but we haven't got to them yet.

Cats can have zero, one or two copies of the dilute gene. Dilute is recessive, in order to express itself there needs to be two copies present. A cat with full colour/ dilute will be full colour, but as ever, will still be able to pass on the dilute gene genetically.

What happens when the cat's colour is masked by the orange 'red' gene? The dilute gene still has an effect, lightening the cat from orange to a buff colour called 'cream'

Cream eh? Don't know about feeling blue, all these cat colour names are making me feel hungry...

The Due Date

Is this big enough to have my babies in???

Last year I used this formula to work out roughly when Indigo was due: first observed (heard) mating + 9 weeks + 2 days. (or mating + 65 days, if you like). It was pretty successful, Inds delivered on her due date. So its bound to be completely out this year, of course *grin*

Anyway, this year the first heard mating was on Wednesday September the 28th, which makes her due date Friday December the 2nd.

Of course that's just a guide and it could be any time several days either side of that. Whatever, as long as mama and babies are safe and healthy. Other than that, I'm only hoping I don't have the flu this time!

Not So Tiny

The 5 week bump!

Where did THAT come from?