How I tear myself away from the nest when they look this cute I have no idea... but you can see here from this picture of Kurt how much they now look like proper little cats and how quickly their colour is developing. Kurt's nose, tail and ears are really very dark indeed now, and his paws and face are darkening. Some of the kitties have darkening patches on their backs/ base of their tail as well.
The kittens are also starting to play fight, lick themselves and each other, pounce and otherwise behave in a very cat-like way. When you advance to the nest now, the babies all run forward in anticipation- they are learning that humans are friendly and trustworthy beings. They like to have their ears and chins rubbed, I've had a few purrs, and one even dozed off mid cuddle the other day. (Kurt- I'm getting a sneaking suspicion Kurt is another cuddlebug like Monty- Jonah- was...)
Its such a vital stage in their development, and easy to see how, managed wrongly, it could shape a cat's attitude towards people for life These babies are not quite three weeks, by four weeks a feral kitten is truly feral, a hissing spitting wildcat, although there's always the chance that feral rescues can relearn positive patterns of relating of course. No cat should ever be written off. Still, the window of opportunity here is short, they develop so fast, there's not much room for error.
Weights good again for the second day running... could it be that the past week was just a blip? Indigo has been eating like a horse. Long may it continue!
