Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Graduation Day (1)

Sandman with his charming personality has moved to his new home in Germany on January 27 and we are glad that Ute and her family embraced him as a part of their family and cat group. Visit his new home at the website of vom Haselgraben.
Nessie's babies turned one week of age yesterday and they grow and develop nicely.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Helpless

When I came home from work yesterday I found a cold and weak tortie girl lying still... Feeling rather helpless, I am rather tired of kittens who get water-filled lungs at birth! I really try my best to get the water out with the methods available, but it does not seem enough! Well, of course we will not give up. She was given glucose and liquids and a tiny amount of penicillin and of course some milk replacement just to give her energy enough to suckle on her own. Three doses of this and this morning I actually witnessed her suckling from mum on her own with the sound of tiny-kitten-purring and the paws treading to get the milk to flow - joy!

Well, I still believe the fight is far from over... I have no high hopes whatsoever and the website update feels less prioritised at the moment.

The other three are just adorable, warm and happy. Mummy are tired and proud. We have decided upon names, but these will be revealed on the website when we feel up to it.

Please, keep your fingers crossed for tiny!

Update: Well, the little girl stopped fighting today... The veterinary we spoke to explained that it is only bad luck if a kitten get too much water in its lungs during birth and there was nothing we could have done. At least we saw that both kittens that 'drowned' (as the vet explained it) was correctly shaped and showed no defects or signs of illness. Feels just meaningless to loose kittens for no good reason :(

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Touched

As always I feel priviliged to have witnessed another cat birth. Nessie woke me up in the morning, telling me the labour has started and soon thereafter we sat by the box, ready for the kittens. It was a chaotic morning with three wild teenagers and their equally wild mother bouncing off the walls and two two-legged children who wanted to sit and help and Nessie got a bit stressed. The other cats got to calm down in another room and the rest of the family went away for a couple of hours to let us have peace and quite - and that was what we got. The labour stopped! I just started to worry again when the rest of the family came home and at the sight of our daughter, Nessie started to push out the first kitten! Unfortunately he came with his tail first and the sack was broken so Nessie had a hard time pushing him out. With a little help from me and 45 minutes of pushing we got him out. I was so happy to see that he was still alive but the joy was short-lived as he had so much water in his lungs, he had neither the strength nor the will to fight. I did my best to get the water and slime out of his lungs but he gave up and fell asleep close to mummy. Number two and three poured out of her easily within 30 minutes and then she took a 45 minutes break and the fourth and fifth kitten was born within ten minutes. Nessie did an excellent job!

So, now Nessie spends her time together with her firstborn litter with four blueish sweethearts! Two boys (blue mackerel tabby with and without white) and two girls (blue tortie mackerel tabby with white) and of course incredibly beautiful ;)


I will try my best to get new (good) pictures of them all tonight and, if nothing unexpected happens, I will update the website thereafter.

As if this was not enough, our host girl Tiggy got in heat so she has spent two busy days together with Jeppson! Now we keep our fingers crossed the visit will be fruitful!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

This Year's Girl

Well of course, you all already knew that Anansi would stay at home ;) We did not fight to resist her charming personality and fell for her good looks. We are quite pleased to finally keep a promising girl with our cattery name in our home. We also look forward to working with Enigma's lines combined with something different than Kiwawa's in the future. Both China and Kiwawa are strong-built girls with different qualities and Enigma has been a marvellous breeding male so we feel we have three special breeding cats in Tigrinya, Bridget Jones and Anansi.

China has been at her first HCM test and her heart looked just perfectly normal and her values was well within limits.

In the beginning of a new year it is time to reflect over the past year and think ahead.

2007 was a year where plans failed time after time... We had hopes for kittens after both Bridget Jones and Tigrinya but it just did not work out. In the end we mated China a bit earlier instead as she had a weight of 4.6 kilos at 10 months and was mature enough. She got Enigma's last litter and thereafter he was neutered. It felt quite strange but we are so happy to see him walking around freely on our grounds without the troubles of a hormone-filled stud. We had a great show year ourselves with Älva's EC-title (and 6 NOM at 9 shows) and Bridget Jones' IC-title (and 5 NOM at 6 shows). Our offspring Syriana in Spain and Desperado in Finland had remarkable show successes and got a JW-title each. We are ever so thankful to their owners Vestvegr and Foxypaws for taking them to shows in perfect show condition. Memento in Germany visited fewer shows but with just as great results - thanks Elrilars! We are also happy for the positive reports of our other former kittens - thanks everyone for taking great care of them all!

2008 will hopefully give us successes and no sorrows... Bridget Jones will (if all goes well) give birth to her first babies already in late January and Tigrinya will meet a boy as soon as she starts calling (anyday now...). Thereafter we will take a break from kittens until late 2008 or even early 2009 whenever Älva will meet her next boyfriend. In the meantime we will take our girls to cat shows and work within Norsk Skogkatt United. Jean-Paul is finally fertile and will meet a handful ladies and thereafter he will most likely be neutered during spring. He has developed just great during late 2007 and is finally turning more and more into a strong-built male instead of a slender teenage.

In the end, plans are just plans and who knows what 2008 will give...