Three Weeks, Sunday 28th February

After the madness of last week, this week I should have lots of time to write. Instead I came down with a cold followed by a bad chest. Grrr. Next weekend’s update may also be disrupted as I’m doing a half marathon.

So, the kittens are three weeks old now, and once again it’s amazing the progress they’ve made. Last week they were making efforts to walk, play and maybe starting to lick themselves. They’ve built on all of those this week. One of the common sights when I’ve peeped into the box this week is to find them all determinedly wobbling round, practising their walking. Marching around the box, negotiating corners in wobbly slow motion.

Sometimes it looked like they were deliberately jumping on their siblings too and beginning to playfight, though at times you might have argued it was just random scrabbling! No doubts now… and they are fierce! They can walk pretty well now, and have also been practising stretching and even displaying. It’s not uncommon now to see one kitten strutting up to another and pouncing. Sometime 2 or 3 pile onto another or you end up with a daisy chain of biting scratching kittens! They bite each other’s ears, legs (and sometimes their own) and under the tail (seems to be popular!). When poor mum toilets them she quite often has to fight with a kitten attacking her round the face. Though maybe she enjoys it: I have seen her looking like she was actually joining in with the game… other times it seems a bit much and she looks bemused at finding herself in the midst of a churning pile of playfighting kittens. It’s probably a good thing teeth have not been involved… but that’s changing too, as their teeth are beginning to come through.

The kittens have been starting to peep out of their box (sometimes to be met by mum’s paw! I don’t think Purdey is comfortable with it!), so I’ve created a run so they don’t go too far at first. It’s not been used so far. The expensive wheat-based litter hasn’t been used either. I bought it as I’d heard horror stories about kittens eating clay clumping litters. Probably over the top, but I decided to be safe. Purdey did react to the new litter by eating a bit of it… I think I’ll have to put some in her big tray in the hall to give her the proper idea!

Interesting to look at tabby patterns: black cats have underlying tabby patterns, which are more visible when they are kittens. I’ve noticed that actually Grey Legs is a mackerel/striped (like Tabby), Glossy is a classic, and, from what I can see on her black areas, Tortie is also a classic. Mum is harder to tell as she has a mature coat, but I think she’s a classic. I’ve going to have to look at the genetics of that…

One thing I have looked into… both red (as in red patches in tortie and ginger cats) and tabby are dominant/‘show one to throw one’ genes. Since mum shows neither, that means Tortie’s dad is red/ginger and Tabby’s dad is tabby. In other words Tortie and Tabby have different dads! As far as I know it’s not possible to tell with the two blacks who they are full or half siblings to.

It’s also getting time the kittens were socialized… anyone who’d like to help, please get in touch! That means yes, people may come round for a cuddle! I’m also looking for a good home for two of them as a pair (I’m not sure which two yet, to be honest it’s going to be very hard to give any of them up… I’ll be looking for a good match and homes will be carefully examined!) So please get in touch if you can help. I’m in East London.

Grey Legs would like to meet you!