Lily’s litter has been doing very well! Since our last post about them they quickly progressed from needing formula (because Lily wasn’t giving them all quite enough milk) to eating solid food. They’re growing fast, climbing over everything, and run to greet us when we come in the room.

Thankfully, they all adapted to the using the litter box very quickly.

We put velcro collars on the three red-silver boys because we had a hard time telling them apart. As they’ve gotten older we’ve figured out which markings differentiate them, but we’ll leaving he collars for now, just to be sure.

Around when they were born we had just finished up a Star Trek: Enterprise rewatch. Since there are seven main characters and there are seven kittens in this litter, it worked out perfectly.

All of these kittens are reserved.

Jonathan Archer (boy)

T’Pol (girl)

Trip Tucker (boy)

Malcolm Reed (boy)

Travis Mayweather (boy)

Hoshi Sato (girl)

Phlox (boy)

Yum!

Lily’s kittens continue to progress and are doing very well with their supplemental feedings. We haven’t had to help out many mamas like this over the years, and certainly not ones this big, so we’re learning a lot!

We feed the kittens on a schedule, but you never know if any of them just finished eating from Lily’s milk bar, so it’s a roll of the dice whether each kitten will be interested or not.  Some or more consistent than others. The blue boy, the torbie girl, and one of the reds (it varies which one) are almost always ready to chow down. The black and white girl and the silver boy are usually not hungry, but sometimes they can’t get enough.

It’s the same thing with weights. We weight the kittens twice a day to check their progress. Often some will have huge gains only to lose some of it at the next weigh-in. This is probably because they were weighed right after Lily fed them.  You never know. The rule of thumb is that if there are two losses in a row that you should take a closer look, but otherwise as long as the trend consistently up things are fine.

Meanwhile, the kittens are walking, mostly. They started out with the usual walk-swim where they walk with their front feet and drag their legs behind them, but now are starting to use all four feet and have begone to explore. They wandered off into the corner where the radio cabinet used to be, behind the stand-up mirror. This seems to be the new official nest location.

All of these kittens are reserved.

Dinner time!

Two weeks on Lily’s kittens are doing well, but she’s making us work for it!

First, we decided to see if we could convince Lily to move into a proper nest instead of keeping the kittens under the antique radio cabinet. Thinking maybe it was the location, we moved the radio cabinet and put the nest where it was, and placed the kittens inside. No go. She moved herself under the radio cabinet but didn’t take the kittens with her. So we moved the kittens under there with her.

Next we thought, “Well, if she insist on being there, let’s put the cabinet inside a big nest so at least the kittens aren’t right on the floor.” We kept putting fleece under her but she would push it away.  We constructed a big cardboard nest with low sides and lifted the radio cabinet into it. Of course, she had no interest in going inside, even though her kittens were there.

What Lily wants, Lily gets. She just wants to be right on the floor, under the radio cabinet. So all we can do is keep the heating pad there, keep the room warm, and check on them often. Maybe we’ll re-arrange things for future litters so that the radio cabinet isn’t in that room anymore. The nest or nothing!

Meanwhile the kittens were growing, but not as fast as they should, and a couple were lagging behind the others. We checked Lily’s teats and everything was functioning, so we surmised that she wasn’t producing quite enough milk for everyone and the smaller ones were getting pushed out of the way. We began feeding the kittens formula four times a day to supplement and it now they are growing well! The smaller ones are not as interested in the formula as the larger ones, but they still seem to be benefiting. Maybe they’re getting more nipple time because the larger ones are satisfied.

Whatever the reason, it seems to be working so we’ll probably keep it up until they are eating solid food.

All of these kittens are reserved.

Sleepyheads

All of these kittens are reserved,

Lily gave birth to seven beautiful kittens starting around 1:00AM and delivering a kitten every twenty to thirty minutes afterward with no issues. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t any drama, as Lily didn’t want to get into the nest, kept trying to wiggle off of the birthing pads, and so on. Maybe it was first litter jitters, but she was a handful. Her kittens came out almost like clockwork, though!

Since Lily had no interest in the nest we were pretty certain she’d move the kittens under the bed, so we did some  quick rearranging and moved Pixel and her kittens (who are doing great) to a different room and moved Lily and her kids into the kitten room.  What is they say in the Army? We vacuum and Swiffer more floors before 6AM than most people do in a day. Or something like that.

As usual, we put Lily and the kittens in the nest but we know the game and placed fleece strategically around the room. Sure enough, she picked the one under the old radio cabinet. (What is it about that spot? Maybe because it is furthest from the windows it seems safest?).

The kittens are all nursing and active, despite being a little on the small side. At this point we’re used to kittens being late and chunky when they come out, like Pixel’s. No worries, they’ll catch up.

We’re keeping an eye on the kitten-cam as Lily is still trying to figure out how to corral the kittens for nursing. Sometimes they will end up behind her or wander off.

Despite being terribly tired, we can’t complain. Seven healthy kittens and no trips to the vet.