Quickly, while Starry is distracted… pictures!
Starry Night gave birth to six beautiful kittens last night (and early morning). In the evening we started making dinner and when we checked on Starry it seemed like she was starting to go into labor. Dinner Abort! (Later we got to eat some carrot cake Marie made earlier in the day as part of our “dinner.” Oh, the sacrifices we make for our mamas!).
We hung out with her but it wasn’t several hours later that she started to push out kittens (almost every fifteen minutes, like clockwork). The only exception was a particularly eager kitten that popped out while we were weighing the previous one. Hey, there’s an extra kitten here…
Night vision view of contented mama.
Starry is a very attentive mother and is doing a great job of keeping the kittens close without letting them get under or behind her. She’s good that way. Also, with some mothers we have to trim some fur near the nipples to make them easier for the kittens to find. Starry actually groomed around her nipples in the days before she gave birth so they exposed. It’s actually quite the nippleriffic site when she shows you her belly.
A couple of the kittens are on the small side but they are eating almost constantly and made great gains over the first twelve hours, so we’re hopeful. They are all very energetic and move around a lot, even when nursing.
Buster, the father, on the advice of counsel had no comment due to the pending paternity lawsuit.
All of these kittens are reserved.
Cuties