Five Days Old

Day 5 and things are progressing nicely. All of the kittens gained
weight this morning, but Apache is now much smaller than her siblings,
about 30 grams behind the largest. She's such a good girl though.
Neither her nor bluecream cry when you pick them up, so I got a
propper snuggle with her today. Honestly, there's nothing so soft as a
kitten belly when you run your finger oh so gently across it.

The kittens' umbilical chords are all falling off today, which is
actually a testament to Millie's good mothering. Tia's babies kept
theirs until they were about 14 days old, as she did the bare minimum
that she could get away with. The chord falls off due to the mother
licking the kitten's stomach you see.

I've given up on the food battle. Normally, I feed my cats very high
quality, high meat, grain free food, but Millie was picking at it and
not eating enough to keep the milk production strong. I keep some
hills kitten to tempt cats that have gone off their food, and when I
gave her a bowl of the stuff, she inhaled it! So I've given up and am
now feeding her on Hills until my stash runs out, which, at the rate
she's going through it, won't be very long!

You know, it's hard to find things to write about this litter because
mum is so good that there really isn't much for me to do or get
involved in other than weighing. They don't walk or open their eyes or
anything like that at this stage you see.

The kittens are constantly feeding though, and even when they're
sleeping, they're never far from a nipple. Stripe is now the biggest
kitten, closely followed by dark red. Both those guys are well on the
way to doubling their birth weights, and the others aren't too far
behind them either. Having a litter of five is just fab, and I'm
enjoying every minute of it!

Now, it's weighing time, so I really must disappear. Until tomorrow!