Day 16
There is a movie for today (quite long) of them playing (at last!)
A quick hello to Marie-Eve in Canada, who is watching out for my little runt! In fact he's not so runty any more: he manages to hold his own at around 40-50 gms less than his big sister (who is the biggest kitten), so is not falling behind and clearly gaining about the same amount of weight as the others daily. Compared to past litters of Burmese and Tonkinese I've had he is very average in weight and would be a large kitten, it's only in comparison to his bigger siblings that he seems runty! It's getting more difficult to tell him from the others, but I'd say he has slightly lighter bones and a finer build, even though he has the more old-style
head than the other two - it's surprisingly short and teddy-bear-ish!

Ellie seems to think they should be encouraged to get out of the kitten pen...

Day 17
There is a movie for today
Huge thanks to Ellis Hall in Cambridge who responded like a star to my request for help with a bit of Javascript to display the kitten movies easily. Thanks to him I don't have to make separate html pages for each movie, and you don't have to wait for them all to download everytime you look at the page. It also means I can put up a movie for every day if I want to (sounds like a recipe for a lot of time wasted playing with the kittens!). The pics below are from 'morning weighing-in'. As you can see there's not a lot to choose between them in appearance from this distance, and the weights are pretty good - these are in order of birth. The tend always to face to the right because that's the way I pick them up. They get cuddles after weighing as I try to get the weight before they get wiggly.

Day 18
Goodness what a performance! Picture me trying to get off to a show first thing in the morning to do a club table for the Old-style Siamese Club. Everything is done, but a phone call delays departure, so I pop back into the music room to say goodbye to the babies, only to find that Auntie Libby has removed two of them from their box and dumped them around the room. I have been avoiding changing the bedding too much as this can upset the queen, but obviously Libby reckoned they needed a clean fleece. So I pulled out the one I had waiting, resurrected the kittening box, and moved everyone in there. Things looked OK, but just in case I made a second nest in a corner behind the box in case they had idea of moving while I was out. (Incidentally I have had the kitchen door WEDGED since last weeked!). Sure enough, when I looked back in they had moved again - poor Ellie doesn't know whether she's coming or going. Libby isn't normally very interested in the kittens, preferring to sleep nearby, but when it comes to moving she's a real pest! Over the last 24 hours, the little girl had lost weight slightly, and this can also be a sign that the queen isn't settling to feed properly - by the evening she was showing a normal weight-gain. Here they are in their new nest:

Day 19
There is a movie for today
The result of the two bigger ones not doing as well as usual yesterday is that the smallest baby has now shortened the gap in weight between him and his biggest sibling from 50 gms to 30 gms. This doesn't seem to have done the bigger ones any harm as they're still very fat. It's a lot more difficult to tell the boys apart at first now, though the bigger one is much whiter than the other two, who have very grey baby coats - this usually means that they will be nice and pale as adults. At the evening weighing the bigger ones had lost a few grams each again, so I dosed them again with liquid paraffin. I think Ellie is disturbed and isn't staying with them enough for them to feed properly, which is making them colicy. She seems happier tonight and I'll have to wait for the morning to see if the oil helps the tummies again.

Day 20
There is a movie for today
There are signs of an interest in escape, and Ellie is not spending quite so much time in the nest with them. Weight gain has levelled off a bit, with some odd spikes and dips, but overall they are doing well, and beginning to look a lot more interesting. The smallest one looked at me today and told me his name is Ellis. Possibly the name was in my mind already, but it seems to suit him perfectly. (sorry about the relfective eyes)

Day 21
There is a movie for today
Sometimes they just don't seem that interested in food!

Day 22
There is a (short) movie for today
Weights are going up and down like a yo-yo - yesterday both the little one (Ellis) and his sister lost weight during the day, but gained it again during the night, so they're eating but they're not very stable. However, they are still physically fat and quite playful now, so at the moment there is no cause for concern. The fat girl has what appears to be a fat pouch on her tummy, but I suspect it could be a hernia. For now we'll just wait and see, but I think I'll have the vet check it soon in case it may get strangulated. She doesn't seem aware of it at the moment anyway, so it could just be fat, like her mummy!