Kittens Growing Up

My cat LabU gave birth to a triplet but only two survived. Both are orange-colored kittens, healthy and very active and they are over one month old already now. It's nice to have the opportunity to watch your kittens grow up closely from the day they were born. The experiences are incredible. From my observation, it tooks them almost a week until their eyes were open and although their legs are not strong enaough they start to wonder around and snifing around learning new things around them. However at their early age they sleep on and off between their milk time and luckily LabU is a caring mother who always show her good  nursing mother ability instinct by cuddling her kittens.

10 Days Old

I have named each of them as OJ and TeeO. Although I still could not determine the sex of these kitten, it looks that OJ is a little bit bigger than TeeO. TeeO has more white fur on her belly and her forehead. My neighbour gave me some cat care advices that it's best to bring the kittens to see the vet for their first vaccination when they reach around 6 or 7 weeks old.

Sleeping On My Lap

Now I also need to buy some cat flea treatment products as I have seen some fleas on both kittens. However I think they are both healthy since their pink color nose are wet. Now I watch closely as they grow up and I could see that there are some differences in behavior where TeeO is a bit independent and like to wonder around on her own while OJ likes to be close to her mother. However although I have seen TeeO like to spend a lot of her time groming herself, I still need to clean her up espcially around her nose. OJ on the other hand always looks clean probably she has less white fur on her body and face.

TeeO

OJ

My Cat Is Giving Birth To a Triplet

My cat Lab u was in her final stage of pregnancy in mid August. One thing that I noticed was that she was like an eating machine, always asking for food in short intervals of time and having naps in between. During her last week (8-9 weeks) of pregnancy and was expected anytime soon she was kind of restless. I prepared a box and fill it with newspapers and a towel. However on the 16 August morning I found that she had already given birth to a triplet, two orange color kitten and another one dark grey with stripes, not in the box I prepared but next to flower pots near the sliding door. I guess it was a bit cooler there.

Of the three kittens the grey one was a bit smaller and weaker and did not move much as the two orange kittens. To make matter worst, Labu was also not attending to her grey newborn and leaving her without having her first milk. I tried to place the grey kitten on Lab u belly hoping she would suck her mom's nipple but suprisingly Lab u just pull away the grey kitten. I was a bit upset for this kind of favoritism but couldn't do much. Yesterday I found that the grey kitten motionless and sadly she was no longer breathing!

 

The first few weeks in the life of a kitten would be the most critical because they are so helpless with eyes close probabaly for several days and they must get the fullest attention from their mother. While we can try to provide the best condition for the delivery and their care taking, in the end a feline maternal instinct would take care everything.

Three Days Old

Cat Fighting and Play-Fighting

The noise or the sound from cat fightings especially at night are annoying and disturbing even to cat lovers. There are several reasons why cats fight which normally among male cats. The fights can happen during or outside mating season and could end up injuring the cats if serious battle is encountered.

Fighting During Mating Season
During mating season male cats fight to have the authority or dominance over a female cat. A fight could be broken when several male cats are chasing after one female cat. This normally happen when the male cats are from different territories. However, I have seen two male cats are tolareting to one another as they know well among each other. This happen to my male cats "Kulat" and "Kudik" and they are not fighting when they have the opportunity to be with my neighbour's female cat.


Kulat and Kudik (in the background)

Fighting For Territory
Cats normally also fight to protect their territory. I observed that the territory belongs to my cats are our porch extending toward the road infront of our house and to lawn yard of my next neighbour. Once I saw he (Kulat) was chased away by a big male cat and when he was already in our house I could see he was breathing rapidly and a bit trembling when I tried to cool him down. Probably he had entered another male cat's territory.

How to stop when cats are fighting? You can do one of these to stop a fight but you can't be sure if they go and fight some where else later on. Anyone of this is always working

(1) Spraying water on them
(2) Surprise them with loud sound or clapping your hands, or
(3) throwing things but not to hurt them

Play-Fightings
It is normal to cats or kittens especially among siblings they sort of engaging in a fight. Sometimes this is important as part of their growing up behaviors. Normally the play fightings would not end up seriously and they would suddenly seen grooming to one another. Play-fighting is also a way of training among kittens.