July 24, 2021
Day 15
We see the funniest things on the webcam, that you would never see when present ‘in the flesh’. So happy I found a way to attach the cameras to Basecamp and Nest using some creative solutions such as Velcro and food clamps. It is awesome.
As a for instance:
Mitsy uses her tail to create a bridge between her and the kittens. She keeps an ‘eye’ on them while she sleeps outside the Nest, but with her tail connected. Sometimes she also uses her head or her leg.
When she wants time off, she breaks that bridge. Due to lack of space in Basecamp, she often lies down in the litter box. Just when it is clean, mind you. Smart cookie. The kittens have no idea she is there, so they stay together and sleep.
When some of the kittens are outside of the Nest, she keeps an eye on them, but does not fetch them. She did that in the beginning, probably because it was too cold for them to be out there. My thinking is that this is part of feeding them in batches. I read that cats can have up to 8 teats. So if she only has 6, then feeding is tight for all kittens at the same time.
After a good sleep, she joins the kittens, stimulates their genital area to get the excrement out, then usually has some food, goes back to feeding the kittens and the cycle start over. All very intuitive.
Often the kittens sleep on top of one another or on top of mom. Sometimes they get into a musical rhythm! Kittens sleep on top of each other but never for long. It is an instinctive method to day warm and cool down alternatively. The one at the base of the kitten mountain is nice and cozy, the one on top is cool. And when it gets too cold, it wiggles away and finds a spot at the base of the kitten mountain to warm up. And so on and so forth!
Now that we are past the 2 week mark, we can clearly see that the kittens are reacting to sound and light. Mitsy also seems to be intuitively aware of this new development, because only now are we starting to hear her ‘talk’ to her brood, whereas she was silent before. Little, sweet prrrrt noises.
She also is starting to play with them. She already holds kittens unwilling to stop for a bathroom break down with her paw, so they cannot move. But now she also holds them just for play. Licking their heads and I saw her ‘kick’ the eldest black kitten with her back legs. Nothing too rough, but I think this qualifies as play. You can see it in her face too. She has lots of facial expressions. We see contentment, sleepiness, alertness, annoyance, shock, fear and a somewhat kind face, when we are around and she feels safe. Without fail, when I sing to her softly, she calms down, blinks and relaxes visibly. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?