Archimedes is eating himself now and has a great appetite.
The kittens get a lot of raw food during the day (that has to be served fresh; the dry food and water are always accessible).
Here is one of their meals – minced veal. Yummy! (Archimedes is down, second from the left).
It was dark and the picture I took is not that good, but I like the motive. One kitten is nursing (the foreign white), the rest are sleeping or wrestling in the tipi.
The baby on the left with the darker ear edge is probably going to be seal or blue point, and the other one chocolate or lilac.
One more picture of the same two kittens:
A detail; kittens eating (they eat often).
Jossan is huge! She did quite a performance on Wednesday morning and we thought she would give a birth, so Jelena stayed and worked from home that day. But – no. Yesterday evening she was so tired, that she was just dragging her heavy tummy over the floor, she could not walk as usual. Jelena fed her with egg yolk and cat milk while she was lying on the sofa. A fast setup with an old newspaper was made so that nothing would be spilt:
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Jossan’s most favorite place right now is the doormat, where she blocks the exit. She really wants us to stay at home. She is maybe waiting for the weekend to give a birth. Can pregnant animals delay the birth at all? I guess they can, a bit.
Our cats know when it is time for weekend. Leroy can even count days (he is okay when we leave him somewhere, cat hostel or a friend for 7 days, on day #8 he starts crying and crying. That is because our vacations without cats usually take a week, so he has learnt that after a week we always come and take him and the others back to their home).
Here is Jossan, blocking the entrance door:
So, I turned around to bring the last bowl to the table and… 2 seconds later, they are sitting exactly where I want to sit and eat my dinner.
Coincidence? I don’t think so!
We spent some serious time investigating Jossan’s 2,9 kg of weight. She is muscular, lean and not skinny. The vet said Jossan has a good size and proportions (and that is a veterinary that also breeds Siamese and Orientals, so she is quite familiar with the race). Still, 2,9 kg does not sound like much!
A healthy grown up Siamese cat usually weighs: male 4-6,5 kg (9-14 pounds); female 2,7-4,8 kg (6-10 pounds). Also, this article I found was interesting (Siamese cats are just mentioned):
Some healthy adult female Siamese cats weigh as little as 5 lb (2,26 kg) though some male Siamese can reach 20 lb (9 kg). Some Siamese breeding lines give smaller, more “fragile-looking” cats than others and the old-style Siamese cats are more robust than the rather skinny modern version of this breed.
The source: “FELINE MEDICAL CURIOSITIES: DWARF CATS, GIANT CATS, FAT CATS” written by Sarah Hartwell.
I guess that Jossan’s lean look is more of “a skinny modern” one, although her mum is more robust. Jossan is her daddy’s little copy.
Here is an interesting read about the history of Siamese cats and the descriptions of two different types of Siamese – the more round version, similar to the original Thai one, that was imported from Siam (Thailand), and more elongated, modern version of the race. From the article:
It is important to raise that several breeders believed that there were two types (morphologies) of Siamese. Mrs. Veley would have written herself that its cat (Pho) had a rather thin line and that its second cat (Mia) was rather robust and round. Thereafter, Mrs. Carew Cox, a judge of cat-show and founder of the first Siamese club, would have also noted, to see two types of lines : one compact, with a short body, short legs and a round head, while the other with a body and a semi-long, nimble and sinuous head.
Edited May 29, 2010:
Jossan, that weighs so ‘little’, 2,9kg, gave a birth to her first litter of seven healthy big kittens (86-102 gr at birth) when she was 2,5 years old.
So, her weight is absolutely fine, and she gave a fine and healthy offspring. Jossan eats both dry food and raw meet (beef) and egg yolk. Sometimes I add butter and/or sour cream to the raw meet/cat milk mix, especially during her pregnancy and while she was breast-feeding kittens. Also, she eats tuna and chicken meet, but not very often.
Every evening the cats get a portion of chicken white meet or canned tuna. They adore it, and probably think that it is the best part of the day!
If Jelena is late with serving the food, Leroy and/or Jossan come and, discreetly as always, in their all but soft voices, remind her that MAU MAU MAUUUUUUUU IT IS TIME TO EAT THAT TUNA!!!!
Maven knows that the food is coming, and keeps her dignity intact. She just shows up when the siren is on, and circles around Jelena, but knows better than to yell like a maniac. Oops, did I say maniac?! I am sorry, I meant – Siamese.
A view from above:
 | Annika A on A new pillow |
 | Doug on Eleven weeks |
 | Sofie Skoglund on Foreign White becoming blue bi… |
| Doug on Risk for catnapping |
 | Jelena on Archimedes against vaccin… |
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