Pardalis Ocicats

I’d really hoped we might have a daytime birth for a change but Fizz was having none of that!  She spent the first half of the night alternating between getting under the covers and nestling in with us to sitting on my chest, obviously very restless and not wanting us to sleep either. 

At 2am on 2nd June I heard a little squeak, the first kitten had already been born and was being cleaned up by mum.  It was a blue boy. Within the next 2 hours or so the other 5 had been born, all silently, only the lilac girl made Fizz cry out a little.  She also had a tawny girl and another 2 blue boys.  Luckily the blues are slightly different so I can just about tell them apart.

Two weeks on and the babies are all doing well and have lovely tubby tums and Fizz, as usual, is doing a great job.

Lexi gave birth to six gorgeous kittens last week.  The labour started in the afternoon with Lexi chirruping to Uno and wanting him with her.  She was also trying to round up Fizz’s kitten as if she wanted her kitten family with her.  Unfortunately Fizz and Kolo weren’t invited to this particular party :-)  Around 9pm the purring deepened and got louder and the first kitten, a chocolate, made his entry to the world at 9.30pm.

He didn’t seem too interested in latching on though was lively enough.  He tried a couple of times but was content to snuggle in and get washed.  It was the best part of two hours before he got the hang of it and whilst there was movement still to be seen in Lexi’s tum, none of the others were in a hurry to make an appearance.  I started to worry about the possibility of a still born holding things up, and maybe a caesarian being needed.  There weren’t any contractions and Lexi was purring quietly, happily washing her kitten. 

Then around 1.45am the purring got louder followed by the usual ‘ouch, something’s on it’s way’ noises and out popped the second kitten.  Phew! It was breathing and no sooner than it had a cursory lick it was headed for the milk bar.  The other four followed in quick succession and it was all over in an hour. Six nice evenly sized hungry little bundles!

Now, a week on, they’re all putting on weight and growing rapidly.  Lexi is a wonderful mum yet again and is positively glowing.

Last weekend saw Fizz’s last kitten go off to her new home.  It was really hard to part with this one that we so nearly kept, especially as she was over 6 months old now and we knew Fizz would miss her too.  Hopefully we’ll see her at the next Ocicat Club Show in October.

Instead of the planned small show last October we joined other cat clubs in the large Stoneleigh venue just for this year, we’re back to our solo show this coming October.  I didn’t think Fizz would do very well at the show as her 6th month old remaining kitten was still enjoying a good suckle and had made her undercarriage really lumpy, I also didn’t think she was in the best of conditions because of it! Obviously the judges thought otherwise as she came 1st in 3 of her 4 entered classes, one being a class of 5.  She earned her 3rd CC so is now a Champion!!

We also took the kitten who got a lot of praise from everyone for her rich golden coat and took 3 firsts and 1 second place in her classes. She won her open class and got Best of Breed and was picked for Best in Show row as Best female kitten winning us a few nice prizes We also came home with a couple of club trophies for Best Tawny and Best Kitten.  Her new owners were there to see her success which was lovely for them, she leaves to live with them next weekend when she’s recovered from being spayed. All in all a very successful day!

We have just one kitten left from Fizz’s June litter.  She’s a lovely tawny, very sweet and affectionate and such a shame she’s not been chosen yet. Just a case of people looking for other colours or boys. She’s the spitting image of her mum and has the nicest temperament and loves nothing better than to be picked up and cuddled. Though she’s 17 weeks old now she’s still quite small and as Ocicats never really grow out of kittenhood, she’s got a lot of growing to do still.  She can jump onto the work surfaces already, though we’ve been trying to talk her out of that!  She’s very vocal and loves a good chat, often only quiet when she’s, eating, sleeping, playing or being cuddled :-)  Hopefully she’ll find her forever loving pet home very soon, until then she’ll remain a valued and very welcome addition to our family.

The garden run is a great hit with the kittens.  Now they’re bigger and have had their first vaccination we can open the cat flap into a small netted off patio area for them to get some fresh air.  The original idea was that the adults would be able to leap up to the first level area and then, with another leap, access the walk over area into a separate secure part of the garden, while the kittens would stay in the part next to the house. What we hadn’t accounted for was the kittens shinning up the wooden post to the higher level!  They did this within 5 minutes of being out there.  Ah well, best laid plans and all that…… We came up with a cunning plan and simply stuffed a cushion into the walkway hole so they at least can’t access the 2nd garden area while they’re still a bit too small!

‘Wasters’ isn’t really the right word, as how can time spent watching and playing with adorable kittens ever be wasted?  Fizz’s kittens are now downstairs in the kitten room.  We fully intendedcontaining them in the new kitten pen until they’d started on solids and were using the litter tray confidently.  However, I can’t believe how quickly they’ve changed this past week or so.  All of a sudden they want to be into everything and explore when just a week ago they were warily tottering around the pen. Now it’s all play, play, play!!! So the door to the pen is kept open now.

They are using the litter tray, albeit to sleep in…… No interest has been shown in proper food but they’re all very good weights and still gaining steadily so there’s no rush.  They all drink water out of the bowl so it won’t be long before they decide to give kitten food a try.

Quincy is the handsome lilac silver boy from Fizz’s litter born in May 2009.  We grew very fond of him as a kitten, he was always very affectionate and friendly, being the first to greet visitors.  But we were happy that he had gone to a wonderful home.  He lives in London now and is very well known in the local community.  He wears a collar with a phone number on which is often called to say ‘ did you know your cat regularly visits our pub, and wanders around for a chat with the people there?’ or ‘ Quincy’s just let himself into the local school and is sitting in the classroom with the children’ or even ‘Quincy’s just let himself in and pinched my dinner!’.

Now he needed somewhere to stay while his new family went on holiday.  As this coincided with the time that Fizz would be upstairs with her new babies, we decided that we’d be able to help out on this occasion and have him stay with us.  We were especially keen to see how he’d turned out. Although we’d seen recent photos, we were pleasantly surprised at how much more handsome he is in the fur.  He’s also huge! With enormous paws and very solid muscular body. He’s still a very loving cat, who loves a cuddle and is so very laid back and relaxed.  He settled right in and it was only a few days before he was integrated in the family and playing with our other cats.

We hope he enjoyed his three week stay with us as much as we enjoyed having him here, but we’re sure he’s happy to be back doing his rounds of the locality!

Fizz was fidgety on Wednesday and wouldn’t leave my side so I knew something was about to happen.  We took her up to bed with us and the loud purring started.  She has a very quiet purr normally so this was her ‘ouch’ purr.  I turned the light off and prayed nothing would happen until the morning.

No such luck!  At around 1am I woke up to shuffling in the birth box and a little squeak.  The first born was already nice and dry and suckling and getting lots of attention from mum before I noticed another in the corner still in its sac.  My first thought was it was a still born as Fizz wasn’t paying it any attention.  I grabbed an old flannel and rubbed gently and she gave a sigh.  After quickly wiping the sac from her mouth and tearing the cord, I dried her as best I could and gave her back to mum who was now happy to wash her.  She was a bit slow to suckle and felt a little cold, so I held her in my hands to warm her up a little and after a little while she livened up enough to root for a teat. Two more births followed in the next hour or so and by 4am, with Fizz happily nursing them, I crawled back to bed. The alarm goes off at 6am and we found another kitten had been born bringing the total to five.

We have 3 tawnies, a blue and a chocolate.  They’re all very content and getting lovely round bellies.

Fizz is definitely showing signs of pregnancy.  She spent six days back with her breeder up in Lincoln snuggled up to Neo, the handsome tawny classic we paired Lexi with for her last litter. The pair really hit it off and at first it seemed they were happy just to be ‘good friends’ for the first few days. How

ever, one thing led to another and on the third evening, once Neo had finished his dinner and washed his paws, he turned his attention to Fizz She’d made him wait three days, now he was making her wait :-)  Honestly, men!!!

We’re not sure if Fizz carries the Classic pattern, though she has the potential to as her dad carries the gene.  If she has it too then it should show in this mating.  Both Fizz and Neo carry the dilute gene and chocolate so apart from the obvious likelihood of predominantly tawny kittens, other possible colours could be chocolate, blue or lilac.  It’s wait and see time!  Very exciting, really looking forward to having kittens in the house again

Fizz won her second Open Class at the Short-haired Cat Society Show on 18th April.

She just needs one more CC for her to earn the title of Champion.  However, she’s far more interested in getting the next litter started than earning titles so she’s paid a visit to a stud and we’re waiting confirmation that the meeting was successful.  Her next show may then have to wait until much later in the year, which she’s, no doubt, very happy about as she doesn’t really enjoy being at the shows.

Whether she finally earns the title or not, she’ll always be our little Champion

Also at this show were two of Lexi’s kittens, Connie and Delphi.  Owned by our good friends, Lorraine and David, they’re helping to gain the required merits for the Ocicat Classic’s progression to full championship status.  Both got glowing merit reports and did very well in the miscellaneous classes.  Off to a flying start in their show careers and a credit to their beautiful mother!