High Five!

Five weeks already! Time sure does fly. The babies are fully mobile now and their motor skills are much improved. They run.. a lot! Running is one of their favorite things to do. They still tend to get caught up in their speed and stumble a bit, but the overall skills are improving. They play with each other and with Zelda (much to her dismay) and this week we even let them out of their room and into the wider world.

At this point in normal kitten development it is safe for us to introduce them to canned food. Of course Zelda is still getting canned food daily, but the kittens have not shown an interest in it just yet. Later this week I will probably try a combination of kitten food and Hill's a/d, a prescription diet that we use to entice little kittens. They will continue to nurse as long as mom lets them, which we will want to discourage by the time they are ready for surgery. If we can get the babies to focus more on the food they are given and less on what mom has to give them it will help.

They got to use the big kitty cat tree!

Also I have noticed this week that their eyes are changing. The sweet baby blues are turning to a darker green. They will probably end up with eyes in that are more in the yellow/green range by the time they are fully grown.

Most exciting this week is that they are all official now! On Monday I brought home de-wormer and their first distemper vaccination. The distemper vaccination is a preventative against the panleukopenia, but it is neither a cure nor is it guaranteed to work. Vaccinations are an attempt to prevent, but we have to understand that nothing is for sure. I brought the vaccination home and administered it (poking them with a needle is NOT my idea of bonding!) as well as the de-wormer which is a liquid that they can ingest orally. Only a registered vet can give the rabies vaccination, and we don't give it to kittens until about 12 weeks of age so they might not get their rabies vaccination with our shelter but they will be required to have it.

The other thing that makes them official is that they have been named. Since we have to record their first vaccination and de-wormer we need a file, that file needs a name, and the names were up to me. All the kittens are named after characters in the Legend of Zelda games. Of course, Zelda is mom and I always knew my little girl was going to be Navi. The boys were a little tougher to name because I used a lot of the names of male characters on other animals at the shelter on the same day I named Zelda (I like to use themes). So the chubby tabby boy ended up being named Goron after the rock people in the game. The pointy-faced black kitten became Zora, after the water people. And the round little black kitten was named Gerudo after the thief/desert people.

All tuckered out after their big play day in the big world.

So, the kittens have gotten to the funnest stage in their development. Everyone is healthy and happy. They interact well with each other as well as with mom and their human friends. In just three more weeks I have to bring them in to see if they are ready for surgery, which because of their excellent health they probably will be. But I don't want to think about that now! For now I will just enjoy them every day and take lots of pictures!