5-10-24 Friday

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Sorry if you’ve been asked this a million times in your years fostering – but how rare are ginger girls in your experience? I thought it was unusual?

and

So orange Dillydally is a girl? I thought orange cats were usually boys, or is that a myth? They are the cutest and just getting cuter by the day!

From girlwanderer (thank you!) – So the genes for orange kitties are carried on the X chromosome. A tom, being XY, only has one of those. A queen has to have two to be a ginger girl, which is rarer. Not impossible.

Fun fact – orange and black are two “alleles” of the same “locus”, which is just a fancy geneticist’s term for “a given X chromosome can code for either orange or black”. The tortie/calico/torbie colorations are XoXb – one X chromosome has orange and the other one black. This is why this coloration is almost exclusively female – it takes two X chromosomes to pull off, so a boy tortie is the genetic anomaly XXY and is most likely sterile.

I’ve read that 75 – 80% of orange tabbies are male. I have had a very small handful of orange girl fosters – the ones that came immediately to mind were 2008’s Lucille, Lindsay and Maeby (below), but I know there were a few more than that (I’ll have to put together a collage for next week’s Throw Back Thursday!)

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I wonder, could either of the colorpoint kitten girls end up a tortie point, do you think? I find myself vaguely hoping for one of those.

From Carrie (thanks!) – If all the colourpoint kittens have the same father, it’s *extremely* unlikely that there could be both a female kitten that’s a variant of orange, and a female kitten that’s a variant of black/brown. So unless there’s more than 1 colourpoint father, either Bolt or Lollygag should turn out to be tortie point. (Probably Bolt, because we can see that Dillydally is entirely orange, so unless she has a different father, the father must’ve been orange/flame point.)

Although the colourpoint pattern masks so much of their base colour that a “cryptic tortie” is more likely than if they weren’t mostly white.

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Is Meander better about you being around and touching her babies now? I know how hard it is for you not to love on kittens!!

She’s fine with me touching and handling them as long as they don’t do that panicked scream!

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So is anyone running a pool on how long before Trixie and Rocco are official permanent residents?

They won’t be official permanent (inside) residents while Charlie and Khal (who are in excellent health) are with us. Both Charlie and Khal absolutely loathe Rocco and Trixie (though fortunately Trixie’s not interested in coming inside) and there have been multiple fights resulting in Khal and Rocco (though interestingly never Charlie) needing to be treated for abscesses. When Fred lets Rocco into the house, he checks first to be sure Charlie and Khal are not inside (or at least not hanging out in the path from Fred’s bedroom to the garage door.)

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Mama counting her kittens from 2013 just cracks me up!

Me too!

“…three…four…five. Okay, there really ARE five. No matter how many times I count. It’s just… I don’t remember HAVING five. I only remember four. Maybe this is what they mean when they say you forget the pain of childbirth. Maybe you forget the actual one you’re birthing, too. I wish I’d forgotten birthing that one with the big head. That pain I can live without remembering.”

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Crouton can’t decide whether she’s more interested in Auntie Alice or Martha the Roomba (who is over by the fireplace blending in with the track toys.)

The kittens find Uncle Newt particularly fascinating.

Especially Crouton!

Maybe they know he’s waiting for his 75th meal of the day.

I didn’t see it happen, but Fred reported that Pita got RIGHT up in Uncle Charlie’s face, and Charlie pinned her down. Probably he was planning to gnaw on her a little (kittens are so tender and tasty) but then Babka came to see what was going on, and he got distracted.

Pumpernickel, Crouton and Ciabatta give Uncle Rocco the once-over.

Pita and Crouton wait politely for Uncle Newt to finish his breakfast (one of many).

Giving him the ol’ snifferoo.

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When the kittens roll around and kick their little feet in the air – OH, I just love it!

Meander’s all “Yeah, it’s something alright.”

Lollygag stomped out of the crate, sniffed me, and stomped right back in.

Rough life, Skip.

And for Mosey too.

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Posted on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Tumblr) yesterday.

Crouton says “But Uncle Charlie, I want to sit there and watch the birds!”⁠
Uncle Charlie says “Tough luck, kid.”⁠
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(About 10 minutes later he vacated the spot and let her sit there.)

Throw Back Thursday: From a year ago, bottle baby Rufous. This is one of my favorite pictures ever – he is clearly so very milk-drunk here and on the verge of toppling over into the hardest sleep ever.

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Throw Back Thursday: From 2015. We were fostering a litter we called The Fools (they were born on April 1st, and I named them all after comedians) and Rickles (the orange and white kitten) was just WILD. Don’t miss the skitter-and-somersault combo that starts about 12 seconds in! (Also in this video: his brothers brown tabby Belushi and buff tabby Shecky.)

Lollygag considers her next move.

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Sorry so long (did it really need to be 6 minutes long, Robyn? Really?) but I caught some of the kittens coming out of the crate. And going back in. And coming back out. They’re mostly staying in the crate right now, but we’re on the verge of Mass Crate Exodus and it’s very exciting.

Your demolition crew (top: Pumpernickel, Ciabatta & Babka. bottom: Crouton & Pita) is ready to help you get that home renovation done!

(Sorry, due to the settings on this video, you have to go to YouTube to view it.)
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Throw Back Thursday: from 2015. The litter known as The Fools (they were born on April 1st and named after comedians) – watch the action by the wall. Orange tabby Louis goes behind the crate and comes out an entirely different kitten (Rickles) altogether!

Good night innernets. (Mama Meander will sleep like an angel with her head on a Skitter pillow.)

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Previously
2023: I put this hammock scratcher next to the little blue cat tree in hopes that they’d use the hammock, and by golly they DID. (That’ll never happen again.)
2022: “Am sleepy, lady.”
2021: Whist said “Thank goodness I had my floof suit cleaned recently!”
2020: It’s Monday, and Alejandro is like “Didn’t we already have a Monday?”
2019: They’re turning into total stringbeans!
2018: “Does this mean I’m gonna have to hear about his extra toes for the rest of my life? Oh joy.”
2017: Roux will have you know that she is NOT responsible for the damage to this scratcher. It was a previous litter. REALLY.
2016: SOMEONE has a case of the Loons!
2015: Happy Mother’s Day!
2014: “Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m prettyyyyyyy.”
2013: “You might CONSIDER yourself the fourth born child of Khaleesi, but YOU ARE NO DRAGON, SIR.”
2012: O Christmas tree.
2011: I love how, at this age, when you rub their bellies, they think about it for a moment, then begin vigorously grooming themselves.
2010: Now that Maura is gone, we’re down to just our eleven, plus four fosters. Why, it’s like we hardly have any cats in the house at all!
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.

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