Smug Miss Cori again looks like Smug Miss Alice.
Indeed she does! We’ve actually started calling Coriander “AJ” (for “Alice Junior”), so Fred will know who I’m talking about!
I know the odds are that Maggie will do just fine wherever she lands, but I’ve been harboring the hope that she would get adopted with at least one of her babies… how great would that be?!
That would be SO awesome. Fingers crossed!
When the kitties are put up for adoption is there any background information on when/where they came from? I’m sure if potential adopters saw how they are raised with you, people would be doing cartwheels into Petsmart to adopt a Robyn/Fred kitty!
I actually got permission to include a note with the bag of toys directing adopters to Love & Hisses so they can see the whole story behind how their babies grew up.
On the ‘hidden’ calitabby – the fact that you can see both colors makes her a non hidden one. Basically on a girl cat, different regions of the body select at random to be orange or black. In theory, all the regions could choose the same color like flipping a bunch of coins and getting all heads or all tails. Such a case would be a hidden tortie or calitabby, since you could only tell if she had kittens and had both orange boys and black boys. (Male cats get their orange gene from the mom only, since the Y comes from dad).
and
As Oldcat says, Clove is no longer a “hidden” Cali-tabby but just a very “obscured” one, that’s not a cat breeding term, I just made it up. But before I wondered if she was hidden because I thought I saw orange reflections in her mostly brown fur, but obvious it was actual orange furs mixed in with the brown ones.
The older Clove gets, the more orangey her orange spots have become, by the way. But I find this whole thing very confusing and thank my lucky stars that y’all out there know more than I do and are willing to share. 🙂
A lot of my friends get those plastic kiddie pools and fill them with water for their dogs to cool off in.
We actually tried that with George and Gracie, and they said “Meh. Not interested, I’ll be under the coop thx.” I wonder if part of the reason they’re not very interested in laying in a pool of water is because their fur is so thick and water repellent. I wouldn’t be surprised if being submerged in water would still not be enough to get them wet to the skin. After the deluge of water that came down on the day of the tornado, I went out to check on them, and the top of their fur was soaked, but as I petted them, I realized that at skin level, they were perfectly dry. I need a raincoat made of George and Gracie fur, obviously.
Any news about more adoptions?
Not yet, but adoption hours are tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have news for y’all on Monday!
Finally, that gawky rooster has feathers on his legs and feet?!?!?! I’ve never seen that before, although my experience with chickens is limited (and my experience with chicks is very limited to just the incubator stage). What’s the deal with that?
He’s at least part Light Brahma. We have several Light Brahma hens and our one rooster is a Light Brahma as well. Brahmas have feathered legs! The chicks who were hatched this Spring and Summer are at least half Brahma (since their daddy is a Brahma), and some of them – but not all – have feathered legs.
We like Brahmas because they’re relatively calm birds. They get pretty big, and they’re decent egg layers. I wouldn’t mind adding some different kinds of chickens to the flock just to keep things interesting (and hey, there are Buff Brahmas and Dark Brahmas too!), but we haven’t gotten around to getting that done, just yet.
This is what our Light Brahma rooster looks like, though you have to look closely to see his feathered legs:
Miz Poo in the box, Clove on top.
Clove, mildly annoyed (I love it when they put their ears back like that).
If only Ciara could make herself comfortable.
Ciara with sass.
“You haz a snuggle for me?”
Ciara, Cilantro, and Cori, hanging out.
Cilantro sure does love that toy mouse.
Green beans: best cat toys EVER.
Cilantro hangin’ with Cillian and Fergus Simon, last week.
Your weekly announcement: Corbie is beautiful. You know you forgot that!
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Previously
2010: Could we fit any more cats in one picture?
2009: No entry.
2008: “Rowr. Rowr, I say.”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
Good Morning,
Any word on the rest of the McMao boys being adopted yet?
Hate to think of them in a pet store cage… 🙁
Love the blog!
Kristen
Thanks, Kristen. As I mentioned in today’s post, there have been no more adoptions, but adoption hours are being held tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully there’ll be some adoptions then! 🙂
I could never forget the beauty of Corbie!
By the way…I now know what type of chickens to get if I ever do. Thanks! I would have to get the one with the floofy hat, too, though cuz they look way cool! 🙂
The reason there is often a lot of discussion about Calicos and Torties, mostly is because Cat Breeders (of breeds like Forest Cats that can come in all colors except points) like to predict what color the kittens of a mated pair might be. Female cats can carry up to three colored genes, and this allows for calicos and tortties in all their colorful glory. Normal boy cats, can only have either a red gene or a black gene (its really more complicated than this, but that’s the simple version).
So multicolored boys are very rare, and red/orange females exist (but are less rare); a red/orange/golden lady cat has two copies of the red gene and her kittens with a ginger/red tom will almost always be either red/pink/cream/gold etc. With a black tom, she may make calicos, torties etc, especially if she has white on her somewhere. A know from experience, a feral matting with an orange queen and a brown stripy local tom cat, can make one brown stripy kitten.
Most tri-color boys are naturally sterile, but should be neutered just in case as a friend of mine found out. Once in a very great while, they can make kittens; in most cases they are really “double cats” that happens when two tiny proto-kitten sparks fuse together into one kitty instead of becoming two. This really isn’t that uncommon in cats (but is only noticed by genetic testing) but when its a red proto-kitty fused with a black-proto kitty brother, presto you get a double cat. At least one of which had sperm of a different cat shooting from each..well you know, his kitten making parts.
However, such kitties are really not worth any money (despite rumors) though if you have one, its a good idea to check your boy out. Especially if they think he’s a double cat, your local vet college may be interested in taking sperm and bloom samples before he is fixed, for research.
But there is nothing special about the kittens he is going to produce, and most tri-color males have an extra gene that can sometimes (though not often) cause other medical problems.
Hope that helps, here’s one link to a cat-color chart (there’s lots out there) “dilute” means a faded color like pink, cream or gray. http://www.britishbluekittens.com/color.html
Melodi
Orange girls are half as common as orange boys. So for every three orange cats you average 1 girl and 2 boys.
The quick way to determine this is that boys only need one O gene to be orange, and girls need two, one from both parents (the Oo and oO combos give calico/tortie, oo is black and OO is orange). For boys Ox is orange, ox is black. The first letter is the mom’s contribution to the kitten, the second is the dad’s.
You can also show it in full by combining all the boy cat types (ox and Ox) with all the girl types (oo Oo oO and OO) in 8 little 2×2 charts and toting up the results.
Sorry about the terrible spelling errors in the last post, I think I need a second cup of tea this morning, obviously kitties have blood, not blooms (that’s for flowers)…
Can’t say enough how much I enjoy this blog (love to read it right away when I get online daily!) and the comments are so informative and fun as well. It’s one of my favorite things about Monday–there will be a post after the weekend!
How is the beautiful Corbie doing health-wise? He looks like he’s faring well, hopefully he’s only been improving all along!
Keeping fingers and toes crossed for Maggie and the remaining McMaos to get adopted together to loving and good homes.
Thanks for answering my chicken question. I learn something new everyday. I also hope for great news about Maggie and her McMao hellions. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed.
Aside from mentioning how truly gorgeous that Corbie cat is, I wanted to see if people were willing to go over to Chrystal’s blog to offer support.
She rescued a group of 15 cats and kittens from starvation and rescued four feral kittens. Sadly, several of the kittens became very, very sick. At the same time, her younger daughter’s horse had to be put down and her longtime companion dog, Waggles, became ill. She is slowly recounting the stories as a form of therapy.
If brave souls could go and just leave supportive comments, I’m sure it would count for a lot. She promises the stories get better, so if people could hang in, there might be a great reward.
On a brighter note, Dexter is doing better and better. He almost looks like a normal kitten in this video taken a couple of days ago.
I just KNEW there was something I ought to be remembering ALL DAY (8pm here) and that was it! Corbett Bookworm! Beautiful! Of course!
Who’s Corbett?!? Why have I never heard that name before?!?! And he’s beautiful?! Who knew?????
Oh Corbie!!!!!! I am so glad to be reminded of your blinding beauty every week! Thank you!! 🙂
Hugs to all the kitties and fab hens and cockerels and babies! Take care
x