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I always have to laugh when a larger cat’s weight is mentioned. My beloved Kitling was eight pounds, which I accepted as average. Whether there is an average cat weight, I don’t know, but I laugh because the seven and a half pound cat I have now is named Munchkin. She’s two-thirds the size of her sibling, who is thirteen pounds. On the other end of the scale, so to speak, I have two brothers from a different litter who are both over twenty pounds without being fat. As you may imagine, my concept of cat size has, well, expanded. 😀

Oh, I hear you! Our current batch ranges from Miz Poo at just under 9 pounds, to Newt at 14 pounds. I bet there’s not really any such thing as an average cat weight, because it all depends on what breeds are in their background (I know that Maine Coons, for one, get really big!). The majority of our cats weigh in the 11 – 12 pound range.

On that subject, the first time I weighed Stefan in July, he weighed just over 10 pounds. When I weighed him a couple of weeks ago, he was at 12 1/2 pounds. And I get the feeling that he’s not done growing!

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Did anyone else see this? 🙂

YouTube link.

That’s great! I’ve only watched it three times so far, I need to go watch it again. 🙂

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You have a camera already set up in the foster room and you have not been sharing it with us? Why do you hate us, Robyn????? Stop holding out on us! I’m addicted to kitten cams (FosterKittenCam and The Cupcake Kittens) and Crooked Acres could be one of the places I look in on, if only you’d relent and share your camera with us!

and

I have my first foster kittens in my new foster room as of Sunday… would love to know more about the camera you use as I am thinking of getting one.

The camera I have in the kitten room is the Dropcam Pro. It’s pricey (and it had better work for a long, LONG time!), but it’s so easy to set up (even for me – I didn’t need ANY help from Fred to set it up, and that is AMAZING) that I highly recommend it.

The reason the camera isn’t “public” at this point is because I have no desire to be seen on camera (and Fred desires being seen on camera even less), and I’m not confident that I’d remember to turn the camera off before going into the room. When the time comes that I have either a pregnant mama or tiny kittens, and I can point the camera in one spot (a crate or birthing bed) and be pretty certain that I won’t accidentally be seen on camera, then I’ll make it public. I PROMISE. Just give me some time to figure it out.

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I especially like this video because I finally have a good idea now about the size of the foster room! It’s cozy, but the perfect size for playful little monkey kittens.

It’s definitely a small room (I’d say it’s the smallest room in the house, but I actually think that Fred’s office is a bit smaller). Having the big closet attached to that room makes it ideal for fostering, because I can eventually put the litter boxes in the closet and kind of contain the scattered litter.

That room was initially supposed to be Fred’s bedroom. I think he spent all of one night in there, after we moved into this house, before he realized that there’s a LOT of traffic that goes by early in the morning. So we moved him into the room where his office is now (at the opposite end of the hallway), and turned that room into the guest bedroom. Which didn’t last long, of course, since we needed a foster room! It’s been the main foster room ever since – we get a ton of mid-day sun in that room, and it’s worked out perfectly.

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So I was watching the Kitten Bowl last night (about time the kittehs got their own game!!), and one of the hosts commented about black cats being the hardest to get adopted in shelters, and then she said tabbies were the next hardest, because they were considered common… Anybody else ever heard that? I haven’t noticed any of the tabby fosters from L&H taking longer than some of the black kitties (though I know Tony just took a month to find his folks).

If brown tabbies take longer to be adopted, I sure haven’t noticed. Which isn’t to say that they don’t, just that it’s not obvious to me!

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Oh. my. word. I was re-looking at the cat selfies and decided to look at the links on the bottom of the page. ROFL – texts from my cat.

Hmph, I am skeptical. Cats can’t text, they don’t have thumbs! 😀

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This is the amazing emotional excited cracking of my first egg from my hens and I got it on video… and the cat photo-bombed it.

YouTube link.

Photo-bombed it twice, too cute! “Mom, come on! Share the egg! I like egg!”

Alice used to come screaming into the kitchen for an egg yolk every morning, which we’d give her in a bowl exactly like the one you’re using in the video. She outgrew her love of egg yolks though, alas.

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By the way, I assume everyone has already seen this. If not, enjoy the smiles and if so, enjoy the smiles!

YouTube link.

Why why whyyyyy does that commercial make me teary-eyed EVERY single time I watch it? And why why whyyyyyy do I keep watching it? I’ve seen it like 15 times, but I can’t stop watching it!

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Oooo, a Crooked Acres video!!!!! No?

Maybe I’ll get around to it one of these days, but ’til then here’s a video I made in 2008ish, wherein I walked around and harassed all the cats, asking them “What it doin’?” It’s terribly edited and my voice is horrifyingly perky and annoying, but it makes me laugh when I watch it.

YouTube link.

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Loving Dennis’ markings. So interesting. What kind of tabby is that?

That is what we in the fostering business like to call “A brown tabby.” (Hee, I’m just teasing!) I think – and y’all can correct me if I’m wrong – that he’s considered a mackerel tabby. A classic tabby has what Fred and I refer to as “cinnamon roll swirls” and a ticked tabby has a ticked coat (it’s possible that Sheriff Mama is a ticked tabby), so I’m going to say that Dennis is a mackerel tabby.

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I love seeing pics of the Players, all pale, lean, lanky & big eared and then BAM! there’s a shot of dark, compact, thick looking Dennis. He’s in such contrast to them that I can’t help but find him totally squishable. That chubby face needs sooooo much lovin’.

“Compact” is the perfect word to describe him! He’s even smaller than he looks, because he’s got a fluffy, lush coat. He’s not even 4 pounds yet, which makes him the smallest Player by several ounces (Mariette is the next largest, at 4 pounds, 1 ounce).

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Is it just me, or do the current batch of kittens look very like Livia?

Oh definitely, especially the girls!

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Orlando almost looks like a bengal or oriental due to the head shape and lanky body – any ideas on that one?

He certainly does look like he’s maybe got some Oriental in him, but all I know is that their mother (who was trapped, spayed, and returned to the feral colony where she was living) looked like one of the girls, and I have no idea what their father looked like. Maybe there’s an Oriental (or Bengal) tomcat out there responsible for those ears!

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There’s another petfood recall *sigh*. Check out http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm384876.htm

*SIGH* is right!! (Thanks for the link, Shakatany!)

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Thought I’d tap in to the collective cat wisdom on here–I need help with a mystery kitten issue!

A little background: We adopted a kitten in October. When he was found on the side of the road, he was skin and bones (he was the size of a 12-week old at 5.5 months), half of his hair was missing because of ringworm, he had an upper respiratory tract infection and a bad case of fleas and earmites. He’s had ringworm three times now (each case, at least so far, not as bad as the previous one) and tapeworms once.

The problem is the mystery ear crud. My vet is awesome and able to diagnose the oddest things, but not this time. He has brown stuff in his ears and coming out of his nose. His ears are also itchy and he coughs occasionally. We have been dealing with this since before Christmas. He did initially have a staph infection in his ears–first we cleaned his ears and applied antibiotics twice a day, now we are cleaning his ears a few times a week. I clean his nose once or twice a day. The initial infection cleared up, but the brown stuff did not. It did lessen, but did not go away. The brown stuff is not yeast or bacteria. It has been cultured and is negative for any growth. It is not wet, but kind of sticky. He does not appear to have congestion, though he snores occasionally, and he does not sneeze. He does have a polyp in one of the ears, but that does not explain the crud in both ears. Anybody have any similar issues? Any ideas?

Connie said:

My Eli had Calci as a kitten.. blisters in the mouth and everything, eyes were in horrid shape. As a result his tear ducts blocked. because of this the tears backed up and would over flow on to his face…. but also into his nose and ears..

as you may or may not know, cat tears dry to a darn brown/black.. so the discharge in his ears was black as was the crud that built up around his nose.

you say he has a polyp in one of the ears, this may cause an over production of tears or other bodily fluids of some sort and thus cause the issue..

is it the reason? I have no idea.. I just know that we had to do quite a bit of laser therapy on Eli’s face to help him and his ears finally stopped filling up with debris even though he still has tear overflow onto his face.

Thanks for chiming in, Connie!

I have nothing to add here, but if anyone else does, please join in in the comments!

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Bath time for Mariette.

She REALLY gets into her baths.

The ears are killing me.

I think that Ferdinand would really like to be buddies with Dennis. I’m not sure Dennis is into that – Ferdinand can be a little rough. I think Angelo’s gentler ways are more Dennis’s style.

“I just like to snuggle rather than roll around like brutes. Is that so wrong?”

Sweet smilin’ boy.

Orlando, chillin’ on the doll bed.

That window looks over the front lawn. The other day I was walking back toward the house after checking the mailbox, and I could see Ferdinand staring down at me, his little mind clearly BLOWN by the idea that when I’m not in the kitten room, I continue somehow to exist.

“Okay, bring down the feather teaser. I’m ready to grab it!”

He got the feather teaser, and then tried to figure out how to bring it onto the top of the scratcher with him.

“Give! Me! That!”

Nap time in the sun.

“I WISH YOU WOULDN’T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT.”

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Corbie in the Room with a View.

Sweet boy.

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Previously
2013: Obviously the cats can’t stay in their cages while the painting is going on, so Mercury, Kennebec, and Baby Beans are back here until Friday morning.
2012: Everett takes a break from jumping to show the correct waltzing form.
2011: Alice and Rhyme were both adopted on Saturday!
2010: Ouiser ultimately got the upper hand, and Drum ran for his life!
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: She became entirely liquid somehow, and flowed through my fingers and across the room, ending up under the bed.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.

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