Our New Kittens have Arrived!

Yesterday we had a great day out, spending the afternoon visiting Lytes Carey, a National Trust house in Somerset, after having lunch out. You can see pictures of this in my previous post here.

In the early evening we went to collect the kittens. We had been counting down the days till the great event, and then the hours and minutes! As we expected, they had grown quite a bit since we last saw them, and they were ready to go to their new home. We didn’t stay long because they hadn’t been fed for a while, in case they were sick in the car, and we had a long drive to do (it took us just over an hour and a half, better than the two hours I’d expected). Little Lily cried quite a bit in the car but Ruby was very quiet, and eventually they both settled down and even went to sleep for a while.

We brought them in, and opened the cat carrier in the flat sitting room. We have decided this is to be their nursery and playroom for the time being, until they are settled. Their food mat is in this room, and I have set up their litter tray in the kitchen, where we’ve also got their food stored for now. Eventually this will move into our utility room.

They were quite tentative and nervous when they left the carrier, and we allowed them to explore their new surroundings at their own pace and in their own way. It wasn’t long, though, before they got more confident, and started playing – we’d set up a few things for them to play with. I took quite a few video clips of them which I spent the rest of the evening compiling and this video is now on Youtube.

My hubby went in to see them before bed, and told me he couldn’t find them anywhere! He thought they must have got behind the fridge, but I found them inside the empty TV cabinet – my parents used to have video and DVD players in there, and there’s a smoked glass door that folds down in front. At the back of the cabinet is a hole for the cables, and they’d crept in through this! I got them out, telling them we’d got a nice comfy warm bed for them and the cabinet was a bit hard and uncomfortable, but they obviously wanted somewhere dark and enclosed, because my hubby said they were back there again when he went in in the morning!

Since then they have been sleeping on the mat by the door to the garden.

They play very vigorously, and then, like all kittens, they start to droop, and drop off to sleep very quickly!

Today they have been playing very busily and enjoying all the toys we’ve got out for them. My hubby came back with a tunnel and a wand toy that were given to him by a lady he met in the street! Here’s the video from today.

We’ve been a bit worried about Lily today, because she’s been doing a lot of digging in the litter tray but not producing anything, and crying quite a bit while trying. I suspected that she might be suffering from stress-induced cystitis, which is a common problem with cats. They had a pretty traumatic day yesterday, being taken away from their mother and siblings, and all their familiar people and surroundings where they’ve been since birth, and trundled along on a long car journey, and then finding themselves in a totally alien environment with people they don’t know. We had planned on taking them to the vet next week, to register them there and get their first inoculations, but we decided to take them this afternoon instead. The vet confirmed my suspicion and said that this is not usually infectious, and the treatment is normally a dose of an NSAID, but in view of Lily’s very young age, she was reluctant to do this because it could cause more problems than it solved. She advised keeping their stress to a minimum, and keeping a close eye on her, and if she hasn’t passed any urine in the next 24 hours, to bring her back, but she had every confidence that the problem would resolve itself. On examination she found her abdomen to be a little bit tender, but she didn’t have a fever and in every other way she was perfectly fine.  She’s playing hard with her sister and is eating and drinking well. So we have decided not to allow any visitors for a few days, to let them settle in fully, and get used to their new surroundings. It’s very early days yet, anyway.

Everyone in the vet’s thought they were utterly adorable! We had a new vet who has just joined the practice, having just qualified, and she said she felt very honoured to be the first to meet our two gorgeous new babies! She said how pretty they were and how cute!

Because Lily isn’t quite 100%, the vet said she wouldn’t do their inoculations today, but all being well, she should be fine by early next week, and we can take them in then, as originally planned.

The lady we got them from said that they hadn’t purred yet and that the boys were usually faster at this than the girls. So it was a lovely surprise this afternoon when I was lying on the floor to be at their level (which my hubby said was a lot less intimidating for them that us great humans towering over them!) and they both came up close, and I was stroking them gently and talking softly to them, and Ruby began to purr! The sweetest little sound! She touched her nose to mine as well. Lily hasn’t purred yet.

Today it seems that Ruby is more forward than Lily, but it may be because Lily is feeling a little under the weather. This doesn’t seem to have stopped her enjoying herself with her new toys, though!

They seem more relaxed today, but they still jump at unexpected noises, even fairly quiet ones, and they run away from us if we try to catch them, so on my hubby’s advice we are trying not to do this too much, but letting them come to us, or getting down to their level.

I have spent the afternoon in the room with them, working on my photos, blog and videos, so that I can enjoy watching them, and for them to get more used to me. They have spent quite a lot of that time asleep – they do get very tired very quickly with all that vigorous playing, and anyway cats of all ages do sleep such a lot! It’s also given me a chance for a bit of a rest after our very busy day yesterday.