Rusk with mice
At July 23rd, Muffin gave birth to 4 kittens. We were privileged to witness the occasion from start to finish – which was a first. In the past Pruffy always surprised us with her nests, it either happened overnight, or we discovered the newborns in the shed, a few hours after they were born and already cleaned up.
As I happen to know from experience – lol – giving birth is quite a task, and to see Muffin suffer was heartbreaking. But she did a great job and we’re very proud of her.
It started at 7.30 PM and the last one came out at 8.30 PM. Here’s a pic of the kittens just a few minutes after the last one was born.
The other pics can be found in my online photoalbum
The kittens were born in a box in our livingroom and Muffin seemed happy to be there, but suddenly after a week she got really nervous, panicked and started picking up the little ones. She even brought one upstairs and put her away in one of the closets, as far away to the back as possible.
I picked up the little one and brought it downstairs again, but Muffin was determined and started moving him again.
I quickly did a search on the internet and found out that mother-cats do this, because they feel the kittens aren’t safe and they try to find a more secluded spot.
So I picked up the box, put it in the shed where Muffin followed me, and quickly closed the door.
When I went back to check on her, she was peacefully lying down and feeding the kittens *phew*
We didn’t allow visitors for a week and that did the trick. She’s happy with her place in the shed and stays with the kittens all the time, taking a break once or twice a day to walk around the block.
A Dutch custom is to hand out ‘Beschuit met Muisjes’ or ‘Rusk with little mice’ to celebrate the birth of a new baby.
The ‘mice’ are anise seeds covered in a pink (for a girl) or blue (for a boy) sugar coating.
As we didn’t know the gender of the kittens, we just mixed two boxes together. They taste the same, but it definitely looks more festive this way!
The seeds have a little ‘tail’ and once covered look like little mice, hence the name 🙂
Three of them have new owners already.
The grey tabby and the light red go to a new home together. The new owners named them Samba and Iboe (we think they are males, if they turn out to be females they have other names at hand :D).
The black one is here to stay – lol. I always said: nope they’re all going, but the kids were begging and begging, so I gave in (it’s so easy to win me over when it comes to kittens :D). No definite name for him yet, but Boots is high on the list.
We found new owners for the other red one too, but they came back on their decision, so… if anyone wants a cute red kitten – probably male – let me know!
They’re growing like crazy and I can’t wait for them to start walking properly!
Wow they’re so adorable 😀 They look so fluffy 🙂 I would love for our cat to have kittens, but as she’s a rescue cat she’s spayed 🙁 Maybe it’s better anyway, she’s not good with other cats at all :’D