Nine weeks IS a fast pregnancy - 63-65 days being the average from mating to delivery.....these little beings are formed, a skeleton, all organs, teeth, and all 4 limbs, each paw ending with these amazing claws which are astoundingly long at the time of their birth (Freddie Krueger eat your heart out). It fascinates and fills me with awe.
Each mother cat who may have just one kitten, or several (8, 10 even!) has carried on living their life completely normally (apart from eating more) while inside her body this all takes place.
It’s a short time, but as I watch each day, it’s easy to forget - what did my cat look like before her tummy got to this size?
The truth of this is that she is normally slim a trim 3.2 - 3.5kg. Now she weighs over a kilo more. Not much you might think, but it’s a ¼ of her body weight!
She has a lot of milk ready - you can see a ridge where her breasts are taught. Her second row of nipples are even being drawn inward I have noticed today.
There’s been a LOT of grooming going on today... Noodle has been grooming Pru... I wonder if there are hormonal scent markers that cause this? But Pru has been grooming Noodle loads, her ears are the focus of much of this (why?). I keep trying to catch a snap as it looks like Pru is urgently whispering! Then the face and neck. There are little snaps when one will say “that’s enough, get off me” and I step in verbally to diffuse the tiff brewing.
Despite her size she can still run and jump up and down - not to the extent she normally would - they get into crazy chasing games at least once a day. Beware getting in their way! After Prune’s recent injury and the wearing of her splint and being kept inactive for the first almost 7 weeks of her first ever pregnancy I’m doing all I can to ensure that ‘dangerous’ activities are kept to a minimum.
Is this day 64? Without having had a firm sighting of the first mating it’s hard to know. If she and Oz did mate on April 27th (the day she met him) then it is, but if she kept him at paw’s length for a night at least, it might only be day 63. Watch this space... there must be news soon!
