Yep, it is funny here too..... and we are the ones with the flashlight and glasses..... Maybe we gots' us one o' dem dare 'hemophiliac' or 'hertfordshire' cats- you know, them ones dat gots both the boy and the girl parts? Normally I would feel pretty foolish about this but this kitten threw the vet. for a loop too; he said he could not tell but 'thinks' it is a female. And that is a gentleman who has sexed a LOT of cats and kittens (Easy Boys! I mean in the good, wholesome way, not the #metoo way). Brian Note: all of this is in good humor with no knocks or disrespect meant or intended: standard 2018 disclosure.
Welcome to the club- we are ALL confused and yep, it IS that difficult to tell. When they were really young, the way to tell is the overall distance from..... ah, 'between the ports'; long distance = male, short distance = female. Well, Slash was kinda' long..... but not so long that it was surely a male. When they went to the vet., he inspected more closely and actually looked at the lower 'port' shape: round would mean a male and a slit would mean a female. But Slash has a round 'port' that is a bit too low for a female, but no sign of springing testicles between the 'ports'. So there you have it: ambiguous. As of today, at 8 weeks and one day, the distance between 'ports' seems to be about like the other, female, kittens, with no signs of testicles developing or even really room for them. But still that round 'port' rather than a slit. So there you have it: very simple rules that Slash just does not fit into. Again, best guess is it is a female but I am not 100% sure. Andrea is more certain but only because she wants Slash to be a female I believe. In the end (no pun intended), Slash is more than nice enough that I would break my own 'no males' rule and keep "it" regardless at this point. Slash is much bigger than the other kittens, shows a certain forthright attitude, without being aggressive or nasty, and in its' own way, has both a beautiful coat as well as wonderful coloring. So at the moment, Runt and Slash are at the top of the list to live here, and the sex of Slash will take second place to the actual kitten / cat. If you think you can tell the sex of Slash, I can try to get photos and send them along (in a plain brown wrapper, of course ). Brian
It could be a hermaphrodite but they not common. Try this, cradle him like one would a baby, tummy up. Press down around on the outside of "that" port and look for something like a big grain of rice down there. If there is one it's a male whose testes have not dropped-still in the abdomen. If not, it's female. But if you are ok with an "it" thats ok as long as you get it fixed whatever reproductive may or may not be involved.
If we keep doing this, we (the humans), 'it' (the kitten) or both are going to get some kind of complex. The other thing that is making the whole thing (no pun intended) a little more confusing to us is that this is, by far, the largest of the kittens and has always been a little more boisterous / outgoing then the other three so while that really does not mean anything, it does make us tend to think it is a male. Again, we believe it is a female. And of course, as you said, it will be neutered / spayed (or both?) as applies either by us if we keep it or by the new owners so not really a problem. Quick update from this morning: Andrea brought Phoebe in with her to feed / nurse the kittens and 'tidy up' the laundry room and Phoebe was excellent with them. She showed no aggression and was clearly playing with them, and they were playing with her. No fur up, no spitting from anyone so we are making progress. Once we get this 'herd' down to a reasonable number, such as one, I think they will get along fine. Phoebe is barely full- grown herself so I think the kitten in her can still be stirred up before she drops into middle age, and hopefully she will actually like playing with a kitten. Brian
12 July 2018: day after tomorrow, the kids will be 9 weeks old and are changing quite a bit. Finally getting some color in their eyes, not the final or even a complete color but a little bit. Sort of like a very dark green olive; that must be the first pigment they make (?). Behavior is changing quite a bit too, they are far more independent and no longer sleep in a heap, usually two together and the other two in different places. Also getting fully 'cat like' in their playing, which is actually pretty vicious IMO. Still cute and amusing but now one can see that these really are 'hunter / killer' animals rather than, say, rabbits. All are showing their unique personalities now also, at least the start of them. Some are more rambunctious, some are more retiring but all are extremely well socialized with humans (at least the closest thing we have to humans around here..... ) and all are excellent kittens that I think will make excellent pets. Phoebe can now get along with them <almost> all the time and now rarely gets 'ejected' (locked out of the room(s) the kittens are in) for being too rough. She will also now actively play with all of them and they kittens are not the least bit concerned with Phoebe; this is going to be great I think for any of these kittens that may go to homes that already have a cat(s). Not sure about dogs, they have never seen one so that is a big unknown. Glasses yawning: Glasses getting up from a nap: (Note, lousy photo, she is much darker than seen here) The other three napping. From the left, Spot, Slash and Runt (who is now bigger than Spot BTW): These little guize are so good and cute I am thinking of charging more for them! Originally, I was going to give them away. Now I am thinking about charging an additional 50%..... Brian Edited to fix the kittens' age.
All of them are sooooo cute! I'm glad that Phoebe gets along with them so well already. I'm sure it helped that even prior to you allowing her face time with them, you were handling them so she was already getting a sense of them (see what I did there? sense / scents - I crack myself up ) I don't know, charging 50% more than your original asking price of $0 may price you out of the market and you may have to keep them all
That how it starts. If you dont get them adopted soon they will loose that cute kitten look and you will be. Welcomed to the world of the 5 cat family.
Phoebe does <mostly> OK but sometimes gets aggressive; she was ejected from the bedroom tonight for tangling with a kitten. But still, more and more of the time is OK. As far as the pricing goes, I am thinking about having a 50% off sale for anyone who..... takes two kittens. That should make it all the more attractive to prospective owners, plus two kittens are at least 10 times more fun than one kitten. Plus they will keep each other company. Brian
Yeah, well I am sticking with the original plan of keeping zero or one kitten and I will make a bigger effort to move the rest of 'the stock'. Though we did have a setback tonight; after feeding them from a bottle, Slash laid down in Andreas arms, sang for the longest time and went to sleep. So of course Andrea is getting attached to Slash, which is fine but where am I going to get the 'sugar'? I cannot hold any of these kittens for more than a minute, including Slash. So if Andrea gets her 'lap cat', and I get to share [no sugar for daddy] from either Slash or Phoebe (Phoebe is affectionate enough but on her terms which means little holding (less than one minute) and no lap time (at all) ). So I am going to need my 'own' kitten that maybe, perhaps, one day I can hold and have sing a little..... And that will make [he counts slowly on his fingers] three cats, which is three cats more than we wanted and one cat more cat than we even allowed for. Brian
We seem to have animal 'sexing' issues in this house: many years ago, my son wanted and got a pair of guinea pigs. Both males. After a while, one of them swelled up pretty good and then 'popped': then there were way more then two guinea pigs in the cage :-( Sometime later, we caught a mouse in the kitchen (with my hands); clearly this was not a regular field mouse as it was white spotted, a 'fancy' mouse that was not afraid of people. We put it in a shoebox planning on getting a real cage the next day. Of course the mouse chewed through the box but I caught 'it' again the next night and DID get a proper cage. My son did not want to mouse to be lonely so we had the pet shop guy 'sex' that mouse (Mr. Jingles from The Green Mile but I called him Mr. Sprinkles just to annoy my son); he found it to be a male and my son picked out a black with white spots male. The clerk dropped them both in the same care and waited a bit because he said sometimes two males would fight. But not these two. The second one was named 'Spike' and it too started to get fatter and fatter. Finally 'Spike' the male mouse 'popped' and 10 baby mice appeared. Sheesh. Took all the 'kids' to the pet store and dropped them off (your problem, not ours) and kept the two adults in separate cages. As one can imagine, I was quite wary when my son proposed to and married a 'female' human but seeing as she just delivered my grandchild, I am assuming that 'sexing' was more accurate (Easy Boys, this is my D-I-L). The cool part of all of this is that Spike was a really cool mouse; put my hand down in the bottom of her cage and she would hop into it for the 'ride' up and out. Never tried to get away and would either ride on my back or in my shirt pocket. She lived three years, which is a long time for a mouse. Really cool little pet and fascinating to see how agile and able she was; now I know why one cannot keep mice out of virtually any building. Spike could run up the side of her glass water bottle and sit on top! Brian
I kept a litter of kittens. We have 6 adult indoor cats. If you would like some insight of what the presents to you for work, Pm me. I'll share what did and did not work out for us.
I made a trip down to RI this morning. Fortunately I got out and about before everyone else headed that way so traffic was moving right along. Got to BDF's place, spent quite a while with him and his lovely wife - and of course the kittens. I new Slash was not to be mine, so I concentrated on wooing the other three to see who the best one would be to take home. Glasses, although polite enough, definitely gave me the impression that I was not her type. Ah well, not every human loves me either. Both Runt and Spot were very relaxed around me and didn't even take a second look when I started petting them. This is amazing since BDF said they had only seen 1 other human (besides him and his wife), and that was just 2 days ago. Anyway, They both were happy to be pet and bottle fed by me (so was Slash, but Glasses didn't even make an appearance for that). So, decisions, decisions. One kitten would be more likely to bond with Rita. Ah, but two kittens could soothe each other thru this upheaval from everything they have ever known. Yeah, both Runt and Spot came home with me. Spot was vocal a couple times during the ride and I would talk to him then sing when a good song came on. Runt was very calm the entire time. However, they did sleep or at least stay quiet for 98% of the ride. Welcome to NH! Yes, they had their seatbelt on Rita, interested in the cat carrier (while kittens were still in it) Rita turning away from a quick look and growl. She just ghosted away into the den. Before letting the kittens out I brought out some snacks for the birds, then Rita (she was rewarded for walking away) Spot, who seems the most adventurous, was the first to leave the carrier into the pen. I let them choose to come out on their own. Both kittens in the pen
Although Spot is the most adventurous, Runt is the most calm, so as they have been relaxing, Runt is in the foreground of the bedding box and Spot is in back. Spot will most likely keep her name as it seems to suite her. Runt may get a name change, but only if something more appropriate presents itself in her personality. Thank you BDF and your lovely wife (have the water works turned off yet?). It is evident you both put a lot of love into caring for the kittens!
