Home Team
Four.
In-Hand.
I crack myself up.
Yes, we have kittens. We brought home the 8-week-old litter of a local barn cat after Milton’s show a week ago [Show Report]. The carrier rode in the extended cab of the truck. So, technically, they followed us home.
Cuteness overload.
All four are healthy & lively, even fierce, but so tiny. Mom was a teenage pregnancy, on the list to get fixed as soon as she was old enough but opted make questionable life choices before her meeting with the vet.
Maybe that’s why the kittens are so small. Despite being 8 weeks old, their heads were the size of golf balls. Their little rib cages were not much larger. I felt I had to be careful touching them with my big human paws. After a week, they have gotten bigger, mostly longer. Now they feel like kittens rather than like breakable kitten-shaped ornaments.
The troop has no names yet. I’m not sure how much work I will put into the project. In addition to being on the record as terrible at coming up with names [Help Me Name My Horse], our cat names never stick. I give them fancy show names, e.g. Rhyme and Reason, that end up with descriptive barn names, e.g. Smudge and Pudge.
Right now the kittens are know by their outstanding characteristic, the size of their tails, or lack thereof: Stubby, Stubby, Three-Quarter Tail, & Long Tail. They came that way. I will try to get pictures of the various tail styles. One thing I can tell you, when you don’t have a tail of your own, you play with your brother sister sibling’s tail
The reason for the cross-outs is that in addition to no names, the little dears have no sexes. Well, they have them, I just don’t know what they are. Google says male parts are round and the female parts are slitty. Undertail inspection reveals private parts that are round in a slitty sort of way, or perhaps slitty in round sort of way.
For the moment, we are living the non-gendered lifestyle. It’s harder than I would have thought. Good girl boy kitten. One of the Stubbies is developing more obvious boy bits. The others are girls or still undeclared. If we end up with three female cats, I hope they don’t take after their mom in precocious fertility. No one wants an endless loop of kitten production.
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
Call em Fee, Fi, Fo and Fum.
Awww….
Cuteness overload, and Mamma is gorgeous. Growing up on a farm, I was told the boys have a period and the girls have a “j” or a period and a slit. Not sure that helps much! Keep the pics and video coming … nothing sillier than kittens. Well, maybe baby goats? 😉
Gosh what on earth happened their little tails? Does that mean there’s some manx or (gulp) bobcat in there somewhere??
But utterly adorable, yes.
I believe a true Manx has less tail? This is more as if they got impatient at the tail station and left before the work was done. Adorable to watch them swish their stubs before the pounce. OTOH, it takes away from your fearsome Halloween cat profile when you have no tail to bottlebrush.
A true Manx has almost no tail. Will be interesting to see what develops.
uuummm….Wow. 4! Welcome to your new additions. I hope they provide endless entertainment and love. They are lucky to have landed with you.
🙂