Starting at three months (a week earlier, actually) is pretty normal in my experience, though you wouldn't know it from Google, where you find people swearing that kittens are weaned by 8 or 10 weeks. Some even will say that the mom initiates this process at a month! Well, kittens will start on solids at around that point (although it's perfectly normal for them to not start solids until six weeks), but that isn't weaning in the sense of something the MOM has to do, not letting them nurse as much.

Most cats that I've seen wean, they do it by simply moving every time their kittens attempt to latch on. They get up or they roll over. This takes about as long as you expect, as kittens can be very persistent! This one is taking a more forceful approach - often, now, when a kitten approaches her and nuzzles, she growls at them. Moving is ambiguous, but they all get the message in a well-timed growl. Of course, this has the side effect of making them unsure of their mother, which means they're spending a lot more time snuggling with me. I might shove them off my lap from time to time, but I don't growl at them, not even in words!

The boys are being taken in to be fixed this weekend. Then it's just the girls and mom who need to be done.

Tags: kittens

All five, snuggled happily up with mom. That's what preschool-aged kittens (roughly, that's what a month is equivalent to in cat terms, although of course their development is wildly different from ours!) should be doing! Yawning, play fighting, exploring, learning to like people. (One of the toms has started purring when I pet him. He was astonished, but has now adapted. I'm not complaining! When they see him purring on my lap, even the more cautious kitties (that'd be the bigger calico (Callie) and the other orange-and-white cat, can't tell them apart unless I pick them up, and then the purring one lets me and the other one frantically tries to get loose) come over to see what all the fuss is about!

Yesterday I opened up a can of kitten food for them. They gorged themselves silly and threw up. I'd totally overestimated how much cat food was needed for five kittens. Won't make that mistake again! Still, it won't do them any lasting harm so long as I don't do it again. I must be FIRM with Ana, and also hide the cat food. She likes to feed the cat, but it's so easy to overfeed kittens, and then if there's any food left it just goes bad and it costs so much.

I do intend to get pictures up, I swear! I just need to get the kittens onto a nice background that won't embarrass me in front of the entire internet.

Tags: kittens
I'm feeling: cheerful