Margo is a mummy :-)

Margo was due to kitten on Sunday, but it is quite usual for a cat to go a couple of days over her due date. Whilst we always keep a careful eye on our expectant mums, life still has to go in and the other animals have to have their needs met. yesterday morning Margo didn't eat her breakfast, which is always a good indication of impending labour, but appeared quite relaxed and happy, so I took the dogs for a walk. When I got home, just over 2 hours later I found Margo sat on the sofa with a stillborn kitten hanging out of her, the kitten was not stuck but she simply wasn't pushing. I then sat with her to reassure her and to monitor her progress, there was no progress so after 2 hours we set off to the vets.

My vets are fabulous (I may be a touch biased as I work for them ;-) ) and were set up for our arrival, we didn't hang about and a caesarian section was carried out at 1pm, producing 3 surprisingly active kittens.

On our return Margo, still very wobbly from the anaesthetic, wolfed down a full bowl of food (well she is a Devon rex, labrador of the cat world, who had missed her breakfast) but when she saw her kittens she had a panic attack. I had to remove the kittens for an hour or so whilst Margo recovered from the effects of the anaesthetic, then I put Margo on my lap and started to introduce the kittens to her. It took a while but eventually she started to take a positive interest in them and I was able to introduce them to the nursery quarters. At this point they still had not suckled and it was now 6pm.

I really do try not to interfere with puppies and kittens when they are new born, I feel that Mother Nature has the best methods, but these kittens were now starting to flag, so each was given a drop of honey and 1/2 ml of formula milk. This proved to be just enough to reboot their systems and they started to hunt for a better milk source, by 10pm all 3 kittens were latched on and mum was purring her head off :-)

At 1st glance, and most of you know not to rely to heavily on this, we have a lilac and white girl, a white and black girl, quite unusually marked, girl, though I suspect she may well have cream patches too which will make her a torti and last but by no mean least, a black and white boy. All have been born with good coats.

I elected to have Margo spayed at the same time as her surgery as I don't feel that this was a good start for a breeding queen, I am very disappointed as she is the only Sybil baby that I have kept, and Sybil hasn't had any kittens since Margo was born.