Just out of interest... what do you think?

[Squirrel]

As I mentioned in the Thursday thread, I played taxi driver to Clouds brother and his mum, as they went on their second visit to the vets.

One thing which I was later told about the trip was that the vet had said she thought he'd be a small cat... this intrigues me, as on our first visit I was told that Cloud, who weighd about 1kg at the time (we went about 4 days later - I still didn't have her by the time we took Vivaldi to the vets the first time), was likely to be a large cat...

Now, admittedly she was heavier than Viv was when we went in, but I'd have expected that cause of the difference in age, even if it was only 4 days! Any thoughts? I've been told that they could have different dad's even though they are part of the same littler... Which I guess could make a difference!

The other half question is one that I'll run by the vet when I take missy in on Tuesday... I'm off for the weekend next week. One of hte possible options for missy is to go spend the time with my friend and Vivaldi. Except that the last thing we want is for her to end up having kittens, when she is still a baby herself. On top of that, the vet said that brother/sister kittens were a definite No-No and the litter would have to be got rid of cause of viability.

Now they're only going to be about 14 weeks old by the end of the weekend, or 3.5 months. How much of a risk will we be taking if we were to go down that road? Anyone any thoughts on the matter?

Sorry, and thanks!

[dandysmom]

At 3.5 months, very very low risk, I'd say. Generally 6 months is considered the usual age of sexual maturity; some cats do come in heat earlier (my Misty was 5 months when she had her first heat .... the weekend before she was due in for the op!)

[Kobster]

I too would say its quite unlikely that she and vivaldi would mate at this age.

On the size question, it is possible that she had a different father than her brother, as usually queens mate several times with different males. As for her growth, we have a rule of thumb here that's 1 pound per month in age.

So a 3 month old kitten of average size should weigh 3 lbs (or 1.36 kg) In my experience, kittens that are ahead of this standard, tend to grow into big cats, kittens who are below it tend to grow to be small cats (unless there is malnutrition involved, but it appears from your pics that Cloud was well looked after) So the question is, how old was she when she weighed 1 kg (2.2 lbs)?

[Squirrel]

Thanks for the thoughts both of you...

Um... First vets appt will be 3 weeks ago on Tuesday. She's 13 weeks old today, so she'd have been just over 10 weeks old at that time. Therefore she'd be roughly 2 and a half months old when she weighed 1kg

[Velvet]

If we were to take the age the rescue gave us as fact then Amber came into season around 17 - 19 weeks. However we do think she was/is older than that, not I might add we are any experts!