We live by the weigh in. Weighing the babies everyday (and sometimes more than once a day) is CRITICAL! It is the most objective way to know if all is well or if there is some issue brewing. I try to weigh at the same time each day and since this litter is so large, with more babies to come, I am doing this in the evening. For any kitten I need to watch I will weigh in the morning as well. I use a digital kitchen scale dedicated to the kittens. It weighs in ounces or grams...I use ounces. Right now I am using a box top with a padded cushion to contain the kitten, later when they are larger I will use a small bowl
or basket. The scale allows me to zero out the weight of the container (so no math needed.)I record the weights on a computer in an Excel spreadsheet. The advatage of this is that I can store previous litters for comparison and I can make a line graph to show me the trends. In the second picture you can see the computer used for this purpose in the foreground.
Miss Maryland is my weigh in helper...poor thing she has nothing better to do while waiting for her babies. She is very curious about the kittens and watches her sister and the babies all the time. She does not interact with them in anyway...she does not go into the nest box and keeps a respectful distance. Note her tail...the tip is black and then she has a white section with a faint golden brown stripe in it. Very unique.
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