My how they've grown!

It's always good to receive news of kittens who have left home.  Today I was emailed some lovely pictures and stories from Claire and family, who live with Vita and Violet (born in 2009).  They left home as a small red and white girl and a fluffy pretty silver tortie girl.  Here they are as kittens, with some little cousins:

Left to right: Vieuxtemps Vita, Violet, Frederica and Vilanelle

And today, aged two-and-a-bit:

Claire writes:

"The two of them have both blossomed into two gorgeous Norwegian Forest Cats... Vita does look like her daddy quite a lot, and Violet definitely has the look of her mother. Vita like her name is a ball full of life and can be very chatty and demanding when wanting to play! Violet on the other hand is without a doubt the lazier cat who would rather watch her sister play than do it herself and from time to time likes to sneak up and pounce on Vita."

Violet, grown-up and at nearly 6kg having to watch her waistline!

"They are very sympathetic and almost have a sixth sense, as they always know when something is wrong. They are both brilliant personalities and we love them to bits! The cats are our best friends as they are always there for you and when you are down their little cute faces cheer you up."

Vita as an adult.  It is unusual, but not impossible, to get red females as well as males.

Thank you to Claire and family.  I too find Norwegian Forest Cats very 'sympathetic' - they are friendly and kind, and really do become an enormously important part of the family. 

  

Food for felines

What do the Vieuxtemps cats eat?

During the thirty-odd years I have shared my life with cats, ideas about the feline diet have changed enormously.   In the early days I chose to give cheap canned and highly-coloured dry food available at supermarkets, supplemented by treats of cooked meat*, purely out of ignorance and lack of alternatives.  My cats did OK on it, it has to be said, although our first cat developed diabetes and died at the age of nine, and others suffered from cancer.   But the latter probably wasn’t diet-related.

 (*NB it is dangerous to give cats, or dogs, cooked bones as they might shatter and harm the animal.  And did you know that delicatessen sliced meats, although they might seem to be a tasty treat for your pet, usually contain chemicals which aren’t good for them?)

Later a trusted vet suggested Hill’s Science Diet, which was quite new in the UK at the time I believe, so I used that a lot too and the cats did seem to thrive on it.  I remember asking the vet ‘but won’t they get bored eating the same thing day in, day out?’  He replied that most cats in a natural environment have an unvaried diet too.  They will often live in an area with a lot of mice, or a lot of birds, but not usually both.  So I felt OK about giving them only the Hill’s, as directed by the vet.  The dried food was supposed to help with teeth also, although it didn’t seem to work for my cats.

Skovmus in Denmark as a kitten, with litter mates in the background

Then in 1994 we imported our first cat from abroad, Skovmus Felis Jubatus.  In Denmark she had been fed day-old chicks so we continued offering her these as well as leaving down Hill’s for the rest of our cats.  

 

 Some also enjoyed chicks and some (our Abyssinians) weren’t quite sure what to do with them!  Day-old chicks are very nutritious and the cats eat the whole bird, including the feathers, beak and feet.  They can be quite messy so we always fed these outdoors.  You buy them frozen in trays of fifty for about five pounds.  It made me sad to think these little lives were snuffed out almost before they had begun, and were considered almost worthless.  The reason is that breeders of hens only want the egg-laying females, so the males are killed after being selected by skilled professional ‘chicken sexers’.  Having said that – isn’t an early death better than the life of torture that some battery hens have had to lead?

In 2000 we got our first and only dog, Butz.   We knew nothing about dogs, so did a lot of reading and learning from other dog-owners.  One life-changing book we were given was called ‘Give Your Dog A Bone’ by the Australian veterinarian, Dr Ian Billinghurst.  Its subtitle is ‘The Practical Commonsense Way to Feed Dogs For A Long Healthy Life’.

It is written with humour and good sense, and I recommend it to everyone, including cat owners.  You can visit the author’s website by clicking on the book cover above.

On the other hand, misleading articles like this one make me mad:

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm208365.htm

It is true that cooked bones can cause damage.  The secret for dogs is RAW meaty bones.

Cats have very different dietary requirements from dogs.  Dogs, like us, are omnivores, so they can thrive by eating a variety of things from vegetables to fish to cheese to beef.  Cats on the other hand are obligate carnivores, meaning they need to live almost entirely off meat.  This is one reason why commercial foods aren’t natural for cats to eat.  Just look at the ingredients!  Some of them contain a high percentage of meat, albeit dried and extruded meat, but many have soya or cereal products as their main ingredient.  Why would cats, the supreme hunters, thrive on such a thing?  I never heard of cats being very good farmers.  But cats’ digestions are quite fussy.  One ingredient they need, which their own bodies cannot produce, is the amino acid taurine.  Lack of taurine might not produce any immediate symptoms in your cat, but the cat will end up going blind after a few years if they lack this essential acid.  Commercial foods nowadays are careful to add taurine to their long list of ingredients.  If you feed your cat mainly raw meat, taurine can be bought as a supplement from a health shop and small amounts can be added.  Obviously in the wild, the cat will eat the whole of its prey including stomach contents which provides a balanced diet, but giving just muscle meat does require care.

What I feed my cats on nowadays is this:

Have a look at the company website by clicking on the image – it contains some useful information.

Prize Choice comes in many varieties, but I try to choose those that are reasonably species-appropriate – namely rabbit, chicken, fish and turkey (though to be honest I can’t imagine even a Norwegian Forest Cat killing a turkey, can you?) I feed it raw daily, giving all the cats as much as they can eat.  I also leave down a bowl of dried food (Iams Hairball at the moment, which seems to enable cats to produce perfect stools; cats need roughage, and if they aren't getting feathers to eat Iams Hairball does give them some alternative fibre) because I like them to be able to snack when I’m out at work, and leaving too much raw meat lying around isn’t good, especially in summer.  Of course, fresh water is available at all times (no milk!)

 

There is no doubt that dry food is handy for us humans to serve up to our cats.  But by giving them the opportunity to eat raw meat (supplemented by a little taurine) I hope I am helping their health, their teeth and their happiness.  Bob and I are vegetarian, but what with Butz’s chicken wings, we get through an awful lot of raw meat in our household. They seem to be doing alright on it.  Impromptu is seventeen in three months’ time and he loves his minced rabbit!

Premier Vieuxtemps Impromptu - a very elderly gentleman

I'm not formally trained in feline nutrition.  I also have no financial interest in any of the products mentioned above! These are just my honest experiences and personal views after several decades of trying to do the best for my own animals, but I hope if you have a cat or a dog you will consider feeding at least some raw meat.  If you don't believe me and are still using mainly or entirely a commercial dry diet - just read the ingredients on the packet and think again.

A cat for winter

(c) Shirley Fullarton

Today I received this beautiful artwork from my artist friend Shirley, a portrait of a cat she got from me many years ago.  Magnus has gone to Valhalla but he lives on in this painting where Shirley has captured his personality so well.  Magnus (Vieuxtemps Pumpernickel) was a gentle giant, so typical of NFC male neuters.

Norwegian Forest Cats obviously differ between individuals, just as we humans do, but my experience has been that they positively enjoy cold weather.  Their coats develop a duvet-like woolly undercoat that puffs out and keeps them toasty warm, while the oily overcoat keeps them dry.  I also find that NFCs tend to prefer to sit next to you rather than on your lap, which may be partly down to size (too big to comfortably fit on  a lap) but is also due to the fact they don't like to get too hot.  I feel their metabolism is different from other cats I have lived with.

Mum was buried today

Pitsea Cemetery, overlooking the marshes.  Cromwell Manor for refreshments - much recommended.  Delight at meeting friends of many decades, welcome hugs from family, great support from Bob.  And a devouring sadness.

under a gold and turquoise sky

under a mound of pastel flowers

in the freezing January earth

lies the woman who gave me birth

gone is her voice, her soft white hair

cold now is her broken form

once so vivid in stubborn life

gone forever, my father’s wife

Thank you to everyone who expressed sympathy, or came to the funeral (it was overflowing!)  You all made such a huge difference.

Back to cat posts from now on, I promise!

Mum

For once something that isn't cat-related, but a note to say that my Mum died today after a painful couple of weeks with a broken hip.  I'm very glad her suffering has ended, but miss her more than I can say.
Here she is blowing her birthday candles out two years ago:

And here's one of her smacking me when I was a little girl, many decades ago!

She was 96 years old this year.  I feel numb, and distraught, in turns.  Rest in peace, Mum.

Merry Christmas from the Vieuxtemps cats!

Vieuxtemps Katia, by Shirley Fullarton

Shirley kindly gave me permission to use this beautiful painting for my Christmas blog.  I'd like to wish all my readers a wonderful Christmas and an even better New Year.

Love to you all from Bob, Mary-Rose, Butz the Airedale and the Vieuxtemps Norwegian Forest Cats and kittens xx

Deafness in white cats

Vieuxtemps Avedine

Although we love all colours of Norwegian Forest Cats here at Vieuxtemps, pure white Norwegian Forest Cats (‘Snowcats’) will always have a special place in our hearts.  However we stopped breeding this colour some years ago as we did not want to produce deaf kittens.

In fact the most frequently asked question in relation to white cats is "are they deaf?" The answer is: some are and some aren't. Statistically, over the general population of cats, various studies have shown that most white cats both pedigree and non-pedigree are not in fact deaf, but many are. Slightly more blue-eyed white cats are deaf than others. Deafness can affect green-eyed, odd-eyed and orange-eyed white cats too.

When do you know if a white kitten is hard of hearing?
It usually becomes apparent to the breeder when the kitten reaches about four weeks of age; the main difference is that the deaf kitten tends to sleep more soundly, and does not run away from the vacuum cleaner. (I have had other cats who do not mind loud noises however -particularly Honeysuckle, who was a hoover-riding tortie!) By the time the kitten leaves home, s/he is often so well-adjusted that it is difficult to tell whether or not s/he can hear, except by scientific tests. There are so many other ways that alert a cat to its environment - vibrations on the paws, guard-hairs and whiskers can tell the deaf cat so much that their reactions are almost exactly the same as those of a fully hearing cat. In order to BAER test the hearing of our breeding stock, we used the laboratory at the Animal Health Trust at Newmarket, Suffolk.

I have on several occasions come across cases where members of the public have bought white NFC kittens having been mislead about their hearing status.  All I can say is, if a breeder sells a deaf kitten without explaining this to the new owner, either they are being dishonest, or if they are genuinely ignorant of the fact they must have not had sufficient interaction with the kitten whilst s/he was growing up.  In either case it is shameful and should be reported.

It is difficult to "breed out" deafness as deaf parents are no more likely to have deaf kittens than hearing parents, and vice versa. Here at Vieuxtemps we generally asked that owners keep their white kittens/cats indoors, regardless of whether they are deaf. This is because they are so stunningly beautiful and clearly pedigree, that there is a risk of kidnap! 

Grand Premier Vieuxtemps Maja Gradnos - photo by Alan Robinson
(Thanks to Heather Bird!)

Tabby NFCs allowed to roam free are much less noticeable to the general public. However one deaf white kitten that we sold (Maja above, now aged twelve) lives with her human slaves and three other Forest Cats in many acres of wonderful grounds and her owners do allow her total freedom to roam. She is as capable as most other cats. We agreed to this because Heather had previously had another deaf white cat who had lived to age 15 in the same circumstances. Maja tolerates cat shows but is not thrilled by them, as she was nearly 2 years old before her first one; I have witnessed other deaf cats who are totally relaxed at shows and do not believe that deafness is a hindrance to a show career, so long as the cat is taken early enough. In fact because they are shielded from loud noises it is, if anything, an advantage in the show hall.  They are allowed to compete at GCCF shows but not at FIFe shows.

Living with a deaf white cat is no less rewarding than living with a cat of normal hearing ability. Deaf cats are, if anything, extra magical. It is usual for a cat to be fully hearing or completely deaf in one or both ears, not partially deaf or partially hearing within each ear. We kept one of our deaf kittens to see what it was like to live with a deaf white cat. It was a moving, marvellous experience and Vieuxtemps Avedine (at the top of the page) is one of our most precious memories.