Welcome to Dec/Jan 2012 edition of the Happy Cat Ezine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS 1. New Cat Gallery Photos This Month 2. Competition 3. Byron and Shelley's Latest Diary Entry 4. Cat Story - Twin Brothers: Home At Last 5.. Article - Kitten Weaning & The Right Kitten Food ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1.New Cat Gallery Pages Lots more of your beautiful cats have been submitted to our cat photo gallery to see more visit the cat gallery . Enjoy. Don't forget to submit your cat to the cat gallery so that others can enjoy your cat as well. Click on their pictures to find out more about them Drifter and Roxy Precious Miming Frosty Cosmo Nixon kitty Sanka   ----------------------------------------- 2. Competition Number Dec 11 / Jan 12 Here is the new Caption Competition. All you have to do is write a caption for this picture. . Simply send us your caption to go with this picture. Click here to submit Caption The deadline for this competition is Jan 25th. The best caption will be chosen and the winners name and caption will be posted on the www.our-happy-cat.com competition page.     This month the prize for the competition is a a Cats Play Set, containing Catnip toys and balls GOOD Luck             -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Byron and Shelley's Latest Diary Entry Shelly has always been a hunter and likes nothing more than seeking out small critters. The picture above was taken when he was only 4 months old and you can see he liked to forage even then and he has never lost the urge. It is now December here in the UK and the weather is cold, wet and windy and yet Shelley can still be found on some nearby rough ground looking for mice for many hours. He even brings us a live present every now and again and what fun we have running around trying to catch the poor creature before Shelley gets hold of it again. Read more here I will be adding regular updates about them on the web site so keep an eye on your RSS feeds for those. Here is their page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Cat Stories and Poems we like to encourage our visitors to the site to share their cat story or poetry with us here. we certainly enjoy reading your tales of rescue, joy and sadness too. So if you have a story or poem to tell us please let us know HERE Twin Brothers: Home At Last by Fran Larson My daughter Cherise noticed some children gathering and looking down a drainage ditch at a baseball field. What they saw was both amazing and sad. Five beautiful kittens were all cuddled up; four were barely hanging on for life. One had already died (or was born dead). Their Mom was not around anywhere. Cherise and her daughter Mikaela, being animal lovers had an idea. They brought the remaining four kittens home. (After Cherise did research, she believed they were only hours old). They went to the store and bought food and other things that might lure the Mother to come back to her kittens. When Cherise and Mikaela saw that it wasn't going to happen, they knew what they had to do. They brought four little orphans home. Perhaps their Mother was unable to come back. I am sure she was not alive or she would have rescued her babies. Anyway, Cherise went on the Internet and found out what kind of formula to get (how to make it, when to feed them). She even learned how to make them have a bowel movement, which is what their Mom usually does. This feeding schedule went on for days…day and night. The four kittens not only lived, but they thrived in the midst of much love and attention. Of those four, two they found good homes for when they were about 12 weeks old. One died at about 4 months old (they said he was probably born too early and had some internal organ, kidney issues. The remaining kitten they kept. Her name is "Lily." Lily is a beautiful female - a Manx.   Read the rest of the story here   Read more stories and poems here ______________________________________________ 5.. Article - Kitten Weaning & The Right Kitten Food Kitten weaning onto solid kitten food needs to be planned for so that you have the right kitten food available when required. When do kittens need weaning? Queens can produce milk for up to 12 weeks and if so her kittens may still nurse from her until that time. However from the age of about 5 weeks old they may start to take notice of their mothers own food and indeed some mother cats may encourage them to eat it instead of nursing. As an owner you should be prepared to start to wean your kittens from around week 5, this is also true if you have hand reared your kittens. Weaning should be done gradually, do not expect them to take to eating solid food all the time at first. They will still need cat milk (or substitute if hand rearing) up to week 12. The steps: Hold a piece of the kitten food to their lips to allow them to smell it. Then push a little of the food into their mouths. Wait for them to swallow the food and repeat. They will gradually learn to expect food this way. At first give them up to half a teaspoon of solid food this way followed by their milk (or feed from their mothers) A week later offer the food on a plate (not a bowl) Once they are used to eating from a plate you can leave some food on a plate in their enclosures all the time so that they can eat when they wish. Eventually they will stop nursing from their mothers and only eat from the plate. If hand rearing you will have to monitor how much solid food they are eating and gradually reduce their milk kitten food accordingly. Read the rest of this article here