Educating the Educators

As someone who breeds and shows Maine Coon cats, I usually enjoy the opportunity to talk about my cats and enlighten fellow cat fanciers. The hard part with having Maine Coons in the northeastern part of the country is that everybody and their brother thinks they have one too. True, the breed is naturally derived and has a common ancestry with many of the large domestic long-haired cats around here. When the veterinarians tell a pet owner that their cat could be a Maine Coon, people love that. After all, vets know cat breeds right? Animal shelters often list any long-haired adoptable cat as a Maine Coon mix; not because they know, but because labeling the cat with a breed makes it more desirable. Such is the curse of having one of the most popular breeds of cats that don’t look as breed-distinctive as some of the others like the Sphynx or the Scottish Fold.

I was recently contacted by a vocational high school principal, Suzanne Green, who was looking for someone to speak on the Maine Coon Cat. The Assabet Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School in Marlborough, Massachusetts was holding a conference for the teachers and apparently there were several requests to have a presenter on Maine Coons. The job paid $100, a little more than the cost of my gas to drive to Marlborough and back; Suzanne pointed out that this was more of public service job. Granted, I would have done it for nothing, but gas money was good. Since I do like to promote and educate, I agreed to prepare a Powerpoint presentation on color genetics and bring three cats of various ages, genders and colors. I was told the audience would consist mainly of animal science teachers, so a Punnett Square wouldn’t be too foreign to them.

Getting ready, I had more than my share of technical set-backs; learning to use Powerpoint and a major malware infection on my PC, but it all came together after about ten hours of work and more countless hours working with technical support people to get my computer working right. Although I’ve spoken to small groups about cats and have done large employee presentations in my former life as a Human Resources Manager, this was to be my first Powerpoint presentation. I went to Jay’s office and did a dry run-through for timing and to get a look at it on the big screen. Wanting to counteract the false information about my chosen breed, I started the slide show with a series of Mythbuster true or false questions. Questions like, “If your cat as a stripe in the shape of the letter ‘M’ on its forehead, it must be a Maine Coon” and “The Maine Coon gets to be 35 pounds”, true or false?

I saved my presentation on a flash drive, intending to use the school’s equipment once I got there. I even emailed the presentation ahead of time so they could make sure my version of Powerpoint was compatible. I planned on bringing three cats; my eight-year-old brown classic male, Bugger, a two-year-old blue torbie and white female, Trifle, and an eight-month-old solid black female, Lulu. Trifle’s coat is naturally low maintenance, but Bugger and Lulu required baths the day before we were to leave. I loaded up the minivan with a large traveling cage with enough room for 3 cats and a litter box. I also packed my grooming bag, a collapsible show cage to display with the cats in the auditorium, and a cart to carry everything in. It was almost like preparing to go to a cat show, but with more emphasis on me. I had printed out the slide show so I flipped through that on the drive up, rehearsing my lines and forcing myself to slow my speech down.

Once I arrived at the high school, the first thing I noticed was that there were cars parked everywhere; in the grass, on the sidewalk, in non-spaces…basically the place was overwhelmed with people. Fortunately, there was one empty space; someone must have left for lunch. I planned on getting there one hour early to set up, clean up any cat messes and make sure the presentation would work.

Towing my cart loaded with cats, I asked at the registration table where I should go. “Oh! Are those the Maine Coon cats?” the lady asked when she saw my carriers. “We’ve been waiting for you.” I was told to go down the hall to room 401D to check in. I got an even more enthusiastic greeting at 401D. The woman there squealed with excitement when I told her my name and instructed a man to call the phone number written on the black board as Principal Suzanne Green wanted to be notified the minute I arrived. Really? I started to get nervous. Everyone surrounded me and my cats; I felt like a celebrity but hoped I wouldn’t disappoint. Suzanne showed up within seconds, personally escorted me to the auditorium and helped me set up. I have never met a school administrator who was so personally involved instead of delegating. There was a sign on an easel outside the entrance to the auditorium with my name and a blurb about my presentation. I felt so important.

A few teachers were staked out in the auditorium before I got there, waiting on my arrival.  It would be almost an hour before I was scheduled to begin.  The intimidation of the school’s high expectations was mounting. Suzanne told me there were over 700 teachers there for the conference. Many were attending for continuing education credits for their field. 700? They won’t all be in here will they? I was assured that although some were so excited I was there that they were skipping their scheduled workshops, there would also be about 22 other presentations/workshops going on simultaneously with mine so it wasn’t really all about Maine Coons. Minor sigh of relief.

Although the small auditorium looked liked it could hold about 60 people, there were closer to 27 there when I got started. They seemed to like the Mythbuster questions, but I started losing some of them on the Punnett Squares. The educational part of my presentation was to explain color genetics; like how you can get a blue or a solid black kitten from two brown tabby parents. I had pictures of the variety of colors that Maine Coons come in, mostly my own cats.

Of course they just wanted to see the cats. After the slides were finished, I pulled each cat out of the show cage one at a time and talked about it. For another 30 minutes, I answered general questions about kittens, showing, genetic testing, personalities and behaviors while I had a cat on the table. Bugger elicited the same responses he used to get at cat shows. “Oh my God, look at that cat! He only weighs 17 pounds? I would have guessed he was more like 30. He’s huge!” The audience members who were the most enthralled circled around me and my cats, taking pictures with their cell phones like paparazzi.

When my 50 minutes of allotted time was up, Suzanne helped me pack everything back on my cart, proclaiming that my cats were a success. As I left, wheeling my Cart O’ Cats down the school’s hallway, I continued to receive attention and was asked more questions. Of course, after all my efforts to educate the audience about how only 4% of all cats are purebred, not all tabbies are Maine Coons, blah, blah, blah, I came away with the impression that I failed. I must have gotten at least five comments from people after the presentation about their own Maine Coon they had found or gotten for free. One man very proudly told me about the feral female cat he had adopted a year ago and how a stray Maine Coon cat had sired the litter she just had. I resisted the urge to scream at him, “Didn’t you listen to anything I said in there? It’s NOT a Maine Coon! It’s just a long-haired cat.” I politely bit my lip and didn’t even lecture him on why he should have his cat spayed and keep her inside. Instead I just wished him luck in finding homes for the kittens and walked away.

Bugger

Trifle

Lulu

Shave and a Hair Cut

This year I decided to give our Golden Retriever, Chardonnay, her annual haircut myself.  I purchased professional clippers last year and have used them on a couple of the cats who became matted.  Finally, it'd gotten so hot last week and Chardonnay looked so pathetic with her tongue hanging out, I decided to go for it.  I ended up covered in dog hair, hot and sweaty, with a sore back.  Our new puppy, Coraline, savored her naturally short and cool doo and made my job more challenging.  She eventually became so obnoxious  that she had to be banned from the barber area. 

This would have been so much easier on me if we had a dog grooming table

Let go!

Good thing they make puppies cute

"Chardonnay, let me get that hair off your tongue for you."

"You're not going to try to turn me into a Golden Retriever with all that hair are you?"

Bad hair day, but it's okay as long as we don't show Chardonnay a mirror

I got tired and let Chardonnay keep the mohawk for a few days before finishing the job.  She looks slightly better than in the above photo.  I know it doesn't look professional, but at least I saved $70 and Chardonnay feels much cooler now.

Baby Chicks Part Two

In my blog Counting My Eggs, I promised to keep my readers informed when the fertilized chicken eggs my hens were sitting on hatched.   Although I started out with eleven eggs shared by Mumbles and Thelma, Mumbles decided she'd been sitting long enough and threw in the towel.  Then Buffy, the Buff Orpington, thought she'd wax maternal and sit on the eggs.  In between all this, there were times when the eggs weren't covered.  One by one, they rotted and cracked.  They were literally half-cooked, maybe fertile, maybe not.  I'm sure the phrase, "last one's a rotten egg" comes from the situation where chicks start hatching and the
egg(s) that never hatches is rotten.  The stench is unmistakeable. 

Thelma prepares for motherhood

In the end, we have two viable chicks, a blond and a reddish-brown one.  Since the person who gave the eggs to me doesn't know the breeds of her chickens or her roosters, this is a guessing game.  The brown one has feathering on her legs so it'll be interesting to see how he/she/it develops.  I'm automatically referring to the chicks as girls, but I honestly don't know the gender.  Chickens, unlike puppies, are very difficult to sex at this age.  I'm thinking of naming them adrogenous names like "Pat", "Chris" or "Terry".  Any suggestions are welcome.

I felt guilty at taking the pheasant chicks away from Thelma after all her dedication to hatching them and want to give her a chance to enjoy motherhood.  If she never becomes broody again, then perhaps she will have learned that children are too much work.  Since I'm trying to let these chicks grow up with their adopted mother Thelma (Buffy proved too aggressive to be allowed this privilege), I have a new set of challenges.  Normally I would raise the chicks in a cage with a heat lamp in my basement until fully feathered at five weeks.  At five weeks they are adolescents and ready to move outside.  The nesting box the chicks were hatched in is about two feet off the ground so it would be difficult for fuzzy peeps to navigate that height, even with a ramp.  Plus, the other hens are not maternal toward the chicks and could present a danger to anything in their nesting boxes. 

Thelma demonstrates how to scratch out a snack to her peeps

Luckily our garden has an eight-foot fence around it, part of which is sectioned off for the chickens to keep them out of the planted veggies.  During the winter, we strung fishing line every three feet across the top of it to deter the hawks so the chickens would have another safe place to hang out.  Since our compost pile is in the corner of the garden, this provides a lot of enjoyment for the girls to rifle through our leftovers, spread the compost around and pick out worms and grubs. 

I decided the hens' fenced in garden area would become the nursery.  I turned the bottom half of a large doghouse over and placed a cat carrier on top of that.  Chickens need to roost off the ground, thus the doghouse base.  The cat carrier can be locked up at night.  I drape a sheet of plastic over the carrier at night for further warmth and rain protection.  Probably not as warm as the nesting box in the coop, but I keep in mind that Thelma's underside had to be about 95 degrees in order to have been able to incubate the eggs.   I put food and a waterer in the carrier with them, which the chicks quickly learned to use.  The garden is closed off to the other hens, something they resent, but have to accept.  The idea is that as the chicks grow, the rest of the flock will get used to them behind the safety of the fence so that the new members will be able to acclimate seamlessly. 

Our contraption we're calling the nursery

Thelma is a big girl and a wonderful mom.  I have to lift her up to see the chicks.  When it's warm, they come out from under their mother.  Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that we can keep them safe until they are grown and that both are hens.

Thelma and her brood in their nest

As a sidenote, I am now a blogger on the Ledyard Patch, a local online newspaper.  I will be blogging about the same types of subjects as I do here, perhaps revamping some of my old stuff.  If my followers could please comment or click the Recommend button on the Ledyard Patch blog to indicate their support, I'd give them each a Maine Coon kitten.  Not really, but still, I'd be grateful.

Loss of Sanity or.... We Got a Puppy

After raising our Golden Retriever, Chardonnay, I promised myself that I would never get another puppy.  The next dog would arrive in adult form, housebroken and with all its brain cells in gear.  This is what I told my fifteen-year-old Kelsey repeatedly last year when she started asking for her own dog.  She wanted a small dog, one she could carry. She loves teacup-size Pomeranians.  Jay and I don't regard anything smaller than our cats as "real dogs".  I can't stand yippy dogs.  We compromised.  We could get a puppy as long as it wasn't a small breed. 

One of the major reasons I opened up to the idea of adding a second canine to the family has been the realization that our beloved Chardonnay is getting older.  Even though she's pretty healthy, her hips are starting to bother her, she's already had a benign tumor removed and her sire died at the age of eleven.  Chardonnay is ten.  The thought of losing my precious Golden Goof eventually makes my eyes tear up every time.  I prefer the idea of having an overlap, hoping that perhaps Chardonnay can teach a new dog how to behave in our household; no excessive barking, chasing cats or chickens and a tolerance for small children. 

Thinking we'd save money and a life by not going to a breeder, Kelsey looked on Pet Finders for a rescue and found a litter of Shar Pei mix puppies.  We ended up going through Help Save One based in Rhode Island.  After completing an application and putting down a deposit, we got very little feedback other than being told we were approved.  During the process of waiting to hear about our selection, getting auto replies to my email enquiries, being told originally to pick her up from transport at 3 AM in a McDonald's parking lot, then finding out the puppy we'd reserved was not a girl as promised, but a boy....I was tempted to back out many times, but was afraid I wouldn't get a refund.  

I had reservations at the idea of getting a puppy whose mother was a registered Shar Pei.  Although they are adorable with their wrinkly faces, the breed can be aggressive if not trained properly.  I rationalized that most Pit Bulls and Rotweilers I've met have been very friendly, sweet dogs so the breed is not always a determining factor. I also have a personal aversion to a dog whose natural tail carriage is over its back, exposing what I don't want to see every time it walks in front of me.

Nevertheless, we started recording the Dog Whisperer show and bought Cesar Milan's book, How to Raise the Perfect Dog.  I was mentally preparing myself to be a pack leader.

This was to be Kelsey's 16th birthday present a month early.  She agreed, as most kids do who have to beg, to be responsible for the puppy's care, training, save money to pay for the spay surgery, etc.  Kelsey picked out the solid black puppy on the website named "Believe".  She had this image of opening a wrapped box with a puppy inside and being surprised.  Kind of silly, but I went along.  I wrapped a copy paper box, top separately from the bottom, handle holes punched out for air, complete with a ribbon.  I took it with me, along with a regular carrier, and met Pam from Help Save One at the Mystic Friendly's around 11 AM.  Still a seedy process compared to going to a breeder's home, but much better than 3 AM over an hour away. 

As I mentioned, the black puppy turned out to be a male, a fact determined only after Pam took the puppies out as she had no idea which one was ours.  I can sex kittens with 98% accuracy at birth, 100% by two weeks.  Most vets can't claim that level of accuracy with kittens, but puppies have pretty obvious gender differences from the beginning.  Since these puppies were raised at a veterinarian's office in West Virginia, I don't blame the rescue organization for the error as they didn't even see them.  If someone wrote it down wrong, it should have been corrected.  Only two of the litter in the back of Pam's SUV were girls.  I'm glad that I at least got to see the whole litter as it made it easier to narrow down the breed of the father.  Judging by the heads and high white with brown freckles on some of the puppies, I'd say Dad was a hound, perhaps a Pointer.  I had to call Kelsey and tell her the dilemma.  The question was, was it more important to get a girl, or to get a solid black, more Shar Pei looking dog?  Kelsey chose the dark girl, a mushroom colored puppy with white on her chest and toes and a long, straight non-Shar Pei tail.  The puppies smelled like urine (they'd been in a car for over 24 hours) and complained loudly.  Although odoriferous, Kelsey's choice was happy to be held and gave me a bunch of kisses.

When I arrived at our driveway, I stopped and took the stinky, yelping puppy from the the carrier and put her in the gift-wrapped box.  Then I continued on to the house (our driveway is a quarter-mile long).  I called Tyler and instructed him to bring his sister outside.  I tried to present my daughter with her gift and sing Happy Birthday, but I became verklempt.  Figures....dogs make me emotional.  Kelsey's expectations were low after my phone call, but fortunately she loved the puppy at first sight.  "She's so cute!"  My birthday song failed, but cuteness prevailed.

After offering food and bathing her new baby, Kelsey finally settled on the name Coraline, "Cory" for short.  Kelsey has had two sleepless nights and I've gotten out of bed more than my share, but it's getting markedly better every day.  Cory only barks when she's crated and realizes she's alone.  She's quickly learning to settle in quietly when going into the crate.  She's not yippy at all.  Chardonnay loves her, but tires of the puppy exuberance at times.  The cats vary in their degrees of welcome as Cory's method of play is a big rough for them.

Cassie is ready to move into Cory's crate

If we survive Coraline's puppy hood to ever look at another dog in the future, unfortunately my preference  won't be to go through a rescue organization.  I know they're trying to do the honorable thing and it's a lot of thankless work, but I need more reassurances and guarantees.  Still, we'll make it work for the new family member.

Don't wake the baby!

Taking Advantage of My Mother's Day Power

Mother's Day and my birthday are the two days out of the year when my family, which includes two teenagers, feels obligated to do what I want.  I kind of like that power of being the queen for the day, justified by memories of living my life around those of my children for so long.  Last Mother's Day, I blogged about how we went to a butterfly pavillion where my daughter Kelsey faced her fear of beautiful bugs. 

I had read last month in The Day newspaper (yes, we actually read a physical paper; also comes in handy later when one wants to start a fire in the woodstove) about Beltane Farm.  Beltane Farm is a small goat farm in Lebanon, CT, offering tours and cheese tastings every Sunday in May.  I had been interested enough in visiting that I'd put the dates on my calendar as a reminder although I never mentioned it to anyone else. 

Here I was on Mother's Day morning, waiting for the day's planned event of a cookout at 1 pm.  The problem was that the farm is only open to the public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  With a lunch planned right in the middle of that, it would be a tight schedule.  Husband Jay was already psyched up to cook, marinating the chicken and cleaning the grill and utensils for their first use this year.  Could I possibly sell him on doing both? 

As a young adult, one of my mottos was, "Be prepared to be spontaneous."  Although I'm fairly certain that motto was referring to birth control, I could apply the same idea to visiting a goat farm.  Jay balked at the idea of just picking up and leaving.  He argued that it would take 45 minutes to get out there (actually it took 30 minutes, but Jay has a tendency to exaggerate), he had a law school exam to study for, his daughter Erin and the grandkids were supposed to come over for lunch, he's cooking, etc.  Not giving in, I gave him the option to stay home or just calling Erin and changing the lunch time to a supper time.  Reluctantly, Jay agreed and changed plans with Erin.  It was Mother's Day, he had to be nice to me, right? 

Tyler, who just got home from USC this past Friday, was still asleep at 10:30 a.m. when this discussion was going on.  Being a college student, he was better prepared to be spontaneous and quickly got dressed.  Besides, Tyler loves goat cheese so he had a different motivation.  Kelsey doesn't like to eat anything different, but was up for a trip involving animals with cloven hooves. 

Tyler and Kelsey being greeted by a young goat

Within 15 minutes, we had the whole family in the van, ready to go.  Jay had his notes to study so I drove to the farm, thanking my family first for going along with my whims.  The first thing we noticed when we got to the farm was the kids (as in baby goats) on dog leashes being held by a woman.  My uncertain family lit up as the farm dog, a gorgeous collie, greeted us.  Kelsey, who has a strange fear of butterflies and other insects, has no problem with other creatures that share our space (including snakes).  The kids (baby goats) won us over with their cuteness and fondness for sucking on our fingers.  Jay immediately commented on how beautiful the farm was with its pond, barns, property, friendly people and animals.  "Glad you came?" I asked. "Go ahead, admit it, once again I had a great idea." 

I expected 15-year-old Kelsey to get a thrill at seeing the goats, cow and donkey as we don't have those animals at home.  She got equally excited with the two farm dogs, cat, chickens and the multitude of tadpoles in the pond.  Uh, we have those animals at home Kelsey.  Critters are always more appealing in someone else's yard I guess.

We tasted all the cheeses and narrowed our purchases down to four kinds to bring back, the Chevre, Harvest Moon, Vespers and Riscotta Fresca.  We could have easily brought back one of each, but I tried to show some restraint.  If any of you are repulsed at the sound of the words "goat cheese", I advise you to free your minds.  My absolute favorite is the Chevre with Herbs de Provence.  Finicky Kelsey found she liked the Harvest Moon cheese, which has a harder, cheddar-like consistency.  For those of us who love cheese but have mild lactose intolerance, goat cheese is the solution. 

Sacrificing my fingers as goat pacifiers

After about an hour, we said good-bye to the wonderful folks at Beltane.  We stopped on the way home to pick up a loaf of French bread and devoured two of our four cheeses as soon as we got in the door.  My family is happy I pushed them to go there and I had a memorable Mother's Day thanks to the goat farm.  It's over seven more months until my birthday....what will I force them to do next?

Counting My Eggs

I'll bet you've been thinking, "We haven't heard about Sharon's chickens in a while.  Wonder what they're up to?"  Well, the girls have been busy scratching up bugs, leaving poop around for the dog to clean up, laying eggs and a couple are preparing for motherhood.  In a previous post on the tendency for some hens to become broody, I mentioned that when the broody mood strikes a hen, she'll sit on the nest all day and night, taking a couple of short breaks to eat and drink.  She'll bristle and cluck menancingly (ever heard a chicken growl?) when I lift up the cover of the nesting box in an effort to scare me away from her nest.  Some will bite when you reach under them.  A broody hen will stop laying once she thinks she has enough to hatch and start sitting on her eggs so that they will all begin incubating at the same time.  This is how birds get their clutch to hatch within a 48-hour period even if it took 10 days to lay all the eggs.  A fertilized egg remains in a state of limbo until incubation commences.

Mumbles - Blue Silkie

In this day of mass egg production and plug-in incubators, most modern hens have the broody trait bred out of them.  If you don't want new chicks running around all the time, but just want eggs for consumption and healthy chickens in the backyard, broody gets in the way.  Some hens, however, are naturally broody and can serve the purpose of being a surrogate mom if one wants to hatch chicks the way that nature intended.  Such is case with many Silkies, the funny looking chickens with hairy legs and fuzzy hair that stands up on top of their heads.  We have one Silkie, a little blue one named Mumbles.  Silkies are well-known for being a broody breed and are often used to hatch other hens' eggs the old fashioned way.  Silkies are a bantam (miniature) bird, weighing less than 2 pounds.  On the other end of our chicken spectrum, we have Thelma, an 8-pound Jersey Giant. 

In casual conversation with fellow volunteer Lorraine at the horse farm, I learned that she not only had many chickens, but also had pheasants.  She was interested in hatching her eggs, but none of her birds had the maternal broody instinct.  I'll remind the reader that I do not have a rooster, so although my hens lay daily, none of the eggs are fertile.  Lorraine has both genders of chickens and pheasants.  I was at the point where I needed to break Mumbles of her broodiness, but after talking to Lorraine, we decided to give Mumbles a job.  

We put 8 tiny, dark green pheasant eggs under Mumbles, removing the golf ball decoys to encourage the other hens to lay in other parts of the nesting boxes.  Hens like to all lay in the same one or two locations, even to the point where one will stand on top of another.  They will cue up like women waiting to use the public restroom, waiting for one hen to finish delivering her egg du jour (which can take over 30 minutes) just to use that particular nesting box.  The empty spaces on either side of the laying hen are ignored unless there is another egg (or golf ball) there to indicate that this is also a suitable place to leave one's egg.  Even with the golf ball decoy, some hens insist upon using the same box each time. 

Once Mumbles started happily incubating her pheasant eggs, Thelma decided she wanted to go broody too and took over Mumbles spot.  Mumbles was dedicated to sitting on her eggs, but with her small size, it's too easy for the larger hens to push her off the nest.  If I did this the right way, I'd have a separate nesting box caged off just for broody hens.  The problem is getting a hen to adapt to a new space once she has started sitting.  I tried bringing Mumbles inside, setting up a large cage for her and the eggs.  Like I'd suspected, she was so freaked out at the move that her unhatched babies were forgotten in her anxiety.  Back out they all went. 

Thelma - Jersey Giant

Toward the end of the pheasant eggs' 24-day incubation period, Thelma had all the pheasant eggs and Mumbles had two golf balls.  I tried splitting the eggs up so each hen would have a job, but the other hens would inevitably push Mumbles off her eggs.  None of the other hens would dare challenge Thelma from her spot so I gave in and just let her take all the glory while poor Mumbles hovered protectively over her Titleists.  She's not that smart, but little Mumbles is committed. 

Finally, the pheasants started pipping their eggs.  It can take a day or two for a chick to work its way out of its shell enclosure.  Unlike mammals where the mother's body does all the work to push the baby out into the world, the process of hatching is completely up to the chick which has now outgrown its womb.  The really incredible part was being able to hear the peeping and pecking and feeling the heartbeat in my hand while holding the egg.  Unfortunately, hatching takes a toll.  When the hatching started we had 7 eggs as one had broken in the nest previously.  Two chicks went through the process of hatching only to die immediately.  Two eggs never hatched.  Three eggs eventually revealed viable pheasant chicks.  We were amazed at how large the chicks were compared to their egg.  It was twice as much chick as egg. 

Pheasant egg hatching

I had told myself that if hatching eggs worked, fine.  If not, I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it.  However, I stayed home the day the eggs started hatching, checking on the eggs every hour or so.  I was even out there at 10 pm with a flashlight.  My concern was that I'd learned from the wonderful resource of the Pheasant and Partridge Forum on Backyardchickens that pheasant chicks are so wild that they will not stay with their surrogate mother, but will run off.  I wanted to make sure I brought each one inside to the cage I had set up with a heat lamp as soon as it hatched.  Hatching under plain heat doesn't work either as they need the humidity, otherwise the egg sticks to their feathers and inhibits their movement.  Once a midwife, always a midwife.  Who was I kidding?

New Pheasant

Pheasants are beautiful birds and most often used for hunting.  Their feathers make gorgeous fishing flies, hence my husband's interest.  The pheasant can not be domesticated like the chickens.  They require a separate, completely enclosed area which allows them room to fly.  If given the chance to escape, a pheasant will take off; no thank you's, no parting gift, no last glance over the shoulder, just gone.  They can't be mixed with chickens as they are likely to pick up diseases from them.  They are actually known for attacking chickens and each other if the conditions aren't spacious enough.  Pheasants are truly wild and since we like having pets and didn't want to do any new construction, we declined Lorraine's offer to keep any. 

Lorraine has since gotten an incubator, a method I would employ if I wanted to hatch a lot of eggs simply because it leaves less to chance.  She did, however, give us eleven fertilized hen eggs to try when she picked up the pheasant chicks.  Thelma and Mumbles are at it again, partly because I feel guilty for taking their babies away.  I drew a black line around the fertile eggs with a marker to differentiate them from our other eggs.  Lorraine has agreed to take any chicks back that we don't want.  Hatch date is May 21st.  I'll keep you posted. 

Pheasant Chicks

Sassy - Ten Years Later

Ten years ago today, my first Maine Coon cat, Sassy, was born.  Little did any of us know how things would progress from my beginning as a Maine Coon breeder acquiring her future breeding queen.  I blogged last month about Sassy's buddy, our dog Chardonnay, on her tenth birthday.  I figure it's only fair that I give Sassy the same treatment.

Back then, we had two domestic short haired cats, Creole and Remy.  Since adulthood, I'd held to the ideal of having two cats, no more, no less.  Hard to believe that now.  Being about 6 years apart, Remy and Creole didn't get along very well.  Remy is and was a very outgoing, loving cat, but I missed having two cats that were buddies.  Creole was more opinionated and in her opinion, Remy was a brat (Creole died a few years ago from kidney disease, but Remy is still doing well).  I thought it would be a good idea to get a kitten while Remy was still young enough to accept it.  Once cats get to a certain age, change becomes more difficult for them.  Remy was two-years-old then.  Remembering my Maine Coon Wannabee, Felicity, from my college days, I decided that if I were going to get Remy a buddy, I wanted to get what I always wanted....a Maine Coon.

Remy and kittens observe the chickens through the glass

Most breeders didn't have websites back then and we had dial up access, so I called veterinarians to try to find a breeder to talk to.  Then I found out the price....holy crap!  And what nerve the breeders had to ask me to pay $500 and then sign an agreement to not breed the cat!  Not that I necessarily wanted to breed, but still.  I finally found a breeder who was easy to talk to, Patty in Litchfield, CT.  Her kittens were also expensive, but by now I had done considerably more research and was playing with the idea of becoming a breeder.  She initially told me that I would have to get a mentor, show, learn pedigrees, health issues, kitten deaths, pay more for a kitten with breeding rights, etc.  I said I didn't want a male cat and she explained how difficult it would be to find another breeder willing to let me use their stud unless people knew me.  Basically, Patty tried to discourage me from breeding, but she didn't say no.  Most breeders refuse to sell kittens with breeding rights to someone they don't know (I would now), but there are others who are less strict and will frankly sell breeding rights to anyone willing to pay.  By the way, yes, you can breed your cat without having the breeding rights, but the cat registries like CFA and TICA will not honor the resulting kittens with registration papers.  You would be stuck with trying to place your kittens as purebred, but with no documentation to prove it.....another reason why I do early spay/neuter with the kittens I sell as pets. 

Well, it's obvious what happened.  I brought Sassy home in June, complete with breeding rights.  My beautiful kitten and future of my cattery.  As a cat, Sassy has not had the same opportunities her canine friend has had to travel with the family and have outdoor adventures.  Given Sassy's general dislike for riding in motor vehicles, she's okay with that.  When Sassy first came home to us, Chardonnay had already been there for about a month.   When comparing a two-month-old puppy to a similar-aged kitten, the felines win paws down for maturity and intelligence.  Sassy didn't whine when left alone, didn't take several months to housebreak, didn't destroy household objects with her teeth, didn't eat inedible things (with the exception of the ribbon incident)...Sassy was a perfect pet.

Baby Sassy - 4 months

Although Remy was the initial excuse to get Sassy (she needed a friend, remember?), it didn't work out that way.  When Remy first saw little Sassy, she knocked things over trying to attack the intruding kitten (I didn't know back then about gradual introductions).  Later they did become friends, but the friendship faded when Sassy changed her priorities to motherhood.  Remy didn't understand or appreciate kittens who love to pretend her wagging tail is a snake, but she has come to accept the little brats over the years.

When Sassy was four-months-old, she and I went to our first cat show in nearby Groton.  There I met the breeder of Sassy's sire, Merry Braun, who became a valuable resource with her experience.  I learned to ask a lot of questions in my effort to become a knowledgeable, responsible Maine Coon breeder.  I remembered what I had read somewhere years ago that one should only endeavor to breed animals if the goal is to improve the breed.  Creating little creatures by accident or putting two animals together with known health issues is irresponsible and a disservice to the breed. 

I knew so little but got so lucky with Sassy. Most new breeders get stuck with a poor example of the breed, learn from their mistakes, and have to reinvest to get the right combination of health, type and personality. I got all that with Sassy, but didn't realize it until later when we started showing in ernest and had seasoned breeders and judges telling me what a nice cat she was.  Type-wise, Sassy's ear set is too wide and it took a while for her chin to square up, but her size, pattern, color and expression over rode her imperfections.  Sassy did well showing in CFA and became a Grand Champion after only 3 shows. I didn't discover how exceptional that was for any cat, much less a female Maine Coon, until I met exhibitors who had been trying to Grand their cat for most of a year.

Sassy - 8-months-old

Sassy became fast friends with Chardonnay. This friendship came in handy as Sassy matured and I anxiously waited for her to come into heat for the first time. Sassy and her female descendants are not horrifically vocal when cycling, and they start pretty late, at around 11 months old. This is a real blessing since the general rule with cats is to wait until the queen is at least a year old and has cycled three times before breeding her. When a kitten starts cycling at 5 months (and it happens, especially with other breeds), it puts the kitten at risk of a getting a uterine infection if the breeder holds off on breeding her for seven months. On the other hand, no one wants their kitten to become a mother at only 7-months-old. I learned the best way to determine if Sassy was indeed in heat was to let Chardonnay test her. Our dog thought it was great fun if Sassy allowed her to chew on her neck, not understanding what Sassy really wanted. If Sassy went into lordosis position when Chardonnay made the moves on her, we knew...yep, she was in heat.

Sassy in heat with Chardonnay.  They were both just over a year old here.

Looking back over my records, Sassy has had seven litters, 18 kittens total.  Sassy is the reason I never had problems with kitten mortality the first three years I was breeding.  She and her daughters, Ginger, Boom Boom and Crystal, started me out on the right foot.  She usually had small litters of huge kittens and mostly girls. Sassy had ten kittens before she had her first boy and he was also her largest, weighing 6.1 oz at birth, reaching 15 pounds at 8 months. Murray went to become the 2nd Best Maine Coon in CFA in 2005-06.  Murray's sire is Bugger whom I got from another breeder.  Bugger's breeder loved to take credit for Murray's success, but I disagree.  Bugger is incredibly handsome, but Murray got his good looks from Mom.


GC RW Dracoonfly Same Thing Murray at 5 years - Sassy's Number One Son

Sassy was my first queen to earn the title of Distinguished Merit for producing five Grand Champions in CFA. If you look back through the pictures on my website, you can see Sassy's exquisite expression in most of her descendants. Her look carries on in her granddaughters and great-granddaughters who continue to produce kittens.


Cassie- Sassy's great-granddaughter

Myra - Sassy's granddaughter

Sassy has not been perfect.  She has had "pissues" for most of her life.  I had hoped that when she was spayed and retired from breeding, this behavior would stop but it hasn't.  I'm sure that if I had placed her in a different home, her pissues would cease.  They always do in such cases when a cat leaves the place where the habit has formed.  She also has mild Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a condition where she doesn't seem to know she has to poop until it happens.  This does seem to have greatly improved on the Young Again Cat Food we're using now. 

I made a mistake by keeping Sassy after she retired from breeding.  I felt obligated to her as my first, almost like I would be betraying her trust in me if I sent her away.  In retrospect, she would have been happier if she didn't have to live with so many other cats.  She loves people and Chardonnay, just not some of my cats who irritate her.  She's too old to try to place now, but I have since promised myself that all future retiring queens will be placed into other homes.  Still beautiful, Sassy does seem to enjoy being a grandmother to the kittens that come and go. Her place is the island counter top in our kitchen. The other cats have learned that if they invade Sassy's space on the counter, they'd better be young and cute, otherwise they are quickly corrected by the Queen. 

Happy tenth birthday Sassy!

Sassy at 10 years
Not looking too shabby for a great-great grandmother