You might think cat breeding is all about being surrounded by adorable fluff-balls all day, and it mostly is. But we have to do a few things to make sure that the adorable fluff-balls are healthy.

Weight gain is the easiest measure of a young kitten’s health. Any kitten not gaining steadily needs to see a vet or be supplemented with bottle feeds.

A lot of people stop weighing after the kittens are weaned. And that probably makes sense. But because we had a rescue kitten in foster care here once who died at the age of 6 weeks, I keep weighing the kittens until it’s too unwieldy to do so.

So yeah, a few seconds every morning makes sure we know our kittens are happy and healthy and full. Going on last year and this year’s average (yup, I have a big ole spreadsheet on the computer too), the average gains are 10-11g/day.

White kitten looks set to be the giant. He was the largest when born and is now 60g heavier than his siblings. He also has massive paws and loves his food in a way that’s a bit unholy.

The rest are very close in size and a bit calmer about their food.