My new kittens!

itsy

Songster
8 Years
Mar 14, 2011
1,788
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New England
We have added to our little farm family with two supercute kittens. I was looking forever for white ones and they're hard to come by, but I happened to be looking on CL the other day and saw them in a photo that a rescue put up. I called right away and emailed my application.

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We don't have names decided on yet. They are brother and sister and the male is deaf. The female has green eyes that are starting to turn a gold color in the center, so we're thinking her eyes are going to be a solid gold color. The male has blue eyes and we were told that white males with blue eyes are usually deaf. The vet confirmed that he was deaf.... Either way, I'm going to look into it more because it's interesting to me on a scientific level! They were part of a large litter out of a stray gray tabby cat. All of ther other kittens were either gray or black and these two popped out all white. The rescue said it was their first time ever having all white cats, period. I will tell you that white kittens are kind of like white cars - they get dirty a lot easier.
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I'm not used to kittens this small and I've never had one in the house this little! Our schnauzer was a bit surprised, but he's been good so far. We just need to keep him in line and closely supervise them.

Another interesting thing - you know how deaf humans usually have speech issues? (I'm partially deaf in my left ear and spent lots of my childhood not being able to hear in either and then having to go to speech therapy)....Either way, the kitten that is deaf still has a "normal" sounding meow.... but I suppose that's all they're programmed to do, no? He meows more than the other - and he ALWAYS meows in the litter box when he's going to the bathroom.

And here they are hanging out in said litter box. Why is it so fun to do that??

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If anyone has any kitten tips or tricks, please let me know!
 
They are adorable!! Congrats!

On a scientific note too... did you know, horses with a lot of white on their face/head/ears are often deaf? The lack of pigment in the hair follicles is connected to the inability to hear. I don't know if the same is true with cats.
 
very cute kittens.

It's true that white cats are deaf more often, than their more colorful counterparts.

Imp
 
My boyfriend is a horse trainer/owner by profession.... He didn't know that either! Granted, the horses he trains are race horses, and they wouldn't generally have pigmentation like that......

I was reading more about deafness in white male cats with blue eyes and I found these facts:

95% of the general cat population is non-white cats (i.e. not pure white) and congenital deafness is extremely rare in non-white cats.
5% of the general cat population is white cats (i.e. pure white). 15-40% of these pure white cats have one or two blue-eyes.
Of those white cats with one or two blue eyes, 60-80% are deaf; 20-40% have normal hearing; 30-40% had one blue eye and were deaf while 60-70% had one blue eye and normal hearing.
Of the 5% of white cats in the overall population, 60-80% had eyes of other colors (e.g. orange, green). Of those 10- 20% were deaf and 80-90% had normal hearing.
Deaf white cats with one or two blue eyes account for 0.25 - 1.5 of total cat population
Total number of cats with white coat and blue eyes account for 0.75 - 2.0% of total cat population

This website is fascinating. The female also has a tiny smudge of dark on her head that you can see a little bit in the photo and they noted that any of these "all white" cats that are born with a smudge will lose that smudge as an adult. VERY interesting. The white pigment in these cats is not the "absence of color" as in albinism, but it's actually the white taking OVER the color....

I got some cool cats, man!
 
I LOVE white cats! But that is probably because of this guy,
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Omen (who was not deaf), I LOVED this boy, lost him at just 13 months.
I did have a deaf white cat, tried to find a pic, but guess I don't have one on this computer, his name was Doc, he had green eyes.
And this girl, Sara, was also deaf,
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Thanks for posting those pics, Hav! I was also reading that a great percentage of true white cats that have one blue eye will be deaf in the ear on the side of the blue eye. You should check out that article....it's super interesting what's associated with the white gene.
 
Dalmations (dogs) are also frequently deaf. I had TWO of them, not at the same time... but that's a story for another time.

In my life, I have hand-raised at least 70 (yes, seventy, that's seven zero) one day to a week old kittens. Animal Control Officers in THREE cities knew I was a specialist (self trained) and would call me whenever they encountered abandoned kittens or those that had lost their mothers. So would my vet's office. It got so my co-workers and friends would turn and walk the other way when they saw me during "kitten season" because I needed good homes for them.

Kittens LOVE litter boxes. Woo hoo! They'll whirl around in them and chase imaginary things. Sometimes they'll eat the litter, too.

Young kittens are not susceptible to catnip, so wait until they're older to give them some. It won't hurt them, but they won't get the intoxication they may develop when they are older. (Not all cats are affected by catnip, by the way.) Also, cats can't overdose on it, as in get intoxicated over and over again within a few hours. They react to cat nip, and if you give them more, it doesn't matter, and they might not even react to it at all for another few hours.

Many rescue kittens have ear mites; hopefully the rescue organization has checked for those and if they got 'em, treated them and/or given you something to treat them. (I just read your vet has seen 'em, sorry.)

Yours are ADORABLE!
 
Deb - he was beautiful!

Gry - they were seen last by her vet, so I didn't have a chance to speak with him. They're going to be seeing my vet in a month for their next shots. They've been treated with Revolution (which also covers ear mites) and I think I'd like to keep them on that. The barn cats where we lived were in the elements quite frequently and were all treated with Revolution and did well.

Do you guys think they are going to have long hair? The lady from the rescue said she thinks "medium", which I would be quite happy with. I was hoping that their hair would be on the longer side.
 
I think it can be really hard to tell. My Omen ended up w/ medium hair, and we have one now that also suprised me by being medium haired. I got my sister a very fluffy kitten this Spring, assuming he'd be long haired, he's only around 6 months old now, but I think he's going to be medium haired instead. Yours look like they could go either way, I wouldn't be suprised at all if they ended up w/ medium length hair!
 

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