Our Maine Coon Kittens at Five weeks of age

First Three Weeks of Kittens’ Lives

When kittens are born, they don’t look like cats. They look like baby rabbits, rats with fluffy tails, even new born puppies, but not like kittens. It took about three weeks for our little newborn kittens to start looking like themselves. We had to exercise great deal of patience during those first three weeks of our kittens’ lives.

The kittens didn’t walk nor did they make much sound. Umay spent a lot of time feeding and grooming them, or just sleeping with them in their box. Umay proved herself to be a very caring, protective, and fastidious mother.

Umay with the kittens on their first day of life. Two orange kittens are males and the black kittens are females.

When out kittens were born It took out kittens about three weeks to change their looks. In addition, a lot of things happened during the first three weeks. One orange male kitten opened his eyes after only one week. The others followed also very quickly. By the end of week two, all kittens had their eyes open. What’s more, all of them made an eye contact with a human.

The kittens slept the majority of their day and night. They only woke up for eating and grooming. The kittens crawled to find mommy’s tits and made very mute sounds during the short waking moments. This was the most boring time for us. I even wrote a post about it. You can see it here.

The kittens grew in size very quickly. Their furs grew longer and thicker. We noticed changes in their size and coat appearance almost daily. The kittens’ weight almost doubled in the first ten days from 5.5 oz to 10.5 oz! Umay was eating a lot. After each meal she went to feed her babies. Can you imagine how much milk she was producing? Oh my!

Weeks Four and Five in our Maine Coon Kittens’ Lives

Week four marked the biggest change in the kittens’ appearance. They finally stopped looking like rats and became real kittens at last.

Besides their looks, their behavior changed as well. They started crawling much more. They became interested in what’s behind the walls of their box. And they tried to walk. When they tried to get up on their feet, their movements were very unsteady and wobbly. But they managed to travel to the edges of the box and scratch the cardboard walls.

The kittens were so interested what’s outside the box. I decided to free them. I took them out of the box and placed them on a kitty bed beside the box. The kittens immediately started crawling everywhere. They could only walk very short distances, but that was enough to disappear under the bed in my studio where they lived.

Umay became very worried about her babies scattering all over the place. She kept calling them and looked very distressed. In a couple of hours of this disarray, I decided that it was too soon to let them out and placed them back into their box. Umay climbed with them and became very content. Everyone fell asleep very quickly after the feeding.

I thought that the fourth week connoted the biggest change in the kittens’ appearance and behavior. I would say now that the change in the kittens was the most drastic in the fifth week. Not only they are outside the box now, they are exploring the rest of the house.

The kittens gained a steady gate. They started wanting to climb, but couldn’t get on the beds quite yet. Although, still being apprehensive, the kittens showed an immense curiosity discovering more and more places and things around the house.

They also started bonding with us humans and following us from room to room. My studio is still the room that they use for sleeping and feeling protected. We cut an arched door in the box so that the kittens can spend their time and sleep there while being free to roam about.

We also placed the kitty litter box next to their “home” box. The kittens started using the litter box immediately and without any accidents anywhere else in the house. Amazing!

By the end of week five, the kittens weigh 1.5 pounds each. They started to eat solid food in combination with mother’s milk.

Our Maine Coon kittens don’t have names yet. At first, we referred to them by their numbers according to their birth. Number one was the female kitten with distinct markings on her paws. Oh, by the way, the black kittens are not really black. They are tortoiseshell kittens.

Kitten #1

Our kitten number one. I am not sure if we gave her a nickname.

Kitten #2

This orange tabby male kitten was so fluffy! We nicknamed him Fuzzy Bear.

Kitten #3

Kitten #3 is nicknamed Cutie Pie. His photo session started immediately after being groomed by his mom. His chest is a little damp in these pictures.

Kitten #4

And last, but not the least is nicknamed Whistles. When this kitty approaches you, she immediately starts to communicate with you. He baby kitten voice sounds like mute whistle. Thus the nickname.

Here you have it. A transformation from rats to cats. Aren’t they adorable!?

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