I'm Looking For Food For My Kitten

Ensuring that cats and kittens receive adequate vitamins and minerals in their food is crucial for maintaining their overall health and well-being. Just like humans, these essential nutrients play a vital role in the growth, development, and proper functioning of a feline's body. Especially it's important for big size animals like Maine Coons.

My Maine Coon Cats Can Stay All Together

My cats all together. It's incredible: they always argue (at least it seems they claim). It seems they just can't stand each other. And nothing: it's still possible to be together when it's cold. 

Just wanted to share this memorable event in our life :-)

 

Introducing A New Maine Coon Kitten In Our Family

Starting a new life is not easy for anyone. Imagine if they took you away from your mother, took you to who knows where, and put you in an absolutely alien and, as such, hostile environment. And you are only three months old.

I think my cats tell the kittens that they have to leave our house and go to another family. In short, kittens know what awaits them. Some don't want it, others ask every person who comes to take them. In any case, the first days are hard for everyone. 

Our New Maine Coon Cat Travels In Train To Join Our Family

Without little ones at home, life becomes too sad. It's hard to get them through, but with their joy of living, they bring light into life. Even if there are only small animals in the house. It doesn't matter -- they still have that liveliness and energy. Maybe this is also why I decided I needed to get a new kitten.

Take a kitten into the cattery

I reserved the kitten when he was one month old. I went to see it to make sure it's how I want it. Because I wanted a red cat with white. And as I discovered, it's not so easy to find exactly this color. 

Gorgeous Character of Giant Maine Coon Cats -- I'll Tell You Some Stories About Them

Every animal has a distinct character. 1-cent-big fish, a bird, a cat, a dog. Their personal characters are leveraged with the traits common to their species. In my life, I have raised many types of animals and know what they are like.

Observing animals opens your eyes to their "societies". 

I saw a small green scalaria (an aquarium fish) saving a large black scalaria that was weak and seak from a goldfish that was 5 times larger than the savior. Seeing this incredible rescue made me change my opinion of fish forever. 

I really like quails. These very curious birds are always busy with lots of problems to solve. 

Philipp, Maine Coon Cat Without Psycological Problems

 Filippo is a young cat who spent the first two years of his life in a cage. They rented him to breeders as a breeding stock. He arrived in my house as a fur ball that weighed only 5 kilos. This is the weight of a two-year-old female, not a male. He was so mistreated that he didn't know that it was possible to play, he didn't know how to express his feelings. It made me cry when I watched him.

At first, I didn't know what to do with him. His fur was terrible: just lumps. I was thinking of taking him to the groomer to shave him. But the groomer was not working in that period. Maybe on vacation. Then I slowly started combing him, tearing out all that dead hair.

Within a week or two he had become more relaxed. Now it was time to bring him back. I don't like cats unless they're red. But this poor creature who had now become alive... It was so painful to think that he had to go back to the cage... And I decided to leave him with us.

The New Maine Coon Male Will Arrive Soon In Our Family

 This is Henri Le Grand, a 3 month Maine Coon kitten. The breeder has to vaccinate him the second time and he will be ready to leave his mum. By law, in Italy, cats can leave the cattery from three months of age. 

In fact, I believe that the right age for Maine Coons is 4 months because they are later in their growth and maturation. Our Philipp, who by all Maine Coon standards should already be an adult at 4 years, is still a kitten due to his behavior.

Maine Coon cats are like the gentle giants of the feline world, known for their large size, friendly personalities, and striking appearance. These majestic creatures have tufted ears, bushy tails, and a thick, water-repellent coat that comes in a variety of colors and patterns. They are one of the largest domesticated cat breeds, with males often weighing up to 18 pounds or more.

One of the most endearing traits of Maine Coons is their friendly and sociable nature. They are often referred to as "dog-like" because they enjoy the company of their human companions and are known to be loyal and affectionate. 

Maine Coons are also intelligent and playful, often engaging in games of fetch or showing off their acrobatic skills by leaping to impressive heights. Whether they are lounging on the couch or chasing after a toy, these gentle giants never fail to capture the hearts of those around them both humans and animals.

I believe that our Henri Le Grand will soon come to us.

When I got Timur, his breeder warned me that these cats are addictive: You need to buy more and more of them 🙂 🙂

I understand that I shouldn't do this, but I'm happy that there will be a new naughty one in the house. He will keep Filipp company who cannot convince the now old females to play with him.

He's grown, the baby, since I visited him

Maine Coon Cat Rivalry in the Family

Maine Coon cats are known for their large size, friendly nature, and playful demeanor. However, what happens when two Maine Coon cats are brought into the same household? I will tell about the rivalry between Maine Coon cats in a family setting. 

Normally, Maine Coons are very friendly when living with all other species of pets. The kittens from my cattery coexist with literally every species of pet, even budgerigars. In my example, you can see what happens when Maine Coons want to achieve something.

I present to you the two of three Maine Coon females who live in my home. One (from behind) is Hestia. She is 10 years old, and she has been living with me since the age of 4 months. She has a calm and balanced character and usually doesn't question anything, even if she is capable of giving a slap if disturbed too much. 

The other is Mefiti. Mefiti is very young, she is only 6 years old, but she is much bigger: she weighs 8 kilos while Hestia weighs less than 6. She came to me when she was 8 months old. Mefiti is combative and normally defends what she wants. Mefiti is very much a creature of habit: she has favorite places near me. She feels safer and protected. Always staying in the same place makes her feel comfortable in her life. I am her power bank. 

I don't know why the other cats sometimes try to take her place. In this case, she doesn't fight but leaves.

In this case, Mefiti was lying next to me, but there was some space left. Hestia came and got in the middle of the free space. She wants to be close to me too. First Hestia looks at Mefiti and as you can see, Mefiti had a face and ears that are not happy. But she did not move. Hestia slipped in behind me without caring about Mefiti's emotions. Mefiti, disturbed, left. 

Look at this cunning face of Hestia!

Here are some tips for managing and minimizing any potential conflicts that may arise:

1. Provide separate resources: 

Ensure that each Maine Coon cat has their own food and water bowls, litter box, scratching posts, and sleeping areas. This will help prevent competition and territorial disputes over shared resources. 

2. Play and exercise: 

Engage both Maine Coon cats in interactive play sessions and provide opportunities for exercise to help release pent-up energy and reduce tension between them.

3. Supervise interactions: 

Monitor the interactions between the Maine Coon cats closely, especially during the initial introduction period. Step in if you notice any signs of aggression or tension and redirect their focus with toys or treats.

4. Create safe spaces: 

Set up hiding spots, elevated perches, and cozy retreats where each Maine Coon cat can escape if they need some alone time or want to avoid conflict with the other cat.

5. Positive reinforcement: 

Reward good behavior and interactions between the Maine Coon cats with treats, praise, and affection. Encourage peaceful coexistence by reinforcing positive interactions.

It all depends on the behavior of the owner. Be careful not to favor one of the animals, try to be equal with all. And scold them as you would scold your own children if necessary. Maine Cons are extremely intelligent and will understand everything you want from them (although perhaps as cats they won't show they do)

There is nothing good in the rivalry of the pets in the house. You can help manage and minimize potential conflicts between Maine Coon cats in your family, fostering a harmonious and peaceful coexistence between your feline companions. 

 

Mefiti is Not Well. Cat Abscess

My poor little girl is not well: she has a very large abscess under her jaw. The cat bit her and the wound became inflamed. I noticed that she behaved badly when the abscess was already the size of an egg. In a few days, the 8-kg cat has become like a feather: 5 kg. At the beginning of the week I was so happy after weighing her - and suddenly such a drastic change!

The worst part of these sad events is that they usually happen, at least in my house, on Saturday evening. When everything is already closed or is about to close. Unfortunately for me, I don't have any medicine at home to survive until Monday. And the pharmacies close in an hour. 

Luckily I have a friend who is a pharmacist. But she's too far away, in a little village up in the mountains. At this point, I've already lost my mind, I call her and ask her to wait until I come and prepare an antibiotic for me just to survive until Monday. 

Imagine that I, who normally don't leave the house when it's dark because I prefer not to drive at night, run there, driving an hour along the mountain roads where not all Formula 1 drivers would be able to hold on, and then even back to buy a medicine for a cat...

Unfortunately, the sad part didn't end there. Monday morning I called our really good vet, but he has an operation and can't answer. At this point, I took her to a vet I had already thought about before. Because my vet is a little complicated I was thinking of changing him and so I knew about this other.

Luckily she accepted us and when we arrived, she cleaned the wound (the abscess had opened). And nothing. That's all. 

I didn't say anything because I believed that a vet knew what she was doing. But in the evening the cat feels sick. Nothing to do, I call our vet and this time I go to him urgently immediately.

Abscess is very dangerous. A cat can die immediately. And already the first vet had to give her an antibiotic... Fortunately, our vet, although a bit complicated as a person, is very experienced. 

Today my beautiful kitten is fine. The wound is almost healed, there is no more fever. Although she is still a little sad, she eats and walks. 

I am happy.

 

Paradise of Reds - Our Maine Coon Kittens Are On Sale

Here we are: our babies arrived at one month of age, and now I have to think about their new life in other families. Now, I can tell you about their colors. Imagine that we have:

red solid (one female)
red with white (one female and 6 males)
red silver with white (one female and 1 male)
cream solid (one female)
cream with white (one male)

I wanted to show you all the kittens but they do not want to pose. Here are three of them.
I have to say you that they are surely the great joy of my life - specially because there are so many... too many bad moments. So many that I don't want to think about it.

Well, I'll try to show you all our family in short time. See you later.

Our New Maine Coon Family

Maine Coon cats are really my love now. I adore them even if it's completely different experience as with the dogs. In the year I do not write here because for different reasons and because it's much more quickly to post one or more photos in Facebook the situation in our "farm" changed completely. Now, I have parrots, my husband grows mandarina and carolina ducks. And, we have, as said, 2 females and one male Maine Coon. We would like to buy one more female, more white as our Estia, and, I would like to have tiger-color Coon. But it's a dream for today. In autumn we, maybe, will have kittens. If everything is good.

So, now I want to present you my Maine Coon Cats.
We have 1 year and 2 month old male Timur. You have just read about him here.
Timur is my great love. He has excellent character but sometimes wants to show me that HE is the master of this house.

Two females are completely different even if they are sisters. I gave them the names of pagan deities - one, Estia, the Deity of the hearts. She lives in her own world but have always stay not far from me. If she does not see me for some time, she begins to cry and looks for me. Every night she comes to me, makes me massage and than goes to sleep.

The other our Maine Coon female is something terrible. Her name is Furrina - it was one of the most anitque Roman deities, the Deity of the Water, of the sources etc. There is not one incident that she did not find. Now she is jumping on the bookshelf and from there on the bed. She can't stay one minute in one place. She is a mountain brook.

If you want to become our FB friend, www.facebook.com/groups/1438275146405327/, we will be very happy to have you with us. Don't worry, if I'll will know you are english speacking, I'll write in English for you. :-)))

And now, we wish you good night

Bianca Begins to Fly!

This one is the new fiance of Perla (behind her). I bought her on Feb.10 and they were in the cage till some days ago. Now, since Caruso became too aggressive I decided to change the couples: Caruso with Cannella  live now in this little aviary and Perla con Bianca (I decided to call her so for her white color) went in the great aviary. I was sure, the situation will be normal because she is still little and does not think about the family.

Everything was all right with the exception that she was all time walking on the floor of the aviary. With my great surprise I understood: she does not know to fly... Terrible! Probably, she lived all her life in a little cage... And if she does not fly, she will not eat. She is so little and fragile - she will die.

I tried to teach her... But she seemed to have even not all feathers. I was desperate. I have not an other cage  for her. And I wanted to see her flying with the other birds. But what can I do? In the evening I've seen her sitting on one of the branches. Oooo!!!! Great! I cried.

Today, I've seen her flying. Not very sure flight but she was flying! It was so beautiful!

How to Make Impression on a Female

Love... You can feel it everywhere in air if you go to visit our ducks. In my previous posts about our Mandarina Ducks, I just wrote that we have 3 males and 3 females. Well, 2 and 2 Mandarina and 1 and 1 Carolina. The Carolina are just a very in love couple, they are always together and even the young Mandarina could not break their relation.

Now, the end of the story about the Mandarina ducks.

The problem was that the Mandarina females both wanted the same male and did not want to know anything about the young we took for them at the place of the old male whom both females did not want at all.

The most bad thing was that the male, prefered the female of the old duck, flirted with the young female as soon as she looked at the new male. We did not know what to do with them.

But the young male was very decided. About a week ago the battles began. It was something incredible. They run and hit themselves for 3 or 4 days. They did not provoke wounds since they used wings and beaks to hit and jumped one on the other. But I was worried, one of them becomes exhousted and the other will drown him. The new, younger male, seemed to be more powerful than the other.

Interesting is that the females rushed between them to divide them. The young female began to follow him after the first day of the battles but he was not convinced of her love...

So, 3 or 4 days after, we decided to put the old couple in an other open-air cage. But when we came there... everything was finished: there were 3 couples near the pond. And the battles finished.

Don Juan remained with the old female and passes all the days to tell her how much he loves her...

And the young male conquered the young female. I do not have the foto because it's raining but as soon as the weather will change, I'll show you the new couple.
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Stray Cat Basja in Winter

Life in winter is too difficult - even if it's winter in south of Italy. November is very rainy and the high humidity  is the best condition for every kind of diseases. That is why the stray cat Basja lives in this period in the best place she finds in her territory - and this place, you can imagine, is the pillow on the stool in front of the fire.

It's not so easy to protect the stool because these humans want to sit there, too. But generally it's enough to put on the claws in their backsides to make them change the idea. After it, the life becomes relatively calm.

The next problem is to wake them up at 2 or 4 o'clock to open the door when the poor stray cat does not want to sleep more and has to go out. There are different possibilities but normally the jumping in the bed from one to other helps them to understand the message.

Next problem to solve is the breakfast. Basja knows the hour of it very well, but they do not want to think about the necessities of the poor stray cat. Here you can nothing to do: they continue to eat and even the presence and the disapproval in the eyes can't help. So Basja limits herself disturbing them to eat.

You can understand that the very clever cat has to be ingenious and find innovative solutions for every situation. At the end, the cunning feline has always what she wants.

Love is a Strange Thing for Animals, too

When I told you the Love Story of our Mandarina ducks, I could not even imagine how the things can change drastically in only two days.

Our ducks live in the great open-air cage with my dear pond all destroyed now.

It's a nice place for ducks. They have enough water for all and they can graze all day long. They love the soft grass I seeded there in September.

Everything could be so nice but... the young duck does not love the old female and courts the young female. The old female does not want her first mate and sits alone. Her old friend ( really too old maybe?) is alown, too. Don Juan chants for his new flame and does not even look at the old female...

Oh my god, what have we do with them???

My Parrots - New Couples from Ornithological Show of Reggio Emilia

This year finishes with the many new birds in our "family". We had many different species this year but they were not very good for the breeding because they were very difficult to grow up and the mortality was impressive. It was very shocking for me. I do not breed them for money but I see sentient beings for me. The terrible deaths I had powerless observe all the summer were too hard experience for me. No, there is nothing good in it.

In the autumn, I suddenly bought 2 Cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus)
One of them, too clever, observed our behavior for some days than flow away in a moment of distraction of my husband. The second, in 2 weeks he was alone, became depressed, began to lose feathers... He is too young. So it was nothing to do, I had to buy a friend for him.

I found 2 little Cockatiels in one shop and bought one of them. In the moment I took my new Cockatiel from there, he greeted so touching the brother (it's very probably they are brothers)... The first was content to have a friend but it seemed to me, there was not great friendship between them. One day I passed near the same shop and saw the second Cockatiel still there very upset. So, I bought him, too. Now, we had 3 Cockatiels but they were not very good friends.

In the same period, I bought an adult couple of Rosellas. Both, rosellas and Cockatiels are parrots from Australia. Rosellas did not want to know anything about the Cockatiels, and even in the period when the first was allown, they never wanted even near him.

Some days ago, we visited the Ornithological Show in Reggio Emilia, one of the most important in Italy. I went there with the clear idea to ask those bird lovers who are my Cockatiels and to buy couples for those who need them. I took many shots of my Cockatiels on  my cell for it.

It was something incredible: so many persons were there in the show rooms.

But there were not so many species of birds as I imagined to see there. I thought, there will be great variety of exotic birds. I could not go from there without some big (not very big, middle) parrots and purchased two adult couples: Cloncurry Parrot (Barnardius zonarius macgillivrayi)

and Mallee Ringneck (Barnardius barnardi)

Both are The Australian Ringnecks (Barnardius zonarius) and seem to be from the same family as the Rosellas. I did not know it, but in any case, I like them for their beautiful colors very much.

I found one friend for my Cockatiels, too, and now they are 4. The good notice is that the first of them, that depressed, loved the new arrival in the same moment and now they are the best friends ever. All of them are happy and I can sleep happily, too.

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My Parrots: the Eastern Rosella and the Cockatiel

Many years ago, I had budgerigars that lived free in our flat. They were incredibly clever and sly. They had a cage, nice and big enough to live happy there, but the female learnd to open that cage and they were flying in the room every day when I turned home from work. So, they began their life out of the cage.

I could tell you infinite stories about them, and you would surely understand the reason I like them so much.

In the years I live here, in Italy, I asked some times my husband to buy parrots. But I've seen them as the birds that have to live in the house and we have not the possibility to have animals in the house.

In the last period, I changed the idea and understood, it's possible to make them live in the henhouse, with other birds. So, when we went in a bird breeding, I bought two couples of parrots: the Eastern Rosella and the Cockatiel

Here you can see some photos I took the first day they lived here. Both rosella are very beautiful. The most beautiful I've seen in internet.

We leaved them in the part where quails and pheasants live. This part is divided in two. fter two days, the two couples of parrots live in different parts of this "habitat": the Cockatiels with the pheasants, the Rosella -with quails.

I come to visit them different times a day and the Cockatiels that are young seem to accept just my presence. The rosella which are adult do not feel good when I am there. But they chant! You know, they chant so nice! Probably, they wanted to know if other rosella live in this part of the world?

Very Hot Morning...

If you think about all the activities that are possible to undertake in the hot hot morning, you probably have to consult Basja. She is great specialist in the field of hot morning time organization.

The secret of a happy morning is the full stomach.

The only problem is to enter the house (since Basja is a stray cat). But when one of the humans has to go to work at 5 am, everything becomes easy: enter the house and wake up the other human who still sleeps in the bed. 2-3 jumps on her back -and she stands up to add food in the plate.

Than, it's necessary to open the door to go out. It's too hot in the house. Only repeat jumping on the back - and the door is open. Now, good morning!

How to Raise Game Birds

Game birds are difficult to raise without experience, I have to say you. My husband, how goes in for birds generally but never had game birds before, decided to try with them this year. He bought different kinds of birds in winter beginning with quails -casually, and now we have something terrible: birds, birds and birds in every corner since they do not want to live together with those they do not know.

Everything is relatively easy with mini-hens that we have now, too. There are not great differences between big, normal and little hen's chickens growing. The only problem we have now with one of very little of them is that it doesn't want to eat anything except boiled eggs.

Game birds are different. Some of them are too little, others born with something wrong. One is born today with legs that it can't take together. Probably it is destined to die. We had just one birdy with the legs this way...

Others, rock partridges, are hooligans. But they lived in peace with the chickens they were born the same period. We had to separate them because the chickens are just walking in the garden but the rock partridges fly away even if they turn than back to the chickens. But cats etc. can catch them.

The best are surely pheasants. Calm and friendly with everybody, even with the newborns.