Giardia hell, part 2

So, what is Giardia?

It is a small, nasty one-cell parasite (protozoa) that exist on the intestines (intestinum tenue) and the intestinal membrane and thus, the feces.
Statistically, it is more likely that a cat from a pedigree cattery is affected, than a moggie. This due to the higher concentration of cats sharing the same litterbox and living area. The Swedish veterinary institute, SVA, confirms that 10% of all feces they have tested are positive for Giardia. However, they estimate that the actual number of cats with Giardia is greater since not all cats show symptoms. The estimated number is 30% of all pedigree kittens sold could be affected by Giardia. Despite this the knowledge about this parasite remains rather low, so therefore I have tried to write down what I've gathered from the internet and the SVA.

Giardia hell, part 1

Super trooper Styx during Giardia, trying to keep warm 

So, there are a few parasites than can affect your pedigree cat that are tricky to spot, but are more common and spread than you - and probably your veterinary - know.
Giardia is one of those parasites.
So why will I write about this parasite? Because my new pedigree Bengal kittens are affected and I thought I would document some of the journey to recovery.
The short version is that our Bengals got Giardia, in this post I will write the hellish road to get a diagnosis. About the utter helplessness, frustration and anger when you see your loved kitty is unwell and you feel like noone is listening to you.
Be warned - a wall of text is coming up!

Cat food money saving!

Vacuum packed food!

Buying premium cat food can be quite expensive so it is good to get as good of a deal as possible. We feed our kittens Orijen Cat & Kitten dry food and will use it in our example below, but this would be applicable for any brand really.
So how do you save money of cat food?

Super Mario kitty castle!

 
      So, we have recently been a few times to IKEA and thus the IKEA gods have granted us a giant pile of cardboard, just laying around.
This kicked off "Project Kitty castle"!
To make a kitty castle is cheap, simple and the kittens love cardboard by default, it's coded in their DNA, so it will be a guaranteed hit. All you need is:

• Cardboard
• More cardboard  
• Craft glue (Non-toxic!)
• A few craft clamps
• Time

Supercat haul (and reviews)!

ZOMG Haul!

So since our little Da Bird is now no more I had to get online and order some new toys for our feline rascals. I bought:

• two refills for the Da Bird
• one new Da Bird wand with bird
• feather poof for the Da Bird wand
• foil balls
• Nekoflies wand
• Nekoflies catipede
• fish for water play
• two boinks
• travel litterbox (Medium) from Sturdiproducts

Cat Wheel part 3

Finished base for the cat wheel

When the wheel was completed we moved on to the base. This turned out to be a bit more tricky than anticipated. We had planned to use the big wheels we purchased, on the package it said that they had bearings but this turned out to not be true. The wheels were only rubber wheels with a metal cylinder going through them, meaning they didn't run smoothly at all. We had to head out specially and buy some 9 cm diameter inline wheels to use in the brackets.

We made a base out of plywood to attach the wheels on and then just used some scrap pieces of wood to secure the wheel brackets. We drew a center line and then placed the brackets 25cm apart from it on each side. How far apart you place the wheels depend on how high you need the wheel to be. With hindsight I think we could have placed them a bit further apart possibly.

From the start we didn't space the wheels properly and the wheel would scrape the brackets slightly and

Wheel on base with fixed inner rings

the wheel would "glide" around in a horizontal direction, in the end it even derailed. To get around this we fixed the two inner rings with the stapling gun at 10cm from each side, leaving a inner part of 10cm where the middle wheel is placed at the center line. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get this part right and depending on your brackets and wheels used, I'm sure it will be some "trial and error" to get the wheel stable. The wheel between the two inner rings will make sure that the movement in the horizontal direction is controlled and limited.
All that was left now was the box!

Wheel in action!

We had to sand down the joints

The Cat's Trapeze - review

Skadi in The Cat's Trapeze

So the trapeze have now been hanging in our apartment for some time and I feel we can now write an honest review about it.

The kittens did not immediately take to it and it did require a few play sessions to get them interested and up all the way to the top. I have read that some cats to not like the fact that the Cat's Trapeze swings and I was a bit worried it would disturb the kittens, but it have not at all. They do not seem to mind one bit that it moves around, maybe it is because they are kittens or maybe we were just lucky.
So did the play sessions work? Yep. The kittens likes to sleep in the Cat's Trapeze when we are away, play in it and climb it. It seem to become the standard cat tree replacement I hoped it to be (since I do not particularly like standard ones).