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).

Da Bird madness - review

Pristine Da Bird!

So we noticed this toy called "Da Bird" whilst watching some "My Cat from Hell", a great show that sometimes rather deserves the name "My humans from hell". The toy is frequently used on the show to activate cats together with Neko Flies different products.
This meant that I poped one down into my online shopping card one day. The toy mimics a bird very accurately when you wave around the very long wand. They cats are supposed to run, jump, catch and ju
st go in to full predator mode when Da Bird fly around in the room. It is indeed very easy to use and does not really require much effort to make it behave like an actual live bird and get your cat going. To get the most out of it you need some space, the wand is pretty long, but the payoff is great and it is surprisingly easy to control.
So what is this Bengalist's verdict of the toy, is it worth the hype?

Well, it lasted... not even a week. 

The Cat's Trapeze finally installed!

The Cat's Trapeze finally installed in
our livingroom!

So today it happened! We finally bolted the Cat's Trapeze bracket to the wall and hung it up!
So far the kittens have been too busy settling in to pay too much attention to it.
It has been a bit of a faff to find a bracket big and sturdy enough to hold it because, this thing is pretty darn heavy actually. We managed to find a bracket on sale that looks nice and works. It sticks out 35cm from the wall and lets the Cat's Trapeze hang completely free. I am not sure if we will stabilize it a bit so it doesn't swing that much since I've heard it can put some cats off using it.
Will get back with a review once it's been hanging for some time! I must say I do like the look of it (especially more than a fun-fur cat tree!!) even though I understand it is not to everyones taste. ;)

Cat Wheel part 2

So with the design ironed out and after many sessions about how to actually go about it, we set out to produce our cat wheel!
If you do not wish to read it all, here is the final result (sort of, my phone died before we bolted the box together completely).

Almost finished kitty wheel!.

The Fuzzies...

Styx all fuzzy!

Skadi with the fuzzies!

So it happened.
Our kittens to be are definitely in the fuzzies at the moment.

Cat Wheel part 1

So we have taken the first few steps to make our cat exercise wheel for our Bengals, Styx and Skadi.

We have had our eyes on a cat wheel for a long time, but they are usually very expensive if bought on amazon (not to mention shipping!) and hardly available at all in Sweden. Since it is a rather big piece of furniture we do not really want it to look too rough. There are plenty of DIY videos on youtube with very simple and functional constructions, along with quite a few very odd ones. I have noticed there is very limited amounts of information about construction of cat wheels, so we will try and do our best to write down exactly what dimensions, wood and construction we use. Our cat wheel will however be made with some quite advanced machinery, however it should be possible to replicate with easier tools.

Our demands on a cat wheel are:

• Safe and functional - meaning a big size to that the cats will not run in the wheel with a bent back, nowhere that the cats can get stuck or hurt themselves and easy to do maintenance on.
• Good design - meaning it will not just be a DIY wheel in a room, but a piece of interesting and modern furniture as well.
• Aesthetically pleasing - meaning it will not look like some happy accident and pile of rubbish, there are plenty of those out there...
• Budget friendly - we do not want to throw money at this wheel since, quite frankly, we do not know if the cats will even enjoy or use it.

Some of the core inspiration for our cat wheel design:

Visit at the breeder!

The kittens are growing, it is now about 6 weeks until we are able to take them home! They are shortly due to go to the vet for their first vaccines round and check up.
We went to visit today and they are absolutely adorable, the whole bunch! Climbing, biting, playing, running around and just being energetic.

Styx and Skadi about 6 weeks old

Kitty food shopping!

Apparently my workplace has a deal with VetZoo.se, a swedish webpage with plenty of quality kitty food, medicine and supplements. We get a whopping 20% discount for a limited period of time, so I have now ordered Orijen Cat & Kitten 18kg dry food, 24×190g Bozita Feline Kitten Tetra wet food, Orijen Cat Tundra treats and Orijen Original Wild Boar Cat treats.

Orijen is a high protein complete high quality food that is highly rated and mostly mentioned as one of the top dry foods out there.

It is going to be interesting to see if our cats take to it.

We also purchased Ever Clean Extra Strength - unscented litter, I've heard different views of it some find it too dusty. We will just have to try it out and see if the cats like it and if it does the trick!

Bengal cats

So why Bengals? What are they? Why do they cost so much? Why are they the "Rolls Royce" of cats?

Bengal facts - sort of

The Cat's Trapeze

Whilst shopping for the Lui Cat Scratcher at Supercat (a Swedish cat store since we do not have amazon here ) something called the cat's trapeze caught my eye. It looks totally different, the more I look at it, the more I like it! So, in the spur of the moment I added a three level the cat's trapeze in natural colour (jute) to the cart, a bit more brown than the picture.

Demo of the Cat's Trapeze, not our kittens

Lui Cat Scratcher

Let's get a few things straight, we do not like the looks and (lack of) design of a lot of the cat furniture out there. Each to their own taste. In our eyes the cat furniture business seem to have gotten stuck in this old design kitty tree with beige or paw printed fun fur. Maybe this is because their clients think that this is how a cat tree "should" look like and thus demand it? Maybe the manufactures want nothing more than to throw out all their bolts of fun fur and start to experiment? Who knows...
There are a few companies that does modern feline furniture but whilst they are usually very appealing to the eye those can cost an arm, a leg and probably your firstborn. Does modern cat furniture have to automatically be a luxury item?

Lui Cat Scratcher

How to pick a kitten?

So we chose a breed, we chose a breeder and now all we had to do was to pick a kitten! Firstly we decided rather quickly that we wanted two kittens from the same litter. Since we want to have social cats they will need company when we are away at work, that was our line of thought at least.

Our two kittens, Skadi and Styx at 4.5 weeks old

How to pick a breeder?

When we finally decided to go for Bengal kittens the next thing was to find a breeder. I can not stress enough how important it is to find a good, knowledgeable and ethical breeder.

Also it is important to get along with the breeder since he or she have a good understanding about the breed and can answer questions that you might have. They should also have plenty of information about the kitten you are interested in. What it's are like, what it eat, what the parents are like, etc. Since Bengals are quite expensive and desirable it also means breeding these cats attracts some people that are just in it for quick profit and with little or no care for the cats.

How to pick a breed?

To pick which breed of cat we should get was not as easy as it might seem, at least not for us. There are many, very beautiful, interesting and social cats that would fit into our lives.

I think it is easy to pick a breed just because you like the look of it, but that is not a correct way of going about it.

Skadi and Styx

Our Bengal blog

This blog is going to be about our pair of Bengal kittens. I say going to be because, at the time of writing, they haven't yet arrived.

The breeder rules here mean that we can't have them until they're at least 12 weeks old, but we've visited them a couple of times and the breeder has been fantastic at keeping us updated!

Mmm, *chew chew chew* Styx in action!