Kitten Academy's One Year Anniversary!

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Hello, Kitten Academicians!  

Hazel and her Seven Kittens!

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Kitten Academy Live Stream on YouTube!  We started the live stream when our first momcat, Hazel, gave birth to seven beautiful baby kittens.  At the time, we could never have anticipated all the wonderful support and encouragement we've received from all of you!  We'd be fostering kittens no matter what - but it's all of you who make Kitten Academy special.

We didn't plan a party or anything, but once again, all of you have come to the rescue by sending an amazing number of letters!  So our anniversary celebration will be a special mailbag segment, where we read your letters on the live stream.  That will be live at 18:00 KATZ.  I know that's kind of late for our European fans, but it's a regular working day for us during the day, so that's about the earliest we could find enough spare time in the day.  If you can't join us live, we'll be sure to archive the event so you can view it later!

Hazel's Kittens

In addition, Sarah Donner (warning: link contains PG-13 language!) -- friend of the Academy, kitten foster, and woman of many artistic talents -- has generously offered to produce a music video for all of us!  We thought it might be fun to have a little contest - we've got a whole bunch of Sarah Donner CDs and Kitten Academy swag to give away.  So here's what we'll do!  If you have an idea for the music video - any ideas at all for lyrics, themes, video to incorporate, big or small, tweet it at us using the hashtag #donneracademy and if it gets used, we'll send you something!   Exactly what will depend on how many ideas Sarah ends up using.  If we end up with just a few winners, we'll send them a bunch of stuff - if we have a  bunch of winners, then we'll spread the stuff out a little.  And if we have stuff left over, we'll send it to the ideas we liked the most that didn't end up getting used!

Trout Doesn't Like Your Rules!

Here's a couple of rules I think we need to mention to help keep it fair.  Firstly, if more than one person tweets the same idea, then the credit will go to the first!  Secondly, if you don't include the hashtag #donneracademy, it doesn't count.  Next, it would be great if we can private message you on Twitter if you win, so we can ask you for a shipping address.  If you are a winner, we'll tweet you and you can private message us, but if you take too long to respond, we'll probably have to move on.  So enable private messages!

We'll allow entries for the next week - from April 20th through April 27th.  After that, Sarah will work her creative magic with no rush - so it'll be done when it's done!  It could take a while to get it right.  

So, get creative, and tweet at us!  Thank you all so much for helping to make our first year a fantastic experience.  We hope for many more great years, together with all of you!

Fish Photo Shoot!

in , ,

Hello, Kitten Academicians!

We don't need no education!

We've got some photos of the Fish and Angel for you -- some from two weeks ago, and some from last night.  I bet you can tell which are which!  

Before that, though, a moment of news:  Java was picked up at On Angels' Wings today by his adopter.  As he's left the academy before graduation, he's officially our first "drop out!"  A lot of famous people have dropped out and still managed great things, so we hope for the best.  But we'd encourage all of you to stay in school nonetheless!  Don't be a Java!

His adopter will be returning to OAW with him when he's ready to be fixed, so that will be taken care of.  Unfortunately, this adoption was arranged before he came to the Kitten Academy, so it's uncertain whether we'll be able to expect any updates later.

Star's doing very well in her recovery, and we're hopeful that soon we'll feel comfortable letting her spend as much time as she likes with her kittens.  We'd also like to offer her the option of roaming the Academy grounds with the Faculty cats, but we're cautious about introducing too many new and exciting situations while she's convalescing.  

So, that's all the important news - let's get to the photos!

New Arrivals!

First off, thanks to all of you who went through the archival videos in our last blogpost and helped decide what was worth keeping.  We'll be using your suggestions as soon as we have time to go through and edit them!

Now on to the real news - most of you know that Animal Outreach Society sent us three additional kittens to help fill out the class roster until graduation.  They are exactly the same size as Ivy's kids, and so should all graduate together (in a month or so).

They were bottle-raised by their first foster parents, then were taken over by a second foster for a while.  Now they are coming to Kitten Academy to complete their education before adoption.

The new kittens will be living in the Kitten Academy Annex for the first few days, until we're all comfy with each other and sure they are healthy.  Then, probably on Wednesday, they will be brought into the main Kitten Academy room with Ivy's League.

Sorry about the quality of the Live Stream camera that's in the Annex.  We have a replacement coming on Monday - until then, we just have to make do.  [Edit: the camera didn't make it, we pulled one from the main room instead for now.]

Our naming chart for Ivy's kids is pretty far out of date, too, so we're including recent photos of them here with the new kids.

Dusty - Female - Purple Collar

Cloudy - Male - Black Collar with Pawprint Design

Stormy - Male - Green Collar with Pink Design

Cornell - Female - No Collar

Harvard - Male - Red Collar

Yale - Female - No Collar

 

As usual, here's the bonus photos from this first new kitten photoshoot!

Giant Photodump!

Not much news here - Ivy is getting along very well outside of the kitten room lately, and while she's not best friends with any of the Faculty, they do well enough.  

We're still waiting for possible new kittens to turn up via Animal Outreach Society.

In the meantime, we've taken quite a large number of photos in the last few days.  These are a selection of those photos, but not an especially discerning selection, so there may be some varying quality.  Some of these you may have seen already on our Twitter!

Ivy's Moving Out - New Kids Moving In?

Just some quick updates for those of you who don't see us giving them live on the stream!

Harvey in the cheese-house.

Firstly, we think we've solved our technical issues in a very practical way.  We configured a server in another location (Texas, actually) so that it will stream a "Technical Difficulties - Please Stay Tuned" message whenever the stream is down.  The good news is, it works, and probably means that we'll not change URLs or lose our statistics again.  The only bad news is that YouTube is a little sensitive and will put it up even if we only glitch for a second.  I think we can live with that.  Special thanks to viewer Tania, who created the graphic we are using as a placeholder until we can put something more permanent in place.  Tania intended it as a business card, but it's just so cute!

Thanks, Tania!  We love this image!

Secondly, the shelter that is ultimately responsible for these kittens has suggested that we move Ivy out for the next couple of weeks, so that she completely stops nursing and we can have her spayed.  I think that's an idea that Ivy herself would approve -- many of you have seen that she prefers to be out of the room lately, anyhow.  So, it's likely that she will not be coming back to the Kitten Academy room, though you may still see her in our YouTube videos and our Periscope sessions.  The Periscope sessions get announced on Twitter to our Twitter followers, and if you don't follow us there, you should!  It's worth it just for the Periscopes!

Ivy is all too happy to get some peace and quiet away from the kids!

Finally, we've put in a request to Animal Outreach Society for some more kittens that would be of a weight or age that is compatible with Yale, Harvey, and Cornell.  They are going to keep an eye out for us, so we may have some additional kittens joining this session late!

Here's all the photos from the most recent photoshoot, some of which you may have seen already on our Twitter or elsewhere.

 

 

Expense Report and Health Updates

This is going to be another one of those wordy posts, but we'll break it up a bit with some photos.  Those of you who really have to skip straight to the spreadsheet can click here.

Cornell already doesn't think this will be a fun post...

First off, we're glad to report that Yale seems like she's doing just wonderfully.  She's still several ounces behind her siblings in weight, but she's gaining at a very appropriate rate now, and playing, and generally being a healthy kitten!

Yale being playful.  

Ivy had another hair-pulling episode the other day.  She's not doing it very often, but nonetheless, we've arranged for a vet visit for her tomorrow afternoon.  We'll be leaving shortly after 1:00.  The kittens are old enough now to stay home, so it'll be just Ivy going away for the afternoon.

Ivy disapproves.  Of everything.

As you are probably aware,  Kitten Academy is really just a couple of people who foster kittens out of their home.  We're super appreciative of all of your help and contributions.  We think, because so many people have donated and sponsored us on Patreon, that it's about time we start to open the books, so you can know how much money we are spending -- and also how far we are from "breaking even."

Harv is stunned by spreadsheets.

Before we share the (still very incomplete) actual numbers, please allow us a moment to explain them.

The spreadsheet is broken into three sections:  vet bills, food costs, and miscellaneous.  

VET:  This section contains all the vet expenses from Kitten Academy kittens and momcats for this year, to date.  We believe all the vet vists are here, but our records don't always include what each visit was for, so some of the data is empty.  We can say for sure that these bills were entirely for Academy kittens and momcats, and not for faculty, since the faculty goes to a different vet -- Grayslake Animal Hospital.  

FOOD:  Unfortunately, we have not, so far, tracked food costs separately for Kitten Academy expenses and for our own faculty cats.  We don't want to put misleading or incorrect data on the spreadsheet, so this section is mostly empty.  We will start tracking it separately going forward, and fill this out as we go along.  There's a couple of entries here, because we ordered some food off Amazon specifically for Toffee and company.  We previously estimated the food cost minimum at $335/month for a Patreon goal, which is almost certainly low.

MISC:  This section contains the technology that allows us to do the live stream, as well as things like our scales, cat trees, thermometers, and other items that are specifically for Kitten Academy use.  This, too, we've not tracked well.  We started it out with a few things we know, but there's plenty that we've spent that's not accounted for here.  We want to be perfectly clear that these are not items that will be paid for with donations; these are completely our own expenses.  There's a couple good reasons for us to include them, however.

Yale: "Do tell..."

Firstly, we might open up a separate option to donate for infrastructure concerns like this.  If we do, then we need to be able to explain what's being paid for.

Secondly, we've been considering becoming a legitimate non-profit.  So far, it doesn't make sense financially to consult with the required lawyer, accountant, and to pay the filing fees, and so forth.  But there's a chance that in the future, it might.  Once it does, we'll want to be in the habit of tracking these kinds of expenses for the non-profit.

Can has spreadsheet now?

Hopefully that's all the necessary explanation, but please let us know if you have any questions.  You can email us at headmaster@kitten.academy

Click here to access the spreadsheet.  

Bonus Photos:

Today's Photoshoot

First, some quick news to get out of the way.  Everyone seems to be using the litterbox consistently and successfully!  And we've observed Cornell and Harvard both feeding themselves from the food bowls.  We haven't seen Yale doing the same yet -- we'll keep force feeding her to try to keep her weight up in the meantime.  Her limp isn't gone yet, but it does seem like she's improving a lot.

We took some photos of varying quality today.  Here's a gallery of all of them - as usual, you can click to get the fullscreen version.  Also includes a few of the faculty cats!

Adoption Event Photos and News!

A lot of great people showed up at the event and gave a lot of love to the kittens.  And the On Angel's Wings volunteers were especially wonderful, helpful, and attentive.  A few people even told me they had been watching the kittens on our live stream!  

As you probably know, Toffee was adopted yesterday, and today at the event, Cobbler and Poppy were also adopted!  I completely failed in my duties - I was supposed to get an adoption photo for Toffee and I just plain forgot.  But if you want to keep up with how he's fitting in at his new home, you can follow his adopter @ccc_ccc8 on twitter.  Suffice it to say, he's getting plenty of love.

But we do have adoption photos for Cobbler and Poppy!

There were several other On Angel's Wings kittens adopted, too, and a lot of interest in the other Kitten Academy kittens.  Fennel was especially a favorite.  

Before we get to the rest of the photos, some quick news!  Ivy is in the main room now, and we've temporarily placed the cameras around her box.  But we're waiting to see where she decides to settle in, tonight, before we make any serious effort to position the cameras.

Also, Custard came home with us.  We couldn't resist making him a professor!  Pictures to come later!

All the other kittens are at On Angel's Wings in Crystal Lake, just waiting for some loving family to adopt them.  Drop by the store and see them anytime!

Also, we had some bonus photos from the photoshoot on Saturday!  

Eyes Open Photoshoot!

First, some quick mews:  the shelter at On Angel's Wings in Crystal Lake is FULL OF KITTENS.  So full that there's no room for ours.  So, while they have officially graduated, and are available for adoption right now, they will be staying at the Academy for another week.  If you want to adopt one of the older kittens, please apply now.  There's an event next Sunday, Aug 28th at the PetSmart in Crystal Lake, where all our kittens will be making an appearance, whether the shelter has room or not.

Toffee is the only one who has already been adopted.  Shortcake, Cobbler, Custard, Nutmeg, Fennel, Tamarind, Clove, and Poppy are all available! 

Now on to the main event!  We took some photos today of Ivy's kittens, to celebrate the fact they all have their eyes open!