Welcome to "The Sprigs!"

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Yesterday, five new kittens arrived at the Kitten Academy, from Animal Outreach Society.  We're referring to their group as "The Sprigs."  They came from a feral mother in a feral cat colony, but have been living indoors for at least a week or two.  Most of them like people and will purr, so they're already better off than our last group of feral kids -- the Spice kittens from earlier this year.  

DJ Made this cheat-sheet out of photos we took at the vet's office.

Ivy's League and the Weathercats in the main room were due for adoption this weekend, but Dusty has come down with a serious upper respiratory infection, and possibly Yale has it already, too.  So Animal Outreach Society has decided they will stay with us an extra two weeks while they get over their colds.  They will be eligible for adoption, and go to the PetSmart in McHenry, on November 26th, instead.

Until then, the new kittens will be staying in the Kitten Academy annex.  We need to keep them separate until we know both groups are very healthy, and given their big difference in size, probably they will need to be separate even if they are healthy.

Here's some intro photos from after their baths:

Parsley - Female

Basil - Male - Blue Collar

Chamomile - Female

Tarragon - Female

Cilantro - Female

As with all the kittens, the Sprigs now have their own pages on the Kitten Weight Spreadsheet, one for the weights, and one for a graph.

Here's all the rest of the photos from yesterday!

 

 

 

100,000!

 

As of about 5:00am November 5th, one hundred thousand of you have subscribed to Kitten Academy on YouTube!  This is amazing!  When we started Kitten Academy in April, we would never have guessed that so many of you would enjoy it so much.  

I've talked a little bit on the stream about having something that we were going to announce when we hit 100,000 subscribers.  So here we are!  Let me start by saying there's nothing we could do that would adequately express how wonderful this milestone is, nor repay you all for your support.  I'd like to have more time to create new things for you, and hopefully in the next few weeks, we'll be able to make some neat new videos as thanks.

What we have for you today, though, is Kitten Academy swag!  We've put up a Zazzle store, with products featuring our logos and designs.  We're really just getting started on it -- we don't yet have a good idea what products to offer or what designs to put on them.  We also have plans to add some fun new designs, beyond what we're offering today.

So, take a moment, think about what Kitten Academy things you'd really like.  Is it a shirt, a pet food bowl, a framed picture?  Zazzle offers a lot of items!  What logo or design, or photograph would go on it?  What words?  How would they be arranged?  If you have an idea that you really think you'd like, email us, tweet us, or even just comment below and we'll make sure it is an option in our Zazzle store.  

If you can't wait, and want to go right ahead and make that thing for yourself, we also are offering the option of downloading our designs and applying them to things anywhere on the internet - or in your house.  If you do make something on your own, please let us know!  We'd love to see photos!  Also, if you want to duplicate the rug that's been seen on the live stream, this is the way to do it.  There's a link to the appropriate vendor on the DIY designs page.

 

Thanks again for all of your support.  We hope we can make this month the best yet!  Don't forget, we're expecting new kittens this week, on or before November 9th!  Also, Ivy is still at the PetSmart in McHenry, IL - and there's an adoption event every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 11am to 2pm.  People from Animal Outreach Society will be there, ready to help you adopt the perfect cat!

Happy Halloween!

All the kittens are out having their spay/neuter today, but we did a little photoshoot with some costumes yesterday.  The kittens will all return this evening.

Ivy is still at PetSmart in McHenry, IL, hoping to be adopted.  

Ivy's Adoption Event, and Upcoming Schedule!

This should be pretty brief; I just want to make sure everyone knows what's going on!  

First, a quick note to our Patreons, if you missed the news, we had to reschedule the Patreon exclusive livestream to 2:30pm Central, Saturday the 29th.  

Tomorrow, October 29th, Ivy will go to the PetSmart in McHenry, IL at 11:00.  There will be people from Animal Outreach Society there hosting an adoption event from 11am-2pm.  After that, they would like Ivy to stay at PetSmart until she is adopted.  However, it seems likely that if she is not adopted by Sunday evening, we will bring her back to the Academy and just have her at PetSmart for the weekends.  Maybe.  We have to work out the details with AOS and PetSmart.

 November 2nd, all six kittens will go to the vet all day for their "Graduation ceremony" (spay/neuter, microchipping, vaccinations, etc).  They will return to the Academy in the evening.

Animal Outreach Society has a lead on five new kittens, which are currently living with their mother in a barn.  They expect these kittens to be weaned and brought to the Kitten Academy on or before November 9th.  The mother is feral and will be spayed and returned to the barn.  The kittens are (naturally) somewhat feral, but reported to be interested in and friendly with humans.

November 12th, all six of the current Kitten Academy kittens will be brought to PetSmart in McHenry, IL, from 11am-2pm, for their own adoption event.

If you want to adopt Ivy or any of her kittens, now is an excellent time to contact Animal Outreach Society in McHenry, IL, with your application!

Ivy's been a wonderful cat, both to her kittens, and to us.  She was a kind mother to her three kittens, and still enjoys visiting with them.  She loves to play, especially with catnip toys, and she also loves vigorous belly rubs.  She likes to sing to her humans with a hearty "MAOOB" while carrying her toys around the house.  And she loves relaxing in a lap while her humans work at the computer.  She's the first Kitten Academy momcat to have her own Twitter account, where she uses her trademark disapproving glare to entertain her followers.  She gets along with other cats and dogs acceptably well.

Here's some of our photos of Ivy over the last few months.  We'll certainly miss having her around!  She'll make an excellent companion to whomever adopts her.

A Little News, a Lot of Photos!

Sorry we haven't done an update in almost two weeks.  We've been pretty busy between integrating the new kittens, working on getting things in place with the new cat run, and all the bits of daily life.  

No news is basically good news, though - everyone has been healthy and happy!  Though Ivy's been a little unwell in the last 12 hours; we're keeping an eye on her and if she's not feeling great again by tomorrow, we'll bring her to a vet.

Animal Outreach Society has scheduled the spay/neuter for all the kittens for November 2nd.  So they'll be out pretty much all day then.  And they are up for adoption with their first showing at PetSmart in McHenry (presumably - we'll update as we get closer to the date) on November 12th.

First, some photos of the Kitten Academy staff cats in the new cat run.  We'll post more about it when it's completely finished, including a bit of a tour.  

And then... all the kitten 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!

We Get By, With a Little Help From Our Friends!

Now for something completely different...

My God!  It's full of videos!

YouTube allows us to create archival dumps of the Live Stream, if we do it within the four-hour window they provide.  Over time, we've accumulated a few of these that we've intended to go back and trim down to just the interesting parts, and then publish them.

The trouble is, for a lot of them, we're not sure why we saved them.  For a couple, we're not even sure that we saved them!  It's possible they are dumps YouTube created, because the stream went down, or just because YouTube wanted to.

This is where we'd like to enlist your help!  Below are links to all the videos in question.  If you care to - no pressure - please view them (or skim them - some of them are VERY long!), then comment on them, on YouTube, with your opinion of whether we should publish them, and if there is anything of particular interest that happens during the videos, exactly what time in the video that thing occurs.

We'll use this information to either publish the videos wholesale, or delete the videos, or cut out clips from the videos and publish those.  Some of these are already labeled with what I think the video is about - but don't take my word for it, and also, be sure to say whether you think we should publish it, if I'm right.  And where to trim it, if you think that's the thing to do.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW_M67o1ofg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaEM-pzbPQk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEP-Rx8PJec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jKcgeAI6Og

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCifMvgpbCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3e5j9nsS-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=metXi-TlT3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL1mbi-E0jU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6mATFma9kI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJ92k3lhLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzTzWWJhbCY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weZZpeCkuH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBNdYklFpk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4HCtO1HEnE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8NKETNSahw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skCF83XRsIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR4MPi1C2wg

Thank you for your help!

 

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.

 

 

Quick Note About the Live Stream

Hey folks.  Let us start with the TL;DR - the livestream is up, it's daytime, and if you are not seeing the stream or you think it's not daytime, you are in the wrong place.  Please try this link:  http://www.youtube.com/c/KittenAcademy/live 

Acro!

The longer story here is that YouTube recently changed how it handles live streams to improve things for the general user.  But it makes things more annoying and difficult for continual, 24/7 live streams like ours.  Now if the stream goes offline at all -- as it did this morning when we had a brief power outage at 2:45am -- when it comes back, it gets a new URL, and has all the likes/dislikes and view counts reset.

Harvey naps in the cheese.

However, YouTube does provide two different ways to configure a stream, and we are hoping that if we use the other way, it will no longer have these issues.  We're running a test of that right now.  The bad news is -- if the test is successful and the other way works, we probably will have to announce another URL change when we switch to that other way.  The good news is, it should hopefully be the very last one ever!

Prisma AI interpretation of the previous photo.

In the meantime, the URL at the beginning of this post should work, and if you ever wonder if it's changed, you can always come to this website, and use the 'Live Stream' menu option (though yes, the embedded version there was wrong for a while this morning -- so sorry!).