Front Page

Friday, April 04, 2008


Where are we?

Cairn Holy
Scotland News: We are finally home. In January Joe and I moved to the southern coast of Scotland on the Soloway Firth - between Gatehouse of Fleet and Newton Stewart. We live in a manor house on an estate owned by the Hannays since the 1500s. Our neighbors raise organic belted Galloways, make brilliant art installations, carry the post, keep the game, are writers and mechanics, those who've retired here from South Africa and those who've been here all their lives. We have decided to stay - whatever it takes, we wish to stay.

Sorry to say that means - we have no plans to have any litters in the US anytime soon. We are in the process of getting all the family ready to come here; Fiona, Bear, Nina and Danny - and Charlie too. Our dearest Muffin will probably stay in the US with one of the kids; she belongs to Oraibi, Danya, and Noah and doesn't need to make the big crossing at 16 to be happy.

As for our cats already in Scotland -- Lili and Oolah had babies in November. All were the most wonderful kittens - I know I always say that. But this time I had several of the kittens for close to 4 months. One was preparing to go to Singapore, another had to be old enough for a rabies vax to go to Fontainebleau France. I've decided never to keep a kitten that long and try to part from them - it's just too hard. Oolah had but one baby born still, but revived by Joe doing mouth to mouth. This is Mo (Joe's very own) and cousin Sweat Pea - who lives in Singapore.

Poor Oolah was confused and her milked dried up right away - so Lili took that one in and raised him as her own. Oolah accepted but was very sad. She went into heat with in days and stayed in heat until we decided to breed her in the new year. Oolah (now Ulla) gave birth to 5 kittens 3 weeks ago. She is so very very happy. This is the story of Ulla's remarkable kittens:

Much News!
Life has thrown us a curve - perhaps a boomerang!
The Amazing Story of Arthur ~ Mokie and Maya!!!

Living in the magical land of southern Scotland on the Soloway Firth, we decide to have Oolah (also known as Ulla Gaelic for hidden Treasure) give birth to one last litter. Then we'd spay her and she'd either return with us and Lili, her mom to the US or stay here with Steve. So Ulla was bred in January to Levi - a wonderful blue Balinese here in the UK. Meanwhile, we've been thinking seriously about staying here - renting a cottage for a year or 2 maybe longer.

On March 10th Ulla gave birth to 5 lovely fluffy Balinese, only 1 girl - 2 lilacs and 3 blue. After a week it became clear that our little lilac girl was losing her coat - she was getting pink and warm to the touch. Full of fear we went to the vets, had scraping and fur samples to check for ringworm, mites, etc. Other causes for feline alopecia were checked: congenital hypotrichosis, allergies, over grooming, nerves? All were coming back negative.

Thing is the kittens were all eating well, getting fat, comfortable -- but by 2 weeks 3 (three) of the 5 kittens were losing all their hair. My vet in the US had a few suggestions, but when they were all exhausted I turned to the internet. I started looking up what gave rise to the hairless breeds. First I read all I could about the Sphynx - eventually I found out about the Peterbald (and the predecessors of the Peterbald - the Don Sphynx). I was struck by the similarity between my little moggies and the Peterbald.

Around 17/18 days the little girl was going through stage 3 - regrowing a very fine pelicule of velor / chamois / moleskin... the 2 boys remained in limbo one completely hairless, the other still losing his coat slowly. We finally began to realize we might have something really special here - possibly a new breed...? And the kittens began to grow on me - like no other. New breed or a fluke in time these babies are very cool. And no matter what they'll be a part of our family forever.

But is it a spontaneous mutant gene? or rare recessive non-autosomal event, needing one chromazone from each parent to present the trait? (I still don't know what I'm talking about). Thing is neither mom or dad has anything close to hairlessness in their backgrounds. Then again maybe that's what happens when you repeatedly breed recessive to recessive -- at some point the natural world says "enough" and the silky soft long haired cat goes bald naked, transforms into a primary original state.

Not knowing how to answer, we've agreed to let the kind scientists of the University of Edinburgh take some samples and perhaps share them with UC Davis Feline Genome project. I'll let them do the pondering, while I set about trying to determine where these little beauties will spend the rest of their days.

I do plan to rebreed Ulla to Levi - to see if the same thing happens again. Or we might breed her mom Lili to Levi to see if we can trace this back a generation. Or we may consider breeding Ulla to Levi's dad? Perhaps a year or 2 from now we'll know more and be breeding the little girl or her brothers. My hope will be to continue in my number one pursuit: well balanced, healthy happy traditional cats, who have terrific personalities and live as long as possible. I figure a hairless oriental breed that created itself is as organic and traditional as it gets. In any case, I won't be manipulating nature or promoting mutations that weren't meant to be.





All this to be continued weekly I plan....