Cat & kitten care

Useful Information about Burmese cats & Tips on their care.

This page is a bit of an experiment as we have not done it before. There are so many things we use with our cats including the food we give them & the routine we follow etc, etc that we thought it might be worth saying how we do things. There are also some useful ideas included we hope.

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Firstly a few words about Burmese cats. Remember that Burmese are sociable and need company. They assume that they are part of your family and expect to be included in your activities. They will want to be with you and see what you are up to or help with anything you are doing! They hate being left out.

They like cooking, washing-up, watching television and sometimes adjusting it, watching your every move in the bathroom, and rearranging the bedclothes whether you are in it or not.

Their need for company can lead to disaster if they are allowed full freedom. They will readily take lifts from strangers and are therefore easily and frequently stolen. They have no road sense and will sit in front of traffic and expect it to slow down for them or see something interesting on the other side of the road.

Remember these are cats with a mind of their own.

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As there are very good articles on the history of burmese cats both on the Burmese Cat Club & the Burmese Cat Society websites I would direct you to go there to learn about how this lovely breed came to exist.

Nowadays we have Burmese Cats, in this country in these colours: Brown, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac, Red & Cream and then the torties: Brown Tortie, Blue Tortie, Chocolate Tortie & Lilac Tortie.

At Dulcamara Burmese we only ever have Brown, Blue, Chocolate & Lilac. There are examples of these four colours on our website. Our Stud boy is Lilac & our girls are Brown, Chocolate & Lilac. The only good photo of a Blue on this webpage is the one of Dulcie on the page called 'our other cats'. We hope to fill the space in our household for a blue later this year.

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We keep all our cats in a protected environment, either indoors with us or outside in special cat houses, all with thermostatically controlled central heating & large outdoor runs. We find that the cats are happiest with a settled routine. At present most of the cats spend some time with us in our home if only for a few hours each day. They know when they should come in & ask to go out again when the time comes.

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We have any girl who is expecting kittens living in the house with us & then we move into our spare bedroom with her during the last two weeks of pregnancy. This works well for us although it may not do so for other people. After the kittens are born we move back to our room & leave the mother to bond with the babies. For the first few days we check on her occasionally during the night until we are sure she is well settled. We weigh the kittens from birth which of course means they get handled every day. This means that later they are very easy to handle & love being cuddled! We feel this makes for well-adjusted, outgoing kittens.

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One question which is often asked about keeping cats in is how do you stop them from jumping out of the windows.
We have two methods: one is using a frame containing Twillweld wire, which is the wire most often used on cat-house runs, & fixing the frame over the window which you wish to open. You can easily obtain this wire on the web & then all you require is some wood etc, & a good DIY person to make the frame. We have our frame on a hinge & it opens rather like an American fly-screen into the room. Then we use a very firm catch to keep it closed as Burmese are expert escape artists when they want to be.
Our second method which works really well is the use of shutters with adjustable louvres. We have found a very good website where they are very reasonable. We have found them easy to fit.
Here is an example of one.

Above you can see a three month old kitten within a foot or two of open windows (behind the shutters) but absolutely safe!

Here is the link to the company's website.

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We use a variety of foods with our adult cats, both wet & dry. We use mostly Royal Canin or James Wellbeloved dry foods & HiLife or Sheba trays/pouches. The kittens are brought up on dry food, usually Royal Canin Babycat, to start with. We then add wet food when they are a few weeks older. We use good quality commercial food which is designed for kittens but also sometimes fresh food too. We also use pottery dishes for our cat food as they seem to us to work well & are easily cleaned & last for years. They are nice & heavy which means they do not get pushed around the floor either.

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We use specially made nests as beds for our cats made of stuffed fleecy material which can be washed in the washing machine. They are made by a friend of ours & all the money raised by her goes to a particular cat charity called 'Halcyon Cat Haven'. If you wish to know more just email me using the button below & I will give you further details.

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Bear in mind that these ideas are our experiences & other breeders may have very different ideas. It is in the end a question of what works for you.

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