Surprise

2009-04-01 16:15:56.000 – Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern

Kittens!

Recently Marty has been putting on some weight and been increasingly solitary. We thought it was possibly a food allergy. Turns out, Marty has surprised us all with a litter of six kittens. When the Obs got Marty from the Conway Human Society they said they thought he was a male aged about 20 months. After a bit of research I found a study by Welsh and Carmon (2002); renowned veterinarians Dr. Welsh and Professor Carmon found that over 49.64% of Maine Coons are incorrectly identified as being of the opposite sex.

We can’t really figure out who the father is right now, but we have a few guesses. The Mount Washington State Park has two cats which frequent the summit during the winter months. Therefore we can only assume that one of them is the father, and paternity tests are pending.

This means we need help in naming the kittens. We believe five are female and one is male, though we are uncertain (see Welsh and Carmon, 2002). Due to the variety of names the Obs crew will come up with a list of female, male and gender neutral names, and as with the Pet Primary last year there will most likely be some sort of a voting process. Stay tuned.

As for now Marty is resting and her six kittens are being tended to by this week’s volunteer, Tom Showers.

Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern