Hi, Trese-- That was Kell telling me I might be overfeeding Gimpy, which is certainly possible. Because she is nursing, I have been letting her have all the food she will eat--which seems like a lot.

Today, I decided to cut back on her rations--kind of a "tough love". So what happens? Helen says, "I gave Gimpy a banana."

I give up.

--- In raccoonwatchers@ yahoogroups. com, "dawnstuff1998" <DawnStuff@. ..> wrote:
>
> Hi Kell!
>
> Great video. I love watching all of them. What was it that you tossed to Miss Kitty? It looked like a potato chip? Her kits are bigger than Mamasita's, although I think Mama's are fluffier.
>
> In a later post, you or someone, mentioned overfeeding. How much food do you think a mama and four kits should get? Mamasita's babies have started eating the dog food and grapes. Do you know how long they continue to nurse? After she's had her fill she goes up to a dark area, does some grooming then she lays down on a flat ground juniper and nurses the kits. At least that's what I think is going on. I shone a light once to see what they were doing and that's what it looked like, but I didn't want to keep the light on for more than a second so as not to disturb them. She still eats ravenously and her babies are eating more too. They have discovered how yummy the grapes are now and they go nuts over them. All caution goes out the window as far as Mamasita goes and she doesn't care how close her babies get to me when I've got the grapes (which makes me nervous for them to get so close). Mama comes alone sometimes, then later she'll come back with either 2 or all 4 of her kits. They usually come back again later to see if there's more. If there's no food, she (and the kits if they're with her) will all be at the back door scratching on the sliding door. My husband is concerned that she's become too dependent on me for food and they're not learning to forage. Last week I had a scare when she only came by once with 2 kits, and then she never came back to finish the food, and she didn't come back for three days.
>
> ~Trese
>
>
>
>
> --- In raccoonwatchers@ yahoogroups. com, Kelly Stroud <kellskritters@ > wrote:
> >
> > Hey all...
> >
> > I (finally) got a video posted of Miss Kitty and her 3 kits. The video was taken on July 2 and is just shy of 6 minutes long. The kits are now about 10 or 11 weeks old.
> >
> > Enjoy!!
> >
> > http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=-3tNsxT1Imk
> >
> >
> >
> > ~Kell
> >
> > See my raccoon videos!
> >
>