Kitten Bowel Problems.

[Rowsdower]

My nearly six month old female was adopted at two months after being spayed. She’s had issues with pooping in her box off and on but recently they’ve become worse. Vet has checked her twice for parasites. She got a clean bill of health, but continues to make odd bowel movements.

Vet has her on science diet kitten wet food and a scoop of science diet kitten dry in the days. She often tries to force bowel movements to no success. Usually she poops a larger pile of formed coils easily. Vet checked her for obstruction and said she’s fine since she’s high energy, has a solid appetite and has no odd health symptoms. Her bowel movements have always been like this.

She often goes next to the box later if she doesn’t have success but recently has been having larger soft piles once a day. Vet said to cut out the dry food but that did nothing. She actually did better on the dry food alone (which I found out is what she ate as a foster cat).

I just tried her on the Dick Van Patten brand Limited Ingredient Diet but she ended up making another large soft pile on the floor.

I’m getting super frustrated since vet wouldn’t recommend another brand and the pooping out of the box is becoming a major problem. She pees there just fine and prior to the past week pooped 80% of the time in it.

Any suggestions on foods/diet choices.

 

[Rowsdower]

Also will add I’ve tried canned pumpkin and probiotics.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

How many litter boxes to you have. Some cats like to pee in one box and poop in a different box. It sounds odd, but that's just how it is. I don't know how many cats you might have either, but the rule of thumb is to have one litter box per cat, plus one additional box.

As far as adding pumpkin and probiotics, if there is something in the food that your little one is intolerant too, I'm guessing they won't help. A limited ingredient food might help, but you need to try one for several weeks, or at least a couple weeks to see a noticeable improvement. Just feeding for one serving I don't think will make that much difference. I'd suggest feeding the limited ingredient food for a couple weeks to see if there is any change. If not, then try adding in pumpkin to THAT food, along with probiotics, but start slowly with the probiotics as sometimes they can cause issues in the beginning.

Also, if he is pooping right next to the litter box and another box doesn't solve the problem, try setting the box on top of puppy pads to at least the clean up will be a breeze.

 

[war&wisdom]

Try something other than Science Diet. Check reviews online -- not a great track record, despite the fact that many vets try to sell it to their clients.

There are many options out there. I've had success with Royal Canin, but it's not a particularly high-quality food. (It's another one that vets often push onto clients, but my kittens have been on it since they were with their foster mom.) If you can afford a better food with fewer fillers, go for it.

Make sure to ease your kitty onto the new food by mixing the two together for a while -- especially the dry.

It can take up to 2 weeks to see real effects from changing food, however, so be patient!

 

[swaters]

We had kittens with similar issues and they are actually about to be off the medication soon. We did numerous tests and finally found that they had bacteria in their stomachs. Like an unholy amount of bacteria...it took 2 months of diarreah, testing, vet visits and different types of food but we figured it out.

They have been on metronidazole for 3 months and it’s finally gotten their poops to normal. It took us three vets to get the combo of food and medication right but it worked almost instantly!

We did dry and wet food, now they have come off the wet food and are on dry.

1. Wet: Brand was Hills science ID (we did the chicken stew because it had some flavor instead of just bland) and Dry: we did royal canine gastrointestinal fiber response. We now mix it with the science diet ID dry because everything is so bland mixing it is almost flavorful haha.
- in the beginning they had us mix 1/4 tsp is benefiber with their food to help with the stools. After two months we stopped and things are perfect stool wise.
2. They get a probiotic either in the food or with some water in a bowl so they can lick it up, they love their probiotic!
3. Metronidazole 2x a day

It took some time but hoping when we take them off the medication everything will be good!

 

[swaters]

Oh! Forgot to mention, the doctor has us change the entire litter box every day. Annoying but it kept bacteria out and enticed them more to go the bathroom in there because it was always super clean! Only 5 scoops of litter in a pan with a liner bag and every morning we got a new bag and filled it.