Mucous, Soft Poop?

[Franklin&Emma]

We rescued an 8 week old kitten a week ago from a not so grear shelter in our area. The shelter gave routine medicine for all sorts of parasites and they didn't mention anything being wrong about her health when we got her. The first few days of having her she threw up anytime she'd eat and she was having diarrhea that was straight liquid. She eventually stopped eating. I tried wet and dry food and nothing helped. The shelter didn't send us home with any food and they didn't contact me back to tell me what brand she was eating while there. She had lost .5 lb so I immediately took her to my vet during the 36 hours of vomiting and diarrhea. This all happened on the 22nd and 23rd of May. The vet had me bring in a stool sample and they said they didn't see anything. They gave her another round of medicine to treat coccidiosis. They also told me they think it could be stress and the drastic change in diet. Her poop did get a little better. It's not liquid anymore but more lands in a pile, almost like the classic Apple poop emoji (gross, sorry). It's definitely still soft and if I try picking it up it squishes really easily in a paper towel and will flatten out. I also find pockets of stringy white mucous in it. The mucous will sometimes have tiny TINY streaks of red blood in it. At least I think it's mucous, I did take pictures but it's a little graphic lol. I saved another sample from today to take with me to the vet. She stopped puking on the 25th and she now eats instinct chicken wet food. I do notice that she is always super eager to eat now and scarfs it down like she's starving. My other concern is that she does bloat a little after eating. And her tummy makes weird gurgling and whistling sounds. But she will burp or after a couple hours, her stomach will go back down. I feed her 150 calories, broken into four meals a day, like my vet told me. She's 2 lbs 1 oz now, so that's good!
My main question is what is her poop is suppose to look like? Is it suppose to be this soft? And I feel it's safe to assume the mucous isn't good. I also am not even entirely sure that it's just mucous I'm seeing. It could be a parasite I suppose but when I squish it in between my (gloved) fingers, it pulls and stretches like mucous. Any thoughts?

 

[FeebysOwner]

I think you are taking the right precaution in having her stool rechecked - but a full fecal PCR would be a lot better and more definitive than the standard fecal smear type testing. It would look for other parasites not necessarily picked up in the basic fecal testing and it would check for various bacterial/viral issues as well.

Mucous and even blood can occur with food changes as well. So, I suspect that might the entire issue with your kitten since she is not vomiting any longer and her stool is at least becoming a bit formed. I am guessing the bloating might also be happening with the food change, as her digestive tract is dealing with this new food. Eating too fast can cause burping and might also be behind the bloating too. As she adapts, the stool should firm up more and the mucous and blood should gradually go away - hopefully so will the bloating and burping! It's only been a week, so it might take some time for her body to completely adapt.

 

[Franklin&Emma]

I think you are taking the right precaution in having her stool rechecked - but a full fecal PCR would be a lot better and more definitive than the standard fecal smear type testing. It would look for other parasites not necessarily picked up in the basic fecal testing and it would check for various bacterial/viral issues as well.

Mucous and even blood can occur with food changes as well. So, I suspect that might the entire issue with your kitten since she is not vomiting any longer and her stool is at least becoming a bit formed. I am guessing the bloating might also be happening with the food change, as her digestive tract is dealing with this new food. Eating too fast can cause burping and might also be behind the bloating too. As she adapts, the stool should firm up more and the mucous and blood should gradually go away - hopefully so will the bloating and burping! It's only been a week, so it might take some time for her body to completely adapt.

UPDATE:
We did 7 days of the medicine. She has been gaining weight great! She is as playful as ever. But today I cleaned out her litter box and found soft poo again. It was squishy and a little runny. It didn't seem mucousy this time. I don't know what's wrong! Not all of her poos will look like this. It'll be two that are flat/a little runny, and then the rest are normal and formed. Any suggestions? I don't like this vet we're going to very much, I might try to find another one.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Having off and on loose stool could be related to what she is eating. Do you give her different foods/treats? If so, check what food/treats you give her against the days/times her stool is looser.

 

[Franklin&Emma]

Having off and on loose stool could be related to what she is eating. Do you give her different foods/treats? If so, check what food/treats you give her against the days/times her stool is looser.

I give her Instinct wet food, chicken pate. And then she also gets blue Buffalo kitten dry food, it's chicken as well. I feel like they're at least top middle of the line brands/quality. But maybe it's still not sitting well with her? I feed her spread out over 4x a day and she gets around 160 calories because of her weight. The runny poo seems to be somewhat random. I might need to just schedule another vet appointment for her, but I don't want to throw a ton of money at figuring this out if it's not anything of concern. I'm not sure what to do!

 

[FeebysOwner]

7 days of what medicine?

 

[Franklin&Emma]

7 days of what medicine?

Metronidazole

 

[FeebysOwner]

That med, strangely enough, can cause diarrhea, but since your kitten's poo is randomly soft I don't know whether it would be behind the loose stool or not. Any chance she is getting occasional treats that might be the culprit - or, randomly getting into stuff that she eats, which she shouldn't?

It could also be that the Metronidazole is working, but perhaps she needs a longer course? At this point, I would call the vet and tell them what is going on, just to see what they think.