Poop Question

[Khrad]

Hi all,
I've been feeding my cats home steam cooked meals (pressure cooker) for about 8 months now and have been thrilled with their overall health but needed some clarification regarding their poop (sorry). My questions are based off the pics from Dr. Piercson's website. The poop on her website is almost like a light cinnamon brown, no odor and firm/soft. Although my kitties poops do not stink, there is still some odor and poop is more like a dark chocolate brown and hard. Is this because I'm partially cooking the meat? Or do I need to adjust the Alnutrin w/eggshell amount? The meat I buy is boneless organic chicken, beef and turkey. And the Alnutrin w/eggshell is the measured packets kind. Anyone else with the same issue? And for those of you that feed homemade raw, how is your cat's poop? Please let me know. TIA!

 

[daftcat75]

Poop is the remains after all the digestibles have been digested and absorbed. Anything that isn't absorbed is what gets excreted. So the quality of the poop will be determined by the digestibility of the food. That will depend on the individual food, the method of preparation, and its digestibility with your individual cats. So yes, it will vary from the pictures provided depending on what meats you're feeding, how you're cooking or not cooking the food, and how well your cat digests and absorbs that food.

My Krista's poops are pretty good on turkey Rad Cat (I have just a little left.) They are darker and smaller than they used to be. They aren't stink-free but the odor is greatly reduced. Now duck is another story. I can't tell if it's the Better In The Raw mix that I add to the duck or the duck protein itself. I am guessing a little of both. With the addition of the duck and Better In the Raw, her poops got bigger and darker. But they are also becoming less frequent. She's becoming an every other day pooper. So that would account for the size. But still, her poops looked better before the duck. I'm thawing a batch of turkey to make her first Better In The Raw turkey, her Rad Cat replacement. I should know in a few days if it's the mix or the duck protein that disturbed her perfect poop rhythm.

But also, I give my cat a soil-based probiotic that looks like dirt. It pretty much is dirt. So that darkens Krista's stools already.

I'd say as long as they aren't overly smelly, greasy, or loose, and your cats are in great health, their poop is probably just fine.

 

[Tobermory]

I grind boneless chicken and turkey to which I add individual supplements using Dr. Pierson’s recipe. And I have a local source for boneless ground rabbit which I also supplement. I don’t cook or bake any of it or the liver.

While my cats’ poop is smaller than when they were on canned food and almost odorless, it’s darker than the photos on Dr. P.’s website. Lily’s is quite a bit darker. She poops every other day (and pees once a day which I can’t understand...I mean, how in the world does she hold it that long?). The other two poop once or twice a day, and it’s darker than the photos but lighter than Lily’s.

Lily’s poops are bigger than the other two. They’re also a bit softer. While she has an average-sized frame, she is big boned. She weighs a pound more than the other two. She’s 10.5 pounds but built like a fireplug with legs like tree trunks.

If you’re following the instructions on the Alnutrin package and your kitties are pooping regularly—whatever regular is for each of them on a homemade diet—I wouldn’t be very concerned about the darker color. Funny you should post this now, though, because I was asking myself the same question a few days ago. Why is my kitties’ poop darker? I just figured different cats, boneless, differences in meat, etc. will yield slightly different...output. They’re healthy, love their food, and seem happy.

 

[daftcat75]

I just noticed that the Better In The Raw mix has 3% ash (basically everything that's not already accounted for, e.g. protein, fat, fiber, carbs, etc.) Krista eats 8 oz a day so about 7 g of that is guaranteed to be poop already. The fiber is 1% so another 2 g. So even before we get into digestibility, she's got 9 g of base poop to add to. If she's becoming an every other day pooper, then that's 18 g. This is significant to me because I can visualize what 18 grams of poop might look like since I portion her food into 19 g "ice" cubes so that three from the freezer thawed under warm water becomes one of her 2 oz meals.

I never thought when I was learning fractions and percentages in school that I would one day be calculating expected cat poop yield.

 

[Tobermory]

base poop

Okay, now I feel like a little kid in elementary school...

 

[daftcat75]

I just looked it up. The Rad Cat has only 1% ash and 0.5% fiber. So RC will produce about 3 g of base poop before we even get into digestibility. Hmm. So I have bigger poops to look forward to regardless of the protein once she’s fully switched over to Better In the Raw.

 

[Tobermory]

So I have bigger poops to look forward to

Don’t tell Krista.

 

[daftcat75]

Don’t tell Krista.

Go ahead and tell Krista! She's stopped pooping. I'm only as concerned as she is right now. Which is not all that much. She's still packing it in so, um, thanks in advance?

 

[Khrad]

Thank you ladies for your input, I feel much better now. I was concerned because I always thought dark hard poops were because of constipation. But I guess every cat is different.

 

[daftcat75]

Not a lady myself but I'll thank Krista for you!

 

[Suru]

I've been wondering about this myself, I've been doing home cooked with some kibble. sometimes when I get lazy and do kibble only my cat gets softer stinkier stools. Also I wonder if there's a difference in stools when feeding raw vs
cooked?

 

[daftcat75]

I've been wondering about this myself, I've been doing home cooked with some kibble. sometimes when I get lazy and do kibble only my cat gets softer stinkier stools. Also I wonder if there's a difference in stools when feeding raw vs
cooked?

Poop is the remains after everything digestible has been absorbed by the body. It stands to reason that if cooking alters that digestibility, then it would also change the poop. Changes in input are generally reflected as changes in the output too.

 

[Suru]

Poop is the remains after everything digestible has been absorbed by the body. It stands to reason that if cooking alters that digestibility, then it would also change the poop. Changes in input are generally reflected as changes in the output too.

does cooking generally improve or decrease digestibility?

 

[daftcat75]

does cooking generally improve or decrease digestibility?

Depends. Some say it decreases digestibility because it kills the enzymes that are naturally within raw meat that assist with digestibility. Others say cooking increases digestibility because it pre-breaks chemical bonds that digestion would break. Cooking tends to destroy vitamins, though, so these have to be added back to cooked foods after cooking. But sometimes raw food has enzymes that impede nutrient absorption as well. Raw egg whites contain an enzyme that breaks down the vitamin thiamin. Cooking the white deactivates this enzyme. Cooking the yolk, which contains thiamin, will destroy the thiamin. So in terms of thiamin, does it make more sense to cook or eat raw? The answer is only feed raw egg yolks to cats or cook the whites.

But until about 100 or so years ago, cats fed themselves. They were all raw foodies.

 

[Khrad]

Not a lady myself but I'll thank Krista for you!

How embarrassing! Sorry about that daftcat75!