Hi,
I have 2 kitten questions which I'm hoping you lovely people can help me with.
Firstly, and I apologise for the graphicness of this question (), what is the "normal healthy" consistency of kitten poo?
Should it be hard and properly formed or is it normal for it to be very soft?
My 10 week old kitten has had a tummy bug over the last week with diarrheoa about 5 times a day. She has been on anitbiotics which are coming to an end and shes much better.
However her poo is still very soft, not diarrheoa as such but just soft stools, is this normal?

And secondly re quantity of food. How much should a 10 week old kitten be eating per day? She is underweight for her age so I'm letting her eat as much as she wants at the moment - around 150g (1.5 pouches) per day of Royal Canin Recovery wet food. But when I reintroduce her to Felix (as thats what she was used to before getting ill), how much should she be eating?

Thank you!

Re kitten poop, if the vet was certain that it was an infection and if the vet was sure that the type of antibiotics s/he described would fix that problem, then it could simply be that the gut flora needs to be restored. One unfortunate side effect of antibiotics is that the upset that balance of good bacteria in the gut. So, you could ask your vet whether some prokolin or some enterogenic powder would be in order to help adjust that.

Alternatively, your kitty might need another course of antibiotics. Or another type of treatment so best to phone the vet and ask.

Overall, kitten poop should be formed, a good colour and shouldn't smell too much.

Re quantity of food, feed as much as your kitten will eat. Instead of feeding Felix, you could look into feeding some better quality food though.

Hope that helps

Just to add to Hobbs' wonderful advice ... 150g is about half of what I would say a 10 week old can eat, maybe even more (some kittens can eat up to and above 500-600g a day).

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Hi,

Thank you both so much for your advice.
It sounds like there is still something not quite right with her tummy, if its still like that when she finishes the antibiotics I'll take her back. But shes so much better than she was which is lovely to see.
In the meantime I will keep her on the vet recovery diet and just give her as much as she will eat.

How much weight should she be putting on per day / week?
She was underweight to start with but as she was very ill last she lost even more, and now weighs about 550g.
She is starting to put weight on now as shes getting better but how much should I be looking for per day?

Thank you.

Oh crikey, she is pretty underweight. She should ideally weigh about 1kg by now.

For kittens that are underweight, ideally you should expect to see about 20g+ gain per day to catch up. Can you weigh her daily?

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Yes I can, not hugely accurately as I'm using my kitchen scales but I can see whether shes gaining or not.
The other day she had gained 40g, and 20g yesterday, so it looks like shes on the road to recovery.
It was pretty worrying when I was that she'd actually lost weight and not just not gained!

Does the RC recovery come in pouches? How much did your vet suggest you feed her?

They said as much as she will eat but given in small quantities. I have been doing this, and about 1.5 pouches is what shes getting through at the moment. Each pouch is 100g.
Its only in the last 2 days that shes started to feel better and shes much more hungry so hopefully the quantity shes eating will increase too.

Just to clarify hun, are you feeding RC recovery (the stuff for anorexic cats and those recovering from illness/injury) or are you feeding Sensitivity Control?

Sorry, yes its Sensitivity Control, I got confused as the pack it came in said Recovery Pack.
She loves this food so is it ok to keep feeding her as much of that as she wants until shes completely better?