Hi,

I have two male kittens, aged 13 weeks. One of them has a sensitive stomach and often has diarrhea if you change his diet. Since I am not always home to feed him, this has been a problem as my mum will give him different types of adult cat food, even though I have warned her it will give him the runs.

Two days ago he was fed a completely new type of cat food and the next day, not only did he have diarrhea, but he started vomiting too. It's a brownish-clear liquid with foam on top. I have briefly looked at it and I'm only pretty sure that there aren't any worms, but not 100% sure. He was taken to the vet a couple of weeks ago for his first vaccination and he was de-wormed at that time too. He does seem to be very active when his brother is around, and his bro encourages his to drink water, which is good. He will only eat a tiny amount of food though, probably because he's been vomiting. I am concerned about that.

Today is only the second day he's been throwing up, but I was hoping it would only be a 24 hour thing. Now I'm wondering if it was the food or if could be something more serious. Paying for the vet is going to cripple me a lot financially, but am willing to do that for my little buddy. And constructive advice would greatly be appreciated though!

My first advice would be get him to the vet - young kittens can dehydrate very quickly.

After that, dependent on advice from the vet, it may be an idea to put him on a very bland diet of cooked white fish/chicken for 48 hours. You could add a little cooled boiled water over the fish/chicken to ensure he is getting liquid. You could also add a little boiled rice to the fish/chicken too.

It may be an idea then to keep him to one or just two types of dry kitten food. Usually the kitten dry kibble is smaller than the adult food to make it easier for the kits to eat.

But please do take him along to the vet first.

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Kaz

For kittens, joy is for the asking and smiles are for the giving

Definitely vet visit needed. You need to get his diet sorted fast - and your mum needs to be involved with this, so that she doesn't keep giving him food which makes him ill. Kittens are fragile little things and they go downhill so quickly.

i agree with the posts above looks like you need to go to the vets. keep us posted

after vet - get a receipt to show your mum... maybe if she isn't listening to your 'fussing' maybe she'll listen to a vet bill?

I agree with what everybody else says on here.
An other thing you could do is to feed him separately for the time being.
Or make sure he doesn't eat any other cat food that is left down.

Hope your little one will feel a lot better soon.

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If he weren't so young, you might be able to wait it out, but they can go downhill very very quickly, so I'm afraid a vet visit is your best bet. Maybe you can shame your mother into paying for it

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My babies
Aber, Ragnar, Kelso (the corgi trio), Daisy (our rescue mystery-mix puppy), Ellie, Henry, Gwennie, Jezebel (the kitty quartet), Blake, Chaucer, Molly and Milton (the kittens), and Bingo the African Grey parrot

Over the Bridge:
Pippin: 1/6/08-17/5/11
Freja: 11/8/10-30/10/10
Kirby: 11/8/10-1/11/10

"Praise liberty/The freedom to obey/It's a song that strangles me/Well, don't cross the line" Billie Joe Armstrong

Took him to the vet this afternoon. It's not an infection, thank goodness. The vet said it probably is all the different types of food. He's been given antibiotics and something to harden his stool, plus an electrolyte drink to keep him hydrated. Hopefully he'll feel hungry in the morning. He's got some special recovery food to last him for a couple of days, then he can go back to eating what he's used to

Thanks for the advice. I'll let you all know how he gets on!

Glad it was good news at the vet. Maybe your mum will stop feeding your cats now that it's cost you a vet-visit for one of your boys!