Hi,

We're new on here and apologies for posting a thread that is likely to be very common.

Our 2 kittens are about 4 months old. Hunter eats quite a lot, Hermione not so much - she is much smaller than him.

Anyway, since we got them from the rescue centre 2 weeks ago their digestive systems dont seem to have settled at all. The centre told us they were on whiskas kitten wet and dry so thats what we got. However, they weren't eating that much and as their stools were soft we decided to try the dry only.

Anyway, that didn't seem to help much either and our vet gave us some RC samples which they seemed to like. So, we bought a bag of the RC kitten 36 and mixed it with the Whiskas having read you should introduce slowly.

Still though, Hunter's stools are light brown, very soft and smell a lot.

There are so many different pieces of advice but we'd like to know whether we should try going back to wet, leave things as they are and hope he settles, or try a different make of dry? Or, should he go to the vets?

Any advice greatly appreciated - we want to do the best for them but are concerned that changing food regularly might be making it worse.

Many thanks

Surprised no one has answered you yet. Anyhow, welcome to the PF and congrats on your two rescue kittens!

How often does Hunter poop his loose stool a day? Only once or numerous times during the day?

When you went to the vet, did they suggest that you might just want to feed some plain cooked chicken for a day or two to see whether that settles him down? If he is only pooping once or twice a day, then I would be inclined to try the cooked chicken diet for a day or two. If he is pooping considerably more often than that, than I would take him back for a vet check to discuss diet again and a stool sample.

Oh, had you considered that it was the dry food that was making him runny in the first place and that if perhaps you had just moved him onto wet food completely this might not have occurred? Just a thought but wet food, once his tummy has been sorted, is so much better for them on so many levels.

Hope that helps

We're talking about soft pudding stools here rather than runny?

Agree with Hobbs and what you describe to me in all sounds like a reaction to an ingredient in the foods so far-I'd hazard a guess at grains actually. I'm sure the change in environment isn't helping either.

Firming them up lies entirely in finding and eliminating the allergen(s) that provoke the response in the first place and not by switching to a dry food-a common misconception. Very often grains are the culprit but of course might also be a protein source in food.

For now the chicken for a few days and then a good high meat content wet food like Bozita for example.

Hi,

I had the same problem with Merlin when I got him from the shelter. I think it had to do with the change to a new home and the fact that in my ignorance I quickly changed his food to Sanabelle (which I thought was better), so he had soft stools for a while. I changed him to Royal canin and kept of wet for a few days and things got better. Now his back on wet morning and evening and taste of the wild. Maybe between the change of homes and food it´s the same story for you.

Hello again,

Thank you for your advice.

For a few days Hunter was going once or twice a day. However, over the last couple of days it has been more frequent - three times yesterday morning! Still wolfs his food down and has an appetite but has lost his mojo a bit.

We think it might co-incide with the RC dry food, so we will stop that immediately and I think that a transition to wet food might be a good plan as our primary reason for dry-only has had the complete opposite effect.

As an aside, we noticed a bit of blood on Hermione's bum yesterday after she went to the toilet. She seems ok though and both of them are always using the litter tray, which I see as a good sign as it means they are able to control things a little bit.

The cooked chicken could be on the menu so we'll give that a go. Is it best to buy raw and just cook it ourselves?

Thanks again

Yep, buy raw and cut it up into small cubes then boil it up in a minimum amount of water until cooked (can be left slightly longer to reduce the stock). Once it's cooled the chicken and stock can be transferred into a sealed container and put in the fridge. You could also add a small amount of rice in you wanted, personally I don't.

This should firm the stools up pretty quickly, if it does then once they are solid slowly mix in a small amount wet food (say 25% for the first couple of meals, then 50% for the next meal or two and so on) until they are on fully wet food.

If this doesn't firm them up in say 3 days I would speak to the vet about getting a stool sample sent off.

Hi,

I had exactly the same issue with my 2 wee Ragdolls Indy and Anna, and interestingly around the time they were around 3 - 4 months old also. When we got them they were being fed Whiskas kitten at breeders so we continued to feed them that which they were fine with for the first few weeks. I then tried to slowly introduce some Royal Canin dry as our vet had recommended it but it just ran right through them! Then we tried to put them back onto just the whiskas but that was then running right through them too (sorry bit disgusting I know)

So anyways we were given some probiotic paste and some Royal canin sensitivity control wet food from the vet and they were much better within a couple days. They stayed on that food for a couple of months though because it took a lot of trial and error getting them on a food they were ok on. We have now got them onto High Life kitten wet food and James Wellbeloved kitten dry which their wee tummys seem to be doing good on. But then I stumbled across this place and saw the fab sticky from Hobbs about the wet and dry foods so am now slowing introducing some Grau and Orijen into their diets.

Thanks Hobbs, it's sooooo hard to know what is the best foods to be feeding the little guys as all the best foods seem to be either German or American! Why can't the UK catch up with them!

its great to see that it feeding cats seem to be a process of trial and error to see what suits.

I've bought some chicken today to cook ready for the weekend, but as a little test I bought some encore chicken - good high meat content wet food from sainsburys and as it was a single small tin, i wasn't spending a fortune on something they may not eat.

Needless to say, both Hunter and Hermione loved it, pretty much ate it all and it was so nice to hear the sound of them licking and munching wet food. It even smelt quite nice.

We'll see how the chicken goes over the weekend and will post an update.

We agree with gilldancergirl - Hobbs is a legend for the A-Z food stickies!!

UPDATE:

Encore - loved it last night, seemed much happier kitties.
Boiled Chicken - Ate this morning, Hermione loved the stock, Hunter had great fun eating the chunks - taking a bit, going into reverse and eating it on the floor, then going back for another bit. I'm assuming this is normal?


Both have been to the toilet and the colour and consistency is 100% better. Its amazing the transformation, just stopping the dry.

We are going to give them the chicken again for the rest of today, but then we plan to try and introduce the Tesco Just Nature range before going 'German'. If they are well on the mid-range English stuff, we'll probably stay on that.

Thanks for all the advice. Happy kittens and happy parents.

Check the tesco just nature range for content - I know I was impressed by the PACKAGING but on closer inspection it was as bad as Whiskas (from what I remember) I didn't buy it anyway, so that speaks volumes to me - try Hi-life, Tesco Finest, Natures Menu (though this gave mine very smelly poos, but not all cats get this) and Purely from Pets@Home.