I have been having difficulty sorting out oscar's diet. He's a nine year old burmese who has lived with me for 4.5 months. He was prone to diahreha and overly soft stools. At first I thought that this was due to trying to reduce the biscuits he was on which is what he was used to. But recently it just seemed he couldn't tolerate wet cat food (whether it be whiskas, bozita, natures menu, cosma, butchers classic etc). I was also giving him coley daily which I still do.

So I switched him to a sensitive cat food - you can get kattovit or integra sensitive foods at zooplus. Now this seems to work and he doesn't need to have any biscuits any more BUT - his poo now seems too hard!! It's very black and dry. Is this ok or not a good sign? I'm still gving him fish too. I'm not sure what to do here! I seem to be caught between two stools as it were!

I'm going to try adding some cooked turkey mince to his diet assuming he likes it. (He won't eat anything raw.) Apart from this I'm not sure what to do! Any ideas?

I think there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to the consistency of a cat dump.

Unanimously the smell should make ur eyes water and be rather disgusting.

The perfect poo in any creature including us humans is a kind of sausage shape, a wee bit soft but firm enough to pick up with out it losing its shapes or poo articles escaping.

If ur cat seems happy, energetic and well in themselves then I shouldn't worry to much about your cats bottom presents.

Maybe to put your mind at rest take pussy to the vets just for a once over

Well cat poo shouldn't smell that offensive, it depends on what diet they are on.

One of my Raggies has a very dodgey tummy and suffered alot with diarriah.. I now dont feed them any dry food and have them on a raw diet with the odd pouch of high quality, high meat content cat food..

Their poos are smaller, firm and dont smell that bad at all

Ok thanks all. I see how it goes and if I'm worried in due course I'll take him to the vets. He's fine in himself so that's ok. His poos seem to be very smelly whatever consistency they are and whatever his diet is I have to say.

What diet does he have?

Sensitive cat food (wet) plus fish at the moment. He won't eat raw (at all!!) and I'm not keen to persist with that at the moment as I've only just switched him onto the sensitive cat food. As I said in my first post all other wet cat foods from 60/70% meat ones to the 4% ones all gave him a runny tummy.

Mine seem to lay mars bars half their body weight everyday. The size shocks me, I don't even get far enough to worry about colour and softness

I remember when I was a child that dog poo (which you saw a lot more of on pavements etc) dried to a white sausage.

Apparently this was because of the high calcium (bone) content. My grandma used to buy minced horsemeat for the dogs which contained everything!

So I reckon that firm stools which don't smell too much are good.

All poo stinks. Lets face it, poo consists of the junk our body don't need. All mixed together with some stomach juices.

Well it never comes out smelling of roses but some poo's are hell of alot smellier than others..

I am just saying I have noticed a big difference from when they were eating dry food and crappy commercial foods to now eating a a high quality wet food and raw diet... with no dry..
their poo's are much smaller and do not smell any where near as offensive