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710 views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  Kate_w92 
#1 ·
Hey all,

This is my first post, I'm looking for a bit of advice from anyone who might have had similar issues!

Three weeks ago me and my partner got a new kitten, she's now 10 weeks old and since getting her shes had problems with diarrhea. We got her from a friend of a friend who's cat accidentally got pregnant and she was trying to rehome the kittens. Whilst with her, all kittens from the litter had been wormed, but they were on adult cat food because it's apparently all they would eat. They also hadn't been vaccinated because vets are only taking in emergencies due to coronavirus, but she'd only been inside with the rest of her litter.

When we took her home we wanted to take her off the adult food right away and onto kitten food, when we did she almost immediately got runny stools, so we went back to her previous adult food with a mix of kitten to try and slowly move her across. It didn't improve so we got advice from the vet who said it could be down to stress of moving, and diet change so to give it a couple of days and get back to them if it hadn't improved.

Nothing improved so went back to the vets who gave her a check up and told us she needs to get off adult food immediately and onto something softer on her belly, plus a probiotic. We put her onto Hill's ID Digestive Care prescription food and a probiotic, both given to us by the vets.

Still no improvement so back to the vets once more! This time they noticed she had a small fever and put her on antibiotics thinking it could be a bacterial infection in her belly, advised us to continue with the probiotic and Hills ID for the next week. Then get back to them if no improvement in 5 days.

We had some success and her morning poo is now firm after two days on antibiotics! But once it comes to lunchtime and evening they go runny again! We've had the exact same thing happen today.

She is full of beans, drinks plenty of water, and has a strong appitite. Since going on the antibiotics she's become even more playful, with lots of zoomies around the living room and gets very vocal when she's hungry! Which makes me think it could be working? I might just be being impatient but it seems odd that we're now getting a mix of wet and hard poo!

Has anyone else had this problem with their kitten and could offer some advice? If there's no improvement by Thursday it's back to the vet to test a faecal sample for any nasties.

Thanks, Kate xx
 
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#2 ·
Hello @Kate_w92 and welcome :)

To firm up your kitten's stools, take her off the cat food for a few days and feed her a bland diet of either home cooked chicken legs or drumsticks or poached white fish. Serve the chicken chopped up with the skin but without the bones. Add plenty of the cooking juices (stock) to her meals for fluids. Same with the fish (if she prefers fish) chopped up with plenty of the cooking juices.

Nothing else except fresh filtered water.

Feed her 4 or 5 small meals a day so her little belly is not overloaded.

She will probably not pass any stools for a few days. When she passes her first formed stool, no runny bits, then start transferring her back to cat food, starting with one teaspoonful on a separate dish next to her dish of chicken.

If her stools remain formed next day increase the cat food a little and reduce the chicken (or fish) by the same amount. Continue with the transfer taking about 3 days in total to complete it.

if the stool becomes runny again, go back a step and reduce the cat food and then increase more slowly.

These are the ingredients of the Hills I/D for cats:

"INGREDIENTS: COMPOSITION: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 25%), derivatives of vegetable origin, fish and fish derivatives, eggs and egg derivatives, various sugars, cereals, vegetable protein extracts, minerals, oils and fats, yeasts.Highly digestible ingredients: Chicken, pork, salmon, wheat flour, pea protein, dried egg"

Note that it contains cereals, wheat flour, pea protein and eggs, and any of those ingredients could be upsetting her sensitive bowel and making her stools runny. .

It could also be the probiotic that's causing the runny poo. Too much at once causes too much disturbance in the bowel flora.

Or it could be the antibiotic itself causing runny poo as a side effect. Which antibiotic is it - Metronidazole?
 
#3 ·
Antibiotics can give them loose stools.

I would leave her food alone tbh as she’s had lots of quick changes from the start which really won’t have helped (changes should be gradual).

As her first poo is normal and she’s bright, lively, eating and drinking I’d leave things the same until the abs are finished then see if things settle after a few days.
 
#4 ·
Hi @chillminx
Thank you for the advice, it's really helpful - we have been debating taking her down to chicken or fish but as @Lurcherlad said she's had a lot of quick changes and don't want to cause any further upset. If we do have to take her back to the vet on Thursday, maybe that's the time to take her down to white fish just incase it is any of those ingredients in the Hills is causing upset.

The probiotic we have is Pro-Kolin, vet advised 1ml twice a day - moring and evening. Didn't realise that could also cause runny poo - maybe it's worth taking that down to just 1ml once a day?

The antibiotics are Synulox - 0.25ml twice a day.

Thanks again for the help,
xx
 
#5 · (Edited)
@Kate_w92

The bland diet (home-cooked chicken or white fish) is a method of resting the bowel, as it slows down peristalsis, so the cat poos less often. It is not intended to address possible allergies to commercial cat food. It is more of a quasi-medical management solution for persistent diarrhoea than a change in diet per se.

I've found quite often that resting the bowel for a few days with this bland diet is enough to get the bowel back on track and working normally again. Sometimes the same food that appeared to be causing the diarrhoea is tolerated after the bowel has been rested.

But as you say she has had a lot of recent sudden changes to her diet, then leave things as they are. My concern was that things might not improve without the bowel being rested.

Pro-kolin is not just an antibiotic, it also contains kaolin, which is binding to the faeces. So it should result in firmer stools.

Synulox is usually well tolerated, though any antibiotic can in theory cause a loose stool because of the changes in the bowel flora.

Synulox is a broad spectrum antibiotic and may not be what is needed for your kitten's specific bowel infection (if she has a bowel infection I mean). If there is an infection the only way to be sure of getting the correct antibiotic would be to have 3 samples from different days, of the kittens stools, tested at the lab.

I hope your kitten is soon better. :)
 
#6 ·
Ah I see, maybe resting her bowel is the best thing to try! Thank you

That's also really handy to know what's in the new meds, and how they work. The vets said they weren't sure what it could be without further testing, so sounds like they were just shooting in the dark with these meds, so to speak. I kinda wish they just asked for faecal testing right away, but now I know!

Thank you again, I hope so too xx
 
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