10 mth old cat with toilet/stomach problems

amdublin

Hi,

We have a male kitten (but he is big!), aprox 10 mths old, neutered. Have had him about 2/3 mths now.

His no.2's were always quite smelly and I put it down to him being a big male kitten......would this be correct?

Anyway now, they are Very smelly and also tend to on the icky runny side rather than solid.

Do you think it is his food?

Currently we feed him food from Lidl: Dry food/biscuits (coshida) with a 1/4 of a container (little square tin) of cat food (optica).

Would he be better on dry food only?

Although he doesn't like the dry food on it's own, will only eat it with the cat food mixed in it. But maybe if he has no choice he would eat it?

He is an indoor/outdoor cat - out during the day, in during the evening. Could he have caught a bug of some kind that is causing this?

Any help at all much appreciated!

Plus also anything to make the smell better? We have a big litter tray (with roof etc) but still stinks and needs to be cleaned out immediately when he does his no. 2's.


Any thoughts/suggestions?!

Thanks!
amdublin

star-pants

I know others will come along with better advice, plus i think there's a thread already about this. But most cat owners will recommend wet food, it's not the same with dogs where dry food is better for them. Cats need the moisture. I don't know about the particular brand you're using, you could try changing to a different brand and feed mostly if not all wet food. Also have you wormed him?

comongethappy

Hi OP,

When is the last time your cat was wormed? Is his stomach feel hard and slightly bloated? If so a worming could be in order. Parazole is a good liquid wormer. You just measure the liquid needed for the cats weight and syringe it into it's mouth or mixed into wet food.

I had tried the lidl dry food before, it looked like good quality on the packet, but didn't agree with my cats at all. I think a better dry food may be in order. Personally, if your cat doesn't have any intolorences to wheat, Husse is a very good dry food. You can request a sample on www.husse.ie. If your order is over €25 you get free home delivery. It takes generally around 2 weeks for a pet's stomach to adjust to a change in food, so they can still have the runs during that time.

However, if at 3 weeks your pet still has the runs, it could be a food allergy. Orijen or Acana (brenda's pets in meath has it, or it can be ordered on www.zooplus.ie or www.zooplus.co.uk - sometimes the .co.uk site works out cheaper, compare and contrast) are grain free, high protein foods. I use Orijen, but I plan on trying the Acana to see what it's like as it's slightly less protein and a bit cheaper. I'd say the Lidl wet food would be fine in the small amounts you're talking about - when I ran out of my wet food had bought the Lidl wet before with no side effects.

However, if none of these things work, a trip to the vet is in order as it could have a virus or bacteria causing this. Make sure your cat has access to plenty of fresh water as diahorea can dehydrate them. If the runs are very severe (complete liquid for 3 days or more), take him to the vet straight away.

amdublin

This is brilliant, thank you. I am going to try the worming and a change of food as well.

Thanks a mill!

Sigma Force

I could be wrong but could easily be the food, Lidl and other supermarket brands can be pretty hard on cats stomachs, I can't feed my dogs it they get sick from the stuff. It sounds like your cat needs a higher quality food with less additives etc. It actually doesn't work out too expensive because it's measured.

I used Burns cat food for cats before and it was brilliant I compared it to whiskas and the smell and consistency of the poop was totally different. The Burns had their poops much more solid and although of course there'll always be a smell from poop it wasn't half as bad. Didn't gag with the honk.

Also just in case you do don't give any cows milk to the cat it can also really mess with their stomachs, whiskas or felix cat milk is fine but they don't need it really only as a treat. A high quality dry food will have everything your cat needs just make sure there's plenty of fresh water available at all times.

Once you've switched foods (do it gradually) and if you find there is no improvement then a trip to the vets is in order. Or if the cat appears ill or weak or anything obviously vets is first port of call.

There's other cat foods too as said zooplus have some, your local vets should be supplying one or two of the brands like royal canin etc.