Thread: Recent poops:Not very solid and well formed!

The first week we had Winston his poops were pretty solid and well formed. However over the last week and a half I've noticed they are not as solid as they were at the beginning.
Winston is being fed with royal canine dry food twice a day morning and evening and for lunch he usually gets some wet food.

I have been using Royal Canine and Gold select, the first week I was using more tinned tuna and felt his poops were much better formed.

Anyone have any tips on getting better formed poops and is his diet responsible?
Is there something I should be concerned about?

as far as im aware it shouldn be anything to worry about usually dry fed cats have solid and wet food= not so well formed
if however diareah is present a fish rice chicken diet should sort it out, changing foods or giving anything abnormal can effect their stools but as long as its not runny etc i dont think there would be a problem but im no expert x hth

Ooh, a cat poop discussion--now that is right up our alley! Our daughter claims that we talk about cat poop during dinner virtually every night. We have been through lots of issues since getting kitten 3 mos. ago. From what we can tell, he brought in something and the other 3 cats have gone through a few cycles of diarrhea since then. Not fun. (British spell checker here doesn't know how to *properly* spell diarrhea!!)

The cat's poos definitely vary depending on what they eat and drink. We have one girl who is very sensitive, and we now know a number of foods that give her soft to very soft stools. The girl who eats mainly dry food always has the stiffest stools--often hers ends up as half a dozen or more small pieces. The boys vary depending upon what they have eaten. Generally more canned/wet food leads to softer stools, but there are some dry foods that have given us issues (e.g., too much Science Diet TD wreaks havoc). Cats can have issues with not taking in enough fluids and can develop constipation and even megacolon (Megacolon and Constipation in Cats), so you should not wish for too hard stools. One of our breeders had megacolon develop in a large male MC of hers (cat apparently much prefers dry food so hard to get him to eat wet).

If the kitten seems to feel fine and the stools are just slightly soft rather than liquid then I wouldn't worry (i.e., they have some shape to them rather than being just a puddle in the litter). You could try some other dry food and see if that makes any difference (particularly if the Royal Canin is a higher fat kitten food). One product that seems to really work to help firm up soft stools is FortiFlora. We got it from vet during diarrhea episodes and it firmed up the sensitive female more than she has ever been. The reviews on Amazon are extremely positive. Unfortunately, we have figured out how to get only one of the four cats to just eat it, so have had to syringe it down their throats during diarrhea episodes (but this has brought those to an immediate halt). Vets charge too much for it, but here it is on Amazon: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/FortiFlora-FELINE-Box-gram-packets/dp/B00164YL22/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1265902831&sr=8-2"]Amazon.com: FortiFlora FELINE - Box of 30 (1 gram packets): Home & Garden@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IFIiB2EDL.@@AMEPARAM@@51IFIiB2EDL[/ame]

This is exactly what happened with us. We got Lucius and his poos were fine for the first few days (bearing in mind he came from a raw food feeder and she gave us some raw to bring home with us). We had decided we weren't going to go for the raw food and chose a high meat content processed food (Applaws - 75%) to feed him when the raw ran out and despite working it into the new food gradually, as soon as he was purely on Applaws his poos went very soft and kept sticking to the long fur on his bum. We spoke to our breeder who suggested to keep mixing it with the raw but it didn't change. After a couple of weeks we were pretty stressed, everytime he pooed his lovely furry bum got covered, or he'd step in it, and we'd leap off the sofa to make sure he didn't tread it into the carpet, chasing him with baby wipes, poor mite, or worse taking him straight up for bath time where he would wail with a look of 'why are you doing this to me!'

We decided to go straight back to raw, using a supplier recommended by the breader called Food 4 Cats which I have mentioned before here, and his poos have been perfect ever since! The minor inconvenience of having to pre order his food and not being able to put much for us in our freezer is worth it to not have to worry all the time. His poos also hardly smell at all which is a bonus.

It slightly went wet again a few weeks ago when we changed his dry food (we give him a small amount of biscuits for some crunch) and we were using some Applaws dry which was given to us in our kitten pack, and I hate the smell, it smells like dog food! We now give him Royal Canin Beauty which is duck flavoured and he goes mad for it. After a few days his poos went back to normal, I guess once his tummy was used to it. I would thoroughly recommend that food to anyone, within 7 days his coat became wonderfully glossy and shiny and has stayed like that ever since.

So if you found the non processed food such as the tuna was better, maybe experiment with just giving him real fish and meat for a while. After all, I know if I eat processed food my digestive system can get a bit funny, why not a cat's?

Good luck x

Thank you all for some interesting feedback.
I have gone back to the tuna for the moment and will try and introduce some more raw food if I can.

There is some form to his poops .They are not runny but they are certainly much softer then they were when he arrived!
We have also had the prob of him stepping back into his poo and has had to be showered straight away after. He was not a happy kitty

If foods alone don't do what you want, I really do recommend seeing if your vet or local pet store sells the FortiFlora or a similar probiotics product. You could just get one or two packets to try that way very easily. You could even try a bit of yogurt with live cultures, though we have found the cats will only rarely eat yogurts.

It sounds very unusual for a cat to step in the poo right after going. The only time any of our cats have ever gotten poo on their feet is when they had bad diarrhea and it ran right down the litter onto a foot while they were going. Is your litter box large enough that he can keep from stepping on it? Perhaps he is having problems in part because he has grown and doesn't fit in the same box as well. Our cats all definitely move away from the poo right after going.

Ironicaly I was going to post something very similar this morning. We're going through a 'someone has soft poops' phase.

One of ours, either Loki or Storvenn (trying to find out who) is pooping a semi wet poop (smells as bad as it sounds too...)
We've been trying to get them over to raw from the Food 4 Cats folks, but tuna appears to be the only thing they both love. I think Loki is eating a lot lot less than Storvenn as she doesnt seem to like the raw, although when I come down in the morning there is a lot less raw food left. Of course its hard to know which one of them is eating it,so maybe she is eating some at night.
Currently I cut the meat off the chicken bones and then cook it for her. This seems to be acceptable. Dry food is VERY acceptable too

My plan - keep going. Keep trying to work out which is them has the soft poops by checking litter tray after they have been. Try to find a food which Loki will definately eat raw (looking like Tuna chunks at the moment) and see if that will sort out the issue if it is her, which is very similar to what Irishkitty is doing too.

Not having a problem with them getting it on themselves at all. We have two BIG trays for them which are about 60mm deep in kitty litter.

Originally Posted by IrishKitty

Thank you all for some interesting feedback.
I have gone back to the tuna for the moment and will try and introduce some more raw food if I can.

There is some form to his poops .They are not runny but they are certainly much softer then they were when he arrived!
We have also had the prob of him stepping back into his poo and has had to be showered straight away after. He was not a happy kitty

This is happening with Simba now too. His poos were solid when we got him and now they are soft, just slightly formed and he is stepping back into it a lot.

Did this resolve it's self Dee? I feed Simba a mixture of royal canin kitten (which he was fed on with his breeder) and Applause kitten - both dry. He is also getting Felix as Good as it looks kitten wet pouches 3 x a day. I think it may be this. His breeder gave him this too but she said he didn't eat it much but now he loves it and wolfs it down. I might try giving him tuna or cooked chicken I think. Can't face the raw food but don't mind cooking it for him.

Felix kitten food is not good at all - 4% meat products and the rest is fillers and rubbish to make it up.

The kitten biscuit can also become a bit rich for them too.

I would suggest gradually changing over to an adult biscuit and changing to a better quality wet food such as almo nature or applaws. If you can cut out the biscuit altogether, that would be better as this can cause diarrhoea in cats. James Wellbeloved is quite a good dry biscuit too and this one is complete.

Sometimes it is just a case of swapping about and seeing what suits your cat best.

I would always recommend a raw diet with nothing else but I'm not going to get into that particular discussion again!

I found this link to Lisa A. Pierson Cat info site to be very informative. For some reason the forum scrambles web links. To view the site, type the link into your browser omiting the spaces.

http:// w w w . catinfo . org/

*Roy