Probably should have posted in "diet & nutrition" but hey ho...poop problem!

**teejay** · 3rd July 2014, 06:46 PM

Hello all

My Neo is now about 8 months old and he is the complete apple of my eye

However, we've had one problem with him since he arrived with us, and that is his stinky, sloppy poop! Sorry, I thought I'd get straight to the point

A bit of background....we collected him from the breeder on the day he turned 6 weeks old, so he must've been weaned at 5 weeks (maybe even younger, who knows). Having only ever had rescued moggies before Neo, I wasn't really sure at what age breeders normally home their kittens, but we now know he should have stayed with his mother for much longer. The breeder was probably the most uncaring, money grabbing, slovenly, dishonourable person I've ever met and she couldn't wait to get shot of him, so too young to leave his mother or not, he was a million times better off coming home to live with us than staying there with the breeder!

I suspect most of his problems are due to his way-too-early weaning. Since day one, he's had incredibly sloppy poop and he often has diarrhoea. Being such a fluff-butt, this causes constant problems with his hygiene and he tends to have his own very unique....erm......aroma! Quite aside from that, obviously there is the concern that there's something wrong with his digestive system.

I've done a bit of on-line research, and it seems that most vets don't really want to explore holistic/dietary treatment for digestive problems; they just stick the cat onto steroids or some other medicine, and I really don't want to go down that route until I've exhausted all other, more moderate and natural approaches.

Let me just say here that Neo is absolutely bursting with health.....he's growing beautifully, he eats like a horse, his coat is thick, shiny and soft, he's friendly, loving, happy, inquisitive, boisterous....all the things a normal 8 month old should be. If he was even slightly ill or appeared not to be his normal self, I'd take him straight to the vet.

So, in order to tackle the poop problem, I've tried to wean him onto a raw-food diet, as I really believe this is more natural for him. However, Neo doesn't seem to agree and isn't really keen on a raw food diet (he only seems to like turkey mince and chicken livers). So, when raw food failed, I tried the next best thing and bought some high meat/poultry tinned and sachet food (Nature's Menu, Applaws, Lily's Kitchen, Animonda Carny, Bozita, etc) and we also replaced Whiskas/Go Cat dried food with high protein, grain-free dried food (as he is very keen on his dry food).

But, despite persevering with one brand of food for weeks at a time, nothing seems to be making a difference. He's still just as sloppy and smelly as he ever was

I started weaning him onto the Bozita 'tetra pak' food yesterday, so it's a bit early yet to know whether it'll make a difference, but he really does like it and licks the bowl clean (which hasn't been the case with some of the other foods we've tried)

I'm really asking for any guidance on how to tackle this problem once and for all......it's not very nice for Neo having to be bathed on a regular basis, and it's not very nice for us having poop smeared over every surface he sits on or brushes up against.....bleurgh! We've even had poop on the walls, about 4ft up.....lord knows how it got up there!

If you all think he should see a vet, then a vet he will see.....but if this problem can be managed by a dietary adjustment, then I'll persevere.

PS - just to complicate matters, I also have another 3 cats:
Gizmo is 14, very old and tatty-looking, thin as a rake but eats like a horse
Socks is 14 also (Gizmo's brother) but he's ageing much more gracefully than Giz - he doesn't look or act his age, bless him.
Missy who is 4 and who is very nervous and skittish (she has to be fed apart from the others as she's easily spooked, especially when she's eating, and she's not a big fan of roughy-toughy Neo either!).

Neo, being the gannet that he is, is always the first with his head in the food bowl - they each have a separate bowl - and he steals the food from the others (he literally barges them out of the way). To make life a bit easier for myself, I've therefore been feeding them all the same diet. The high-protein tinned / sachet food is therefore costing me a small fortune for 4 cats, but it'll be worth it if I can get Neo stabilised.

So....any advice/guidance would be gratefully received.....and I look forward to the day when my house doesn't smell like a big litter tray

Tracey

**jckkerrison** · 4th July 2014, 09:49 AM

Hi Tracey,
Taking it that Neo has been fully wormed especially coming from thet type of background the one thing i would say before trying anything else is to get your vet to have a poo sample sent off & checked especially as he obviously came from a not particular good breeder, worth it to rule out any nasties in his gut .....x

**teejay** · 4th July 2014, 09:28 PM

Hello! Thanks for your reply; yes, he's wormed up to date - vet prescribed wormer. I'll get him to the vet next week, and I'll take a poop sample with me so I can impress the vet by pre-empting him/her!

**jckkerrison** · 4th July 2014, 11:21 PM

I am sure the vet will be very impressed with your forward thinking.....x

**Weasel** · 5th July 2014, 09:16 PM

Just a quick thought - your older cat with the tatty coat, thin but hungry - have you had his thyroid function checked out? Sounds like a perfect description of our old moggy. There are treatments that are useful as a dodgy thyroid can be rather serious.

Our MC Sidney has a very delicate constitution but we have had great success with Orijen dry food. As long as he doesn't have anything else, all us well. A week ago he was making the most dreadful smells... We discovered half a blackbird in the garden shortly after!

**teejay** · 7th July 2014, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Weasel

Just a quick thought - your older cat with the tatty coat, thin but hungry - have you had his thyroid function checked out? Sounds like a perfect description of our old moggy. There are treatments that are useful as a dodgy thyroid can be rather serious.

Our MC Sidney has a very delicate constitution but we have had great success with Orijen dry food. As long as he doesn't have anything else, all us well. A week ago he was making the most dreadful smells... We discovered half a blackbird in the garden shortly after!

Hi there. Actually, I was talking to my friend yesterday about the old tatty boy, Gizmo, and she said her own golden oldie had been diagnosed with thyroid problems causing exactly the same symptoms. So it's off to the vets with Gizzy Whizzy!

**inexcelsis** · 7th July 2014, 02:13 PM

We've experienced similar frustration with Sterling. The first vet gave her a de-wormer, which did nothing. Then they sold us some Hills Science Diet dry food, which did nothing. The next step was £300 worth of allergy tests, so I switched vets to get a second opinion. Right away they took blood for a blood test, gave her an antibiotic and steroids. The steroids did the trick.
I don't love keeping her on pills, but they're just tiny things (and I only give her half of one a day) and she's been so much happier and healthier. There were a couple days where she was just sitting curled up in the corner for hours and I thought she'd died, and not having those worries is so nice. She's a healthy weight, her poos are perfect, and baths are kept to a minimum.

I hope you find a solution you're happy with; it's a very frustrating problem!

**Weasel** · 8th July 2014, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Weasel

Our MC Sidney has a very delicate constitution but we have had great success with Orijen dry food. As long as he doesn't have anything else, all us well. A week ago he was making the most dreadful smells... We discovered half a blackbird in the garden shortly after!

Typical! Armageddon in the litter tray today - I think it was mouse this time. Well, he stuffed a live mouse up my pyjama top at 3.30 am the night before... I sent them both out to "play". Probably a dim thing to do, but, hey, it was the middle of the night and I wasn't thinking straight! Sid came in at 8pm, so I dread to think what he'd done with the mouse in the meantime!

**Alekto** · 9th July 2014, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Weasel

Sid came in at 8pm, so I dread to think what he'd done with the mouse in the meantime!

PLAYED! as instructed! ;-)

**Dizdesigns** · 9th July 2014, 08:45 PM

Hi teejay, poor Neo and poor you. Sound like you have a right dilemma there.

From my knowledge ( having a very mucky Weimaraner once upon a time) I can offer the following advice.

Get to the vet (again) with your poo sample and get them to run a Bacti culture for Salmonella Clostridium Campylobacter, as well as check for parasite burden. However My feeling is you are dealing with a case of inflammatory bowl disease. Then it's about controlling the diet unless you want to go down the steroid route.

When controlling the diet your going to need to separate Neo from the rest of the troops at feeding time. Basically stop him from eating any of their food. I know you've had trouble getting him on to raw food, but it is a really good bet at calming the inflammation down. If you can get hold of natural instincts then try that. As Neo is a bit fussy you'll need to change him over gradually by adding a tea spoon of the new raw food with his current food over the period of one to two weeks. Keep him on pure raw food and don't introduce anything else for two weeks after the cross over period. If the new diet works, you'll be seeing improvements by then.

I have seen this type of treatment work on 5 different breeds of dogs and 4 cats (including my own pets).. Granted, not many, but every time some one has tried it it worked for their pet. The trick is to do it slowly, to stick with it a while during the acclimation period, and to stop access to other food types. Make sure you get a cat approved raw food so you get the correct ratios of meat, bone, offal etc. if you don't want to go down the raw diet then get a grain free high protein food. I hope you and Neo find a solution xx

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