Perplexed.. Hardly no stool in litter boxes (a long post)

Hi all. I've posted recently that I rescued a kitten from the little park beside my house. After a couple of visits to the vet for shots and deworming, turns out that on the last visit (for spaying - as he estimated her to be 5/1 to 6 months old) he noticed she was pregnant. I wrestled with it for a whole weekend, before making the decision to abort the pregnancy. I sill feel a little guilty, but there it is. My main concern was that I have 2 senior cats (around 15 years old) and I would be too overwhelmed. Perhaps it was selfish...anyway enough of the back story.

After Dusky came into our lives, I decided it was a good time to get all my cats on a healthier diet. I talked to my sister who is a vet and has a practice in Portugal and then I avidly read up on nutrition on this forum and others and came to the conclusion that I was doing no service to my two old boys by feeding them dry. (By the way...my sister still disagrees with me. She shares the popular opinion that dry is needed to clean teeth, but that's another story).

I read all the posts (thanks Sharky) and a lot of articles on the Net about it and took the plunge to change to a high quality brand wet with no grain. I choose Wellness Kitten formula for Dusky and Wellness wet for Temper and Polkie.

Within less than 3 weeks I noticed the following:

1) Dusky is a female spayed brown tabby kitten around 7 mths - Dusky's stools went from very soft to normal. I imagine that's because she had been a stray for a little while and she was getting used to the new food. She is doing great now. After the spaying, 3 weeks ago, she has almost doubled her size, she is lean, her coat is amazing and is very alert

2) Temper - is a 14/15 yro neutered male all white cat who tends to shed a lot. He is not a long hair but his fur is very dense and he sheds like crazy especially during spring and summer, which kind of makes sense, but because of self groomming, also means a lot of fur balls even with Petromalt. I've noticed a significant decrease in shedding. He still sheds, but there are no more clumps of white fur on my hardwod floor. The perplexing thing is: his littler box is mostly stool free since i've switched them to the all wet diet

3) Polkie - is a 14/15 yro neutered male white with orange patches cat. He is the alpha cat. He has also always tended to be overweight. His eyes will run alot so I always had to clean goop from his eyes each day. Since the diet switch the biggest change and really noticeable is that his eyes do not run anymore at all. I was bowled over! I figure that he must have been allergic to the food was giving them before. He's also lost a little bit of weight, but I'm not sure if it's because of the low carb/high protein or because he is not eating enough. Because I stopped all dry and therefore free feeding, he is the more finicky. Again, the most perplexing thing is almost no stool in the litter box.

All of them seem to pee up a storm but Polkie and Temper seem to have no great need to poop... They seem great otherwise. Is this normal? Should I introduce some dry back into their diet

My cats stools all dropped back to fewer per day with the change over to high protein no grain. Now, my one cat, currently on a raw diet, only poops once a day if that. I'm not advocating for a raw diet here or anything, but it would seem to me that the effect would be more or less the same if you're feeding high protein no grain wet food, as it would be with him eating raw. Another thing I noticed with his (on the raw) is that his poo rarely smells. The others are on Evo, and theirs is horrible smelling, but, they do it less.

IMO, and someone else may disagree, and to be honest, I'm not an expert on this, but it seems to me that it's probably normal. If they're processing most of the nutrition or products in the wet, then they're not eliminating as much so it makes sense that the amount of poo would drop back. I'd think as long as they are pooing, they don't seem to be having a problem when they're trying to poo, or are pooing, then it's probably okay? I'm sure someone else will be along to advise here.

I also noticed that my cats all eat less (with the exception of Kahn who gobbles down his raw, but then he's also 13 pounds and still a little leaner than I'd prefer).. my overweight cat is eating less, and loosing weight, even though they were free feeding on the dry. In theory, they don't need as much food to meet their protein requirements so they eat less. Iow, from the research I've done, it's all said that cats eat until they get enough protein. So, if you're feeding a high carb/grainy food, they have to eat a lot more calories to get enough of it, and subsequently when they're changed to a high protein no grains diet, they'll often eat less and lose weight because they don't need as much food to get what they need, thereby cutting back the caloric intake. This seems to be true with mine. I've heard other versions with other people's cats, though.

Your overweight kitty is probably losing due to both the reason given above, and the fact that you're no longer free feeding so he doesn't have access to nibble constantly. I also wouldn't be surprised if he's generally more active or starts being more active with the change in food. I've heard that from a number of people (I can't tell with mine, as they're all always bouncing off walls, more or less. The only thing left for mine to do is walk on the ceilings.)

Good luck, and hopefully someone will be along soon.

I agree that they are probably pooping less because of the higher quality food. And the all wet food shouldn't be causing any constipation. But eventually they will need to poop, so just keep an eye on it. If you don't see ANY poop for a day or two, I'd start to worry.

Is their litter box in a place where you can monitor their pooping behavior? If no notice frequent trips to the litter box with no results, I'd worry. But I honestly think they are just going less because of the better food -- less fillers and stuff they don't need. Sounds like they're all doing well on the Wellness!

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying they haven't pooped in 3 weeks???? Surely not??

For the past 4 weeks I have kept a pretty detailed record of my guys poops (no, I'm not weird, there's a reason ) and they have a bm about once every 24 to 36 hrs. I could be wrong but I think that is about the longest they should go without a bm.

I agree. I knew Mitties was constipated when she didn't have a poop for two days. That's when I would begin closely monitoring her and her stools, noticing any strain, and praying for a "log" in the box at night. After 4 days of not pooping, she was absolutely miserable and so clogged up, I had to take her in for 2 enemas.

So, I would closely monitor your boys. Even if they're pooping less, at least they're still pooping.

My story is about the same - we have three cats, two males, and one female.

Because Phoebe was having problems with her ph balance, we took all the cats off of dry completely so Phoebe wouldn't think she was being "left out". (It's just as well they're off dry, anyway.)

They were eating the dry (Natural Balance, Felidae, and Wellness) as a "side-dish", and as a "treat".

Otherwise, they are getting canned meat (Trader Joes, Wellness, and Natural Balance) - a variety of premium canned cat food.

So, now that they're just on the canned food, I'm finding that their BM's aren't as much, or as often - and becoming concerned, so I checked the forum to help me sort things out and not get "crazy".

I know that healthier food produces little waste to dispose of - never-the-less, the idea of them being constipated is disconcerting.

Again, thanks for posting this very timely thread, it helps confirm what I was thinking and I won't "get crazy" - yet.
Gloria