unbelieveably smelly bowels

I need help. One of my two cats seems to have been blessed with irritable bowels. Since he was a kitten he has had loose stools on and off, and at times so stinky the whole apartment wreaks. I had his stool tested for parasites when he was younger and it was negative. We had to put them both on an all chicken and rice diet for weeks. Finally, we started giving him wet and dry cat food again and he was fine for months (a little loose but not so stinky). Now at about 10 months of age his stools are so loose that we can hear his bowels in the litter box and it smells so bad that we have to open a window. We have not changed the food and he has tons of energy as usual. They are also indoor kitties so I don't know what he could have been introduced to. What could this be? More importantly, does anyone know what I can do? It's a small apartment and getting smaller by the poo!

What is he eating??? brand and type ... wet dry mix???

Food has a lot to do with stool consistency. It could be too rich, or just something not agreeing with him. Did it help when you were feeding chicken and rice?

My mother-in-law had a cat with chronic loose stools, very greasy fur, and extremely runny eyes. She switched her to a diet of raw meat, and EVERYTHING cleared up! She's perfect on this raw diet unless she gets into the other cats' food, and once she does you can tell because her problem return almost instantly.

Sharky is the food guru and has great advice when it comes to cat diets.

I feed them both Wysung dry food and a spoonful of PetGuard wet at night. It's hard to tell if it is the food because it is not consistent. I do get a variety of flavors of the canned food maybe certain ones are bothering him. Although, the last 2 weeks we had them on dry only because our refrigerator broke. This was an extremely stinky few weeks. Wysung is supposed to be all natural but maybe it's too rich.
The chicken and rice did work because it they were literally pooing just bland boiled chicken and brown rice. It got rid of the diarrhea but they were most unhappy after a month or more of this. How does the raw diet work exactly? Sharky, sounds like your an expert. Let me know what you think. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks for all the help.

Wysong in many formulas contains CORN , WHeat and SOY in one formula ... those three can cause allergy issues as wheat and soy are tops in cat food allergys ...

Raw is easy if you have a like minded vet to help,,,

Your right! Corn and wheat are both in the dry food. do you have any suggestions for a better dry food? Or do you believe in feeding dry at all? My other cat is an avid eater. I don't know how he would react to no dry throughout the day. Although I do live in a small apartment where there's little room to run and I don't want him to pack on the pounds, so maybe we could go without dry. What do you suggest?

A lot of people here will suggest feeding a diet of grain-free wet food only, like Wellness. It seems to work for everyone else but it didn't work for my cat's particular problem and now she is on a grain-free dry (Orijen - expensive and hard to get, but there are cheaper and easier to get alternatives). Sometimes too much wet food will cause diarrhea.

But the main point is grain-free. You want corn, wheat and soy OUT.
It's in A LOT of so-called "quality foods" like Iams, Eukanuba, and Science Diet. I was feeding all three of these foods at one point and was scratching my head as to why my cat wasn't doing well. Then I found this forum and changed my ways! Now she is thriving. I'm so grateful.

Anyway, Sharky can suggest some good food in your budget. There are many options. Good luck!

Originally Posted by TickyTat

Sometimes too much wet food will cause diarrhea.

Click to expand...

I disagree with this comment. A wet food diet has nothing to do with diarrhea.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I disagree with this comment. A wet food diet has nothing to do with diarrhea.

Click to expand...

I second this. "Junk food" wet foods like some of the friskies, fancy feasts,etc could potentially cause an upset stomach because the ingredients are not very good in most of them (granted- each variety is different- so you really have to read the individual labels).

Good quality wet food on the other hand can be very good for a cat- and reduce a lot of intestional issues such as diarreach- because good quality wets should not contain a lot of the junk in them as some of the other lower quality brands do- and as a result, they will normally cause less stomach upset.

It's all about reading the labels and researching!

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I disagree with this comment. A wet food diet has nothing to do with diarrhea.

Click to expand...

ANY change in diet can cause it .... I have Gigi on homemade ... well I ran out and gave her a can of the same basic things as her homemade and have a BIG vet bill and two vets telling me to NEVER do that again...

If worried about canned food being too rich stick to the basic ones ... ie chn , chn liver and rice not chn, beef , cod , rice , wheat

My Bijou used to have SUPER stinky poos. They were so bad that they made me gag. My vet feels that she has allergies. We did homemade food for awhile, but they were still stinky. Right now she's on Natures Variety freeze dried raw, which helped alot. But the thing that finally solved her stinky problem was Seacure. http://www.propernutrition.com/pet.html I really think that she has "leaky gut syndrome". Make sure that you read the article from the Whole dog journal at the bottom of the page. Seacure REALLY has helped Bijou. Her poos are now just slightly smelly, but I'm sure that's because she refuses to bury her poo lol. I hope you get to the bottom this for your kitty.