Diarrhea in kitties

My partner and I adopted two beautiful (but tiny) kitties on Friday. The larger of them is 3.4 lbs, but the vet says they're 2 years old. We have two other cats, but these babies were on death row if they didn't get a home right then due to a very long story.

The owner said they had a 'little bit of diarrhea' and hypothesized it was due to low quality food. This was no big deal to us. We set up our home to quarantine the diarrhea babies from the healthy babies.

Well, a little bit of diarrhea was liquid feces so bad that they were having it explode from their little bums while they were halfway in the litter pan! We took the worst affected kitty to the vet immediately (we had just done our Christmas shopping and we won't have more money until my next paycheque, so we could only afford one) and the vet took one look, listened to the history of the kitties (very stressful for them) and said they probably had giardia and/or other intestinal parasites so she wanted to get them on flagyl immediately and not even wait for testing because MALP (the 3.4 lb kitty) was so dehydrated and her diarrhea was so stinky and characteristic of giardia.

She made the decision to dose both kitties (which we are SO thankful for) and sent us home with a topical dewormer (profender which was emodepside/praziquantel). Flagyl (metronidazole) and tylosin tartrate were given to us to be given morning and night and Florentero (a probiotic) was given to us to be given at lunch time.

I'm feeding them chicken and potatoes because I read that this can help with diarrhea. Chicken is skinless and all the fat I can get off is pulled off. I'm using potatoes instead of rice because I read it was an alternative to rice and I wanted to get the extra potassium into them because they were already dehydrated.

Their feces no longer smells so bad that it clears the room every time, but it is still very, very liquid. This is their third day on the medication and, while their energy levels have gone up drastically, I have not seen an improvement in their feces yet. Trouble is, I've never had an animal with intestinal parasites before or giardia or anything, so I'm not sure how long I should let things go without seeing an improvement before I take them back to the vet. MALP and DHD (their names, my partner is a Stargate nerd) have had their energy treble and they're curious and seem happy, their butts are just exploding everywhere!

Should I be seeing improvement yet and what else can I be doing to help them on their road to recovery?

Since you are seeing some improvement in their demeanor and energy level I would give it a couple days ago. It sounds like the medicine is doing something. It was probably just a bad case. Poor kitties. If you are concerned give the vet a call and ask them when you should see improvement. My vet is great about answering questions like that for me. Good luck!

Definitely improvements in energy level and demeanour. They were VERY quiet, sleepy kitties when we got them. Now they're going NUTS NUTS NUTS all over the place chasing bits of paper and they've got VERY loud little voices. The previous owner said they were half-russian blue and half-siamese and I DEFINITELY hear the siamese in them. They've got voices on them like you would not BELIEVE from teeny tiny 3 lb kitties!

lol. That's great! Congrats on your new kitties. I hope they continue to show improvements! They were lucky you found them!

Please tell me the vet puts them at approximately 2 MONTHS and not 2 years. That would fit more with their size and activity level. I would say that if you've not seen improvement in about 3 days on the meds, then a call back to the vet is warranted. Their stools should start firming up within 24-48 hours of being on the metro. Since they are on meds, it's probably safe to start incorporating some regular kitten canned food into their diet.

I'd say something is working since you're seeing their crazy sides come out and they seem to have more energy. Kittens are so much fun!!

No, their teeth put them at 18 months to two years according to the vet. She suspects that their growth has been stunted by poor diet when they WERE babies. I'll start incorporating some soft kitten food in the next 24 hours. I'm really thinking that something is going right with the meds, I just wasn't sure how soon I should expect formed poo. I will say I THINK I'm seeing some firming--their poop doesn't just look like splatter, it's got a sort of ropy shape after it drops out, so I'm hoping this is a good sign.

Those poor babies! To weigh so little and be that old is rough. We adopted Hannah when she was 7 mos old and she only weighed 4 lbs. She was just skin and bones. I can't imagine what your kitties look like.

Sounds like the poop situation is improving. It's probably still soft, but better than exploding all over the place. That is no fun to clean up at all! Been there, done that!

It isn't fun to clean up, but if we can get these babies healthy, then it will, 100%, be worth it. They're always going to be light--they're honestly incredibly super tiny in length, too. I can hold either one of them in just the palms of my hands. They're comparatively the size that my big cat, Leo, was when he was five months old. He now weighs 11 lbs, so he's obviously gotten bigger since.

Am I allowed to post a pic here? I don't see anything in the rules or guidelines that says I can't, so I will and if there's a problem with that, I apologize. I just want to show how tiny they are! Those are my hands in the foreground and my partner's hands on MALP. DHD is the one with her nose by the container of potatoes and chicken. For reference, my partner is 5'3 and wears children's shoes and I'm only 5'4--so our hands are NOT massive.

Originally Posted by Thoenix

Am I allowed to post a pic here?

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Not only are you allowed to, but most people here will end up begging you to every so often

They're beautiful! And bless you for rescuing these little ones. I agree - either call or stop by the vet - first, I think the vet will be thrilled to hear about the increase in energy, and most vets are very happy to provide advice regarding feeding, or if meds need changing, etc. Maybe even drop by with a thank you card - I can tell you really appreciate what the vet did. Doesn't have to be anything big, but vets and their staffs like to hear when things are going well, and who doesn't like to feel appreciated!

Their dehydration is, by the skin-pinch test, totally gone today (they were still a LITTLE slow to retract yesterday, today they're perfect), but their poop is still quite liquid. If we don't see significant improvement in their poop by late this afternoon, we're gonna call the vet and see what she says.

MALP's bum is looking less red and puffy (she had some protrusion), but we haven't actually observed a poop yet today to know how she's doing (we slept in, lol, it's my day off work). DHD spent the morning screaming at a receipt we gave her to play with (she chases it around the floor) as though screaming louder was going to make it do what she wanted.

Gave the vet a call, she said give the meds another 3-4 days to do their job, since her energy levels are okay, then we'll do some tests for pancreitis and stuff.

Originally Posted by rad65

Not only are you allowed to, but most people here will end up begging you to every so often

Click to expand...

It's really a requirement! LOL

I got very excited, to levels I never thought I would before over poop, a little bit ago. My partner was scooping the cat box for the babies and found a SOLIDLY FORMED POOP! I got very, very excited. I don't know which of the two babies it came from, but this is DEFINITELY a start! Silly kitties, make me so worried I call the vet to make sure I shouldn't be worried yet, THEN give me an exciting little present!

We've had formed poops all day today. They're still soft for what I'd like to see in a cat, but between energy level (very high), appetite (not quite as voracious as when it was all going straight through them, but still very healthy) and thew more formed poops, these babies are DEFINITELY on the mend!

Yeah .. doing the poopy dance ( yes it is a real thing)

Hooray!! That's good news!

*sigh*

We've had a bit of a setback. After two days of 'good' poops (still a little soft, but definitely formed) we decided to transition the kitties to rice rather than potatoes for the simple reason that potatoes take longer to make and the rice should do the same thing and they're both very plain and simple.

Within a very short time, MALP's diarrhea was back and worse than it has ever been. DHD was fine, but, apparently, MALP absolutely cannot tolerate rice, at least not right now. We're putting them back on potatoes and hopefully that'll get us back to where we were.

I know - so many times it one step forward, then two back - but, if nothing else, you now have more data....but, yeah, I would have thought nice place rice was a good thing too.

Good luck to you all.

At the very least we know that avoiding grain in her kibbles if/when we transition her to kibble is probably a good idea, at least for now--I was thinking of trying to transition all the cats to a food with a little bit of some kind of grain after reading that grain-free wasn't so good for male cats' urinary health. Now, I think I'll keep them on grain-free kibble and see about adding some wet food to Leo's diet, somehow.