7 month old kitten, on Innova dry.. having diarrhea..

my kitten has been on this diet for a month or two, and i notice soft stool every once in a while, but these last couple days it has been WATERY, and really stinky.. kinda a light brown/orangy color. his appetite is fine, and he is super playful.. doesnt act sick. so i am thinking the only issue there would be is this food. he was dewormed when he was yonger, and also worm tested a little more recently, negative. i just find it hard to believe that such a highly recommended more "natural" food would give him these problems. does anyone else have a similar experience with this food and their cat? i'm going to try and put him on an all can diet for now, to see if they return to normal. he was on kitten proplan canned for a while and had normal stool. but that ends up getting expensive and i have 3 other cats! at his age, can i start giving him friskies canned, adult cat food? or should i keep him on kitten? i dunno what to do... any advice is appreciated!

I don't have much to offer other than switching from Innova to Friskies is a pretty big downgrade.

Recommendation is until they are 12 months old, but if I was in the position and I really needed to I would feed the adult food, but give a can of kitten food to make sure he is still getting some of the nutrition he needs to grow. You could also dry feeding your cats on a schedule.

My kitten had diarrhea issues but I put her on Wellness kitten dry & wet food and have never had a problem since.

Please call your vet to brainstorm ideas.

I'd go back to the canned food. A good food may be expensive, but perhaps you could weigh the cost of quality food vs the cost of health care?

here's a link - re: diarrhea
http://catcaretips.org/your-question...food-diarrhea/

also, catinfo.org is a good resource IMO. The doctor writes the info on that website - and I think I recall her saying that an inexpensive canned food is far better than feeding dry.

It might be that Innova is too rich for your kitten. I haven't purchased Innova since the buyout, so it might be the ingredient change.

I adopted my cat at 5 months and I kept him on kitten food until after he turned 9 months. He's now 10y/o and doing well.

That he isn't acting sick and eats well doesn't mean that there is nothing wrong with him. He could very well have a bacterial infection and everything being normal but the diarrhea. It could of course be the food too but since he has a watery diarrhea now and the diarrhea has gotten successively worse I would definitely take him into the vet for a check-up. At least take a fresh stool sample to the vet and have them test it to check for parasites and bacteria. A bacterial infection can come on on its own so even well cared for indoor cats can have it.

If you want to change his diet I'd change it to something else rather than the Friskies. Trader Joe's canned food is pretty good and very reasonably priced, not much more than Friskies. Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul also makes a canned food that is pretty cheap. My cats eat the dry Chicken Soup and they all do very well on it. It's not top notch food but it is a good food than is affordable to me. They do make a kitten version. If your cat will eat "left overs" of canned food you can also try canned Wellness in their large cans, 12.5 oz, which makes it much cheaper. My cats love the sardines, shrimp and crab recipe.