kitten's bad breath

hello! my kitten, the stray I found and have adopted... has horrible bad breath and I am curious as what could cause this, and more so, what can fix this until his next vet visit on 19 October.

It could be anything from the food you're feeding to tartar buildup to some kind of dental problem.  When he goes to vet, ask the vet to do a good check of his mouth & teeth.
 

I thought I would have a look at his teeth to see what is making his breath smell so rotten and I saw on his front bottom k9 (or fang) whatever the name is around the tooth/gum was brown? I tried to see if I could brush it off as it's just around one tooth but was unable to as the kitten wasn't having me brush his teeth.. he doesn't seem as if he's in pain, and he wasn't in pain when I tried to brush his teeth he just wasn't having it... so hopefully it's nothing too serious and waiting until 19 October will be alright..

he is about 16 or 20 weeks old, the vet wasn't too sure if he was 16 or 20 so she just estimated that he is in that range... SO.. he could be still losing his teeth...so now that I've read about that I'm not too worried as before!!

This is so strange, my first cat, which is now 4 years old never seemed this "new" to me when dealing with a kitten, and I've grown up dealing with kittens (though they were mostly outside kittens) and all of this never happened!! Ahh... it's alright though.. I just don't want this little guy to have to suffer or be in pain and he doesn't seem to be... so I will wait until 19 October to get his teeth checked out at his appointment.


His breath didn't smell bad at all when I found him.. it's only developed over the last few days, today especially being the worse in smell, so I don't really blame the food... though I have read it could be due to him losing his teeth or tartar build up--so either way, I still have time before anything gets too bad!!

Has he been de-wormed? Likely it does have to do with teething, but if he hasn't been de-wormed the odor may be caused by parasites.

I'd say it's teething too. Some kitten's breath can smell pretty bad. I give my kitten plastic drinking straws to chew on. They love the texture in their mouths and it keeps them away from your stuff.

yes, his first round of shots had a de-wormer medicine in it so I'm pretty sure he has--on top of some stuff they gave me to put on the back of his neck, etc etc.. but he is playful and fine.. and after posting my concern his breath didn't smell so bad...so I don't know.. I'll just ask in a few weeks when he goes in for the rest of his vaccines...I'm pretty sure he's teething coz he enjoys chewing on things... he's not really into chewing on straws tho :/ any suggestions to what he will chew on ? haha he's not stubborn I just don't think he grasp the concept that straws are for chewing lol tho my older cat enjoys them

so, after posting that last time, I started playing with both my cats and their feather/mouse string toy and I noticed that bad breath smell coming from Howie Cat (that's the kitten's name) and... I thought.. I'd get some floss for him to play with and chew on... so I got the floss out, it's mint flavor so he went mad crazy for it... I was playing with him with it, so he would grab it with his mouth and I would pull up so it helped floss his teeth and he actually enjoyed that haha... so he would chew on it then I would pull and now his breath isn't so horrible.. it's minty... but I can tolerate it lol...  no worries, I didn't let him chew any of it long enough to break off where he swallowed it.. I just let him chew for a bit then I pulled on it... hopefully doing that for a bit will help as he goes through this teething process and until his vet appointment !

You might want to consider picking up a couple of these minty chew toys for cats instead of using dental floss: http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4031254  I would be worried that your kitty will think floss is an acceptable thing to play with (possibly fishing it out of the garbage some time when you aren't around) and the risks of ingesting it are huge. 

nah, he won't dig it out of the trash considering I rolled up the floss to a ball and threw it in the bag where I cleaned up his kitty litter--and that's in a trash bin with a cover that he can't open so it's alright.

What about when you floss your own teeth? Where do you put it after you're done?

A chew toy would be considerably more effective than floss to help with teething.

whenever I floss my own? I put that in the same place I put the floss the kitten played with... the litter bag... I've had my other cat far too long to know the difference of where to put things they wont bother getting into, so trust me, he's not going to mither the litter bin

Some cats like mint more than catnip. It has a similar effect on them.

I just took my kitten (4 months) to the vet, and the bad breath (which smelled like poop) is just loosing the baby teeth. Don't worry about it. Her teeth have some brown ones in the back too.

Cats bad breath is just something that belongs to them. If cat is healthy. That means tooths are clean, tummy is ok and through than that is something you need to get used on.:-)

I have two bad mouth stinkers. :-D

Mikiandnino said:

 
Cats bad breath is just something that belongs to them. If cat is healthy. That means tooths are clean, tummy is ok and through than that is something you need to get used on.:-)

I have two bad mouth stinkers. :-D

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I'll second that. One of my cats has breath bad enough to melt your face. Her name is Shaina but we often call her Princess Stinkles. She's in perfect health though!

Hahaha my Miki (female cat) too. Sometimes when she breath at me I feel like falling in unconsciousness. But I still love her and she is in perfect health.

Just wanted to thank you. I was reading your post about your kittens breath smelling like poop, and I was relieved to find out that it's probably because she is loosing her baby teeth. I was worried something could be seriously wrong. She is at that age where she will be loosing some teeth now. But your right.......oh my goodness, their breath can get pretty nasty.
Anyway, thanks again for posting that.

so can roundworms cause bad breath in cats?

My cats have bad breath. I recently found out about a product called TropiClean Clean Teeth Gel. They make it for both dog and cat and it's the exact same thing (puppy formula is a bit different). I've only been using it for 2 days now, but a lot of people have bought it and have said good things about it. It seems to work, so I've decided to try it. I use it on my 14 year old cat and my 7 month old kitten. 

Cats (and dogs) get bad breath because they don't brush their teeth. XD 

We just adopted a kitten from a big event at the Detroit Zoo.  The kitten was from the Humane Society.  I made several huge mistakes.  I was so excited because we received free food and huge savings on products.  But the big mistake I made was, I didn't ask what the kitten had been fed and stick to that diet.

The free food we received is a bagged/hard.  Kitty's breath was atrocious and he was having a hard time with his stools.  It was a mess because all of him smelled bad and I just couldn't imagine that a kitten only 12 weeks old could have extensive dental issues.  Internet inquires had me buying a toothbrush and toothpaste along with all sorts of smell good products and these purchases nullified the savings I made on everything else..lol .  I also scheduled a vet appointment and was fearing the worst.

Finally, I found the post I needed.  It was the food.  I changed him to canned food, and because I felt so bad, I bought Blue Wilderness for kittens and now, he is okay.   I have had kittens before and fed them bagged food and never had an issue.  But this little kitty needs canned at least for now.   Just posting this in case anyone else has this issue.