Boiled Chicken

That's great he is eating it. Since he is a growing kitten, I would probably feed him as much as he wants right now.

Yes, it is normal to see more pee clumps with a homemade diet. The chicken and broth have a lot of moisture so even without him drinking any extra water, he is getting plenty of moisture. That's a great thing for his urinary and kidney health.

Many vibes that his diarrhea gets better.

Thank you everyone!  I should know tonight if the chicken has had any effect on his system and then off to the pet food store on the weekend ot find a different food for him, provided this works or even if it doesnt.

I do not feed exclusively home cooked 

I have found that one meal a day in the morning is what works for both the loose stool and constipation

This is about a 7th of the families intake so I do not go crazy on the perfect mix

Two days off the one meal and Bang the loose stools

I actually think the soluble fiber is more important for my family and that is what works for us

With some age I think he is improving also

stealthfur said:

I do not feed exclusively home cooked 
I have found that one meal a day in the morning is what works for both the loose stool and constipation
This is about a 7th of the families intake so I do not go crazy on the perfect mix
Two days off the one meal and Bang the loose stools
I actually think the soluble fiber is more important for my family and that is what works for us
With some age I think he is improving also

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There is nothing wrong with home-cooked. They either need to be properly balanced (and no cooked bone!!), only 15% of the diet, or fed temporarily as LeoPrincess is doing.

www.catinfo.org has a recipe that is easy to follow; takes the craziness out of it for me!

I will cook for him, but only as a last resort. As it is right now, he woke me up throughout the night for food. So at 6 am I finally got up and gave him his breakfast. Because he's always been on dry food and I've always free fed my kitties, he's not used to there not being food around.

His stomach has settled a bit since only giving him the boiled chicken, but still not 100% perfect yet. The volume of stool in his litter however, has reduced substantially and it's not as smelly.

If he has IBD, which I don't know yet, is it for life? Or could he just have these symptoms because his GI is out of whack and he'll get back to normal?

mhoock said:

 
don't leave it out. If anything feed it to him when you come home, chicken being left out is not good. Remember if it is people food and you wouldn't eat it then they shouldn't either. Also, don't make it his whole diet. let him have his dry food during the day and the chicken when you get home.

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If you are checking to see if it is diet related, why would you give him his regular food?  That totally defeats the purpose. 

Cooked chicken isn't going to go bad over a couple of hours.  If you are gone for the majority of the day... Freeze some overnight, and put it out after he's eaten his breakfast and just before you leave.  Once it is thawed he will eat it as his second meal of the day....then he'll be fine till dinner.

LeoPrincess said:

I will cook for him, but only as a last resort. As it is right now, he woke me up throughout the night for food. So at 6 am I finally got up and gave him his breakfast. Because he's always been on dry food and I've always free fed my kitties, he's not used to there not being food around.

His stomach has settled a bit since only giving him the boiled chicken, but still not 100% perfect yet. The volume of stool in his litter however, has reduced substantially and it's not as smelly.

If he has IBD, which I don't know yet, is it for life? Or could he just have these symptoms because his GI is out of whack and he'll get back to normal?

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I'm glad the chicken is having some positive effect. The stool volume and smell are reduced substantially because there are no junk fillers to process.

If he has IBD, there is some level of inflammation in his GI tract. If the inflammation is not acute, some kitties seem to do just fine with a diet change. Some still need medication. It's hard to know and definitely a trial and error process. You are on the right path, so let's all just hope that the food can resolve his issues.

Without this forum, I wouldn't have known what to do .... So I'm so happy to have found you all . Thank you!!

Seems like the boiled chicken is a fail. Just went downstairs to find terrible smelling diarrhea is back. At least no blood this time, but so disappointing. I'm only giving him the chicken (meat and broth) and nothing else (since Wednesday night).

I guess next is to do that stool test, but this is so frustrating. I really thought this would work!

Does anyone happen to know how fresh the stool sample has to be to test for tritrichomonas foetus? I wish I could have taken this fresh sample into my vet tonight, but they're closed.

I don't think it matters about being fresh but I think I probably would not want to keep it around longer than necessary.  Hopefully you're vet doesn't think that it is still confined to cattle.  I have even seen the name with a bovine prefix.  He should be checked for everything else as well.  False negatives, even multiple false negatives, are not uncommon.  It's also common to need multiple deworming treatments.

I don't think feeding chicken for a few days was a failure.  If it had cleared up the problem then you would be looking for a food that worked for him.

Linus went to the vet today so that they could get a sample from him to do the PCR test.  Evidently it will take 5 - 12 days and I do hope it comes back positive, as bad as that sounds, as it would be so nice to have an answer and a way to treat it!!

Linus went to the vet today so that they could get a sample from him to do the PCR test.  Evidently it will take 5 - 12 days and I do hope it comes back positive, as bad as that sounds, as it would be so nice to have an answer and a way to treat it!!

Linus is going back to the vet today and I am missing another day of work.

He didn't eat much yesterday and this morning I heard him throwing up, so I got up and went to go find it and there was a pile of diarrhea right next to it and his behind was covered. I woke my boyfriend who cleaned up the mess and some other piles of diarrhea which he found. Washed my little man and made him breakfast. He was crying for it and then when I put it down he smelled it and walked away. I just went down to clean his litter box and found two 'accidents' and they are yellow. This is so strange.

I don't know what's wrong with him, but I going to do as much testing today as possible.

Oh gosh, sorry to hear that. The PCR results aren't back yet I assume? I really hope the vet can figure out what's wrong with Linus or at least help him to feel better while test results come back. He definitely sounds nauseous. Many vibes for Linus.

Thanks vball for the vibes .... My little L needs them.

Of course not, they take 5 - 12 days, but this is the worst he's ever been and he's barely eating. So can't leave it.

Back from the vet. Gave him some fluids and an appetite pill and he's on a new antibiotic ... Tylosin. The vet figured this would buy us some time to get the results back from the PCR test.

If the tylosin doesn't work and he doesn't have a parasite, next step would be a biopsy (at a cost of around $2000) which is crazy. If I didn't do that, they would probably try and skip a step and give him cortisone everyday.

This is just too much. I pray it's the parasite, because I won't be doing a biopsy on him.

My vet actually said that if it was his cat, and he had purchased it from a breeder that had a health warranty, he would send him back.

Gosh I'm sorry. This is heartbreaking!

I really hope it is a parasite.  It is unusual for a kitten to have IBD.  I have a cat with IBD and he was 18 months old when he had his first flare.  He has been on a steroid for almost three years, it will be three years in December.  I know some people have been able to get their cat off the steroids with a raw diet but I am a little afraid to try it.  He is 10 years old now and he had 6 years of bad flares before he was diagnosed and put on the steroid.  The last time he was really sick he ended up with fatty liver disease.  

Thanks Denice. What steroid is your cat on? Is it expensive?

This is all so new to me and when I added up all the vet bills to date, we are at almost 900 and that doesn't include all his food.

I personally don't know how you'll do it! I've been consumed with stress and worry for 2 months and my kitten's health is constantly on my mind. I feel like, I'm just terrible at dealing with these things. My boyfriend will say 'you need to worry less' and I get annoyed, maybe he needs to worry more or be more sensitive. If I could "worry less' I would. My cats illness is taking over my life, I feel.

He used to be on Prednisolone and then there was a nationwide supply problem.  When the vet couldn't get the pred she switched him to dexamethasone.  When he was sick he got 10 mg a day of pred and then he went to 5 mg.  The dex is much stronger and he only gets .25 mg of it.  He is still on the dex.  The pred was low cost when he was taking it.  There is still some off and on supply problems and the I think the price has gone us.  The dex is very low cost.  If I remember right the last time I bought it I paid $13 for a 4 month supply.

I was the same way when he would get really sick and I was vet hopping.  He was hospitalized twice and there was one trip to the emergency vet.  There were several thousand dollars in vet bills until he went on the steroid.

I really think given his age that there is something other than IBD going on.  I think there is a good chance that he has some kind of parasite.