My cat's bowel movements are not normal

Hello, I am new here. Yes, my first post is about cat poop, but this is bothering me. So, roughly about two to three weeks ago I switched my girl (Enya, only cat and spoiled rotten) to all wet food. I noticed that her poops decreased drastically in frequency, size, smell etc. Hurray! Then, about a week and a half ago, a benign tumor that she has had on her neck since she was kitten burst. I had to take her into the vet on Monday June 23rd, have the tumor tested to determine for sure, put her on antibiotics etc.

Right about this time, I began to notice that she was not having a bowel movement everyday or even every other day. She would go as long as a week! So, six days (Sunday June 29th)  after I took her to the vet for her tumor I went and bought pure canned pumpkin at my place of employment and my local pet store. I gave it to her as instructed and the next day (Monday June 30th) she had a large, solid normal looking poop. I continued to give her the canned pumpkin (1 tablespoon total daily) and it is now Wednesday July 2nd. I am panicking, but the weirdest part is, she is not acting any different than usual.

I have her on a set schedule for all her food. I feed her breakfast at 6:00AM (sometimes a little after). I don't need to set an alarm because furball comes trotting into my room meowing like she is starving to death. I then feed her at 6:00PM or have a family member do it if I am out. Again, she meows like crazy and devours her food. She is as active as she has ever been. I have not found her straining anywhere outside her litter box or in her littler box. She stills pees at least once or twice a day and leaves some sizable clumped up litter.

Now, here are some basic facts about my girl:

Five years old. Fourteen pounds! She is naturally a large cat without the extra baggage, but that is still too much. This is a big reason I switched her from half wet and half dry to all wet. Dry food is just toxic crap.

I feed her a combination of different wet foods that I have judged to be low enough in carbohydrates and to have as balanced a protein to fat ratio as possible. I will list the foods here.

Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Fowl Ball and Double Dip.

Weruva Truluxe On the Cat Walk, Quick and Quirky, Glam N' Punk

Tiki Cat Gourmet Carnivore Turkey and Chicken, Chicken and Duck, Beef and Liver, Beef Liver and Lamb, Chicken and Liver

Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf Chicken, Soft Loaf Turkey, and Soft Loaf Duck.

Wild Calling Rabbit, Buffalo, and Duck. Yes, I know they package with Evanger's but I want to give my girl a variety of meat sources and unfortunately, there are few novel protein sources out there that meet my criteria for protein, fat, and carbohydrate calorie content. I have thus far had no problems with them.

Yes, my cat is spoiled. So, before anyone tells me to take her to the vet, I will let you guys know that she has a follow up appointment for her tumor this coming Saturday. I am actually tight on money so I cannot double up on appointments. In fact, I am going to have to switch down to more cheaper foods for a while, but I wanted to get her off to a good meaty start. I just want opinions and ideas and if anyone notices anything wrong with the variety I am providing her please let me know.

So she still has not pooped since 6/30 despite the pumpkin? That is definitely not normal. I would expect that the change to all wet would have normalized by now. If you are sure that she is not pooping anyplace else, I would definitely ask the vet to check if she is constipated.

Hey! Thanks for the reply. Right as I finished the post and submitted it guess who trotted off into the litter box room and took a nice healthy cat dookey. I am thinking it is going to be an every other day thing with her on wet food. I am still going to talk to the vet about it though. Is every other day normal on wet food? I am hoping she is still in the normal range.

Every other day is about normal for a raw fed cat. Cats on canned food, even high protein canned usually poop once a day, but who knows? Every other day may be the new norm for your cat on this new diet. I would definitely talk to the vet about it on Sat and still ask him to check for constipation.

Yes I am definitely going to talk to the vet about it. I am thinking that some of the food could just be way too rich for her - such as the Tiki cat.

Just be aware that most vets are not very well versed in nutrition. I'm not sure what applies as "too rich" for cats. I try to think in terms of species-appropriate or not when in comes to cat food. Animal protein and fat with calcium source are good. Fillers, especially starches and grains are not. Most foods with gravies and sauces are thickened with wheat gluten which can be an issue.

By too rich, I mean the huge chunks of meat in Tiki cat and the abundance of organ meats they use in some formulas. I have also noticed she has trouble with chewing Tiki cat food. I am definitely not thinking I should go opposite of Tiki cat but that perhaps I should tone down to more pates like those offered by Natural Choice, Sheba, and Weruva. No worries, I am well aware of how terrible starches, grains, soy, and wheat gluten, and such fillers are for cats and I avoid them like the plague. I avoid anything that says sauce or gravy on the can, too. I will see what the vet says on Saturday.

We have two young adult cats that eat a combination of raw and canned foods -- one eats a lot more raw, the other eats a lot more canned -- and they seem to poop a little less frequently than every day. By which I mean there's poop in the box every day but sometimes it looks like only one of them pooped. It's hard to tell, though, because neither seems to poop that much, in terms of volume. Their canned foods are a lot like yours, Thehistorian -- high-protein, low-carb -- plus they're small cats. Neither seems to be constipated, based on one cat's demonstrations (she's an exhibitionist ) and box results. I think they're just making the most of their food.

It took our cats a while to get fully adjusted to all their foods after getting them off the dry stuff and Friskies they'd been getting at the shelter... Which is to say I wouldn't be surprised if Enya's body is still getting used to her new foods: her food rotation is large (as is ours) so she probably hasn't seen each food more than two or three times. That said, I'm glad you're already planning to ask the vet about this on Saturday!

The Bristol Stool Chart -- and this page from Little Big Cat -- may come in handy as a reference and for talking with your vet! Good luck!

Thank you Lisa, your post offered some comfort and some great information with the chart. I've fed Enya some commercial raw food before and noticed the same drastic decrease in poo out put. 

P.S.: Her poop resembles type two and three. LOL

I am hoping she would regulate out to once a day at least and not need the pumpkin anymore. This is all so frustrating and a bit scary. I love her. She is an awesome cat and pretty much my baby. 

3 on the Bristol chart is OK, but 2 is a little hard. If you switch to pates, maybe add a little water. Every other day is OK, but the majority of cats on wet food go every day. Your vet can feel the bowel at least.

Raintyger said:

 
If you switch to pates, maybe add a little water. Every other day is OK, but the majority of cats on wet food go every day.

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Adding water is great advice -- we do that and it makes the cats happier about their food, too. I make their raw foods a little soupy, too: they really slurp up the broth.

The water is a great choice because lately Enya has suddenly stopped drinking from her water bowl and I have no idea why. I wonder if it has anything to do with the wet food? So confused. 

Maybe pedialyte can help boosting hydration and water content?. My vet also said that mineral oil helps with constipation.

Thehistorian said:

 
The water is a great choice because lately Enya has suddenly stopped drinking from her water bowl and I have no idea why. I wonder if it has anything to do with the wet food? So confused. 

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Did this happen when you switched to wet food? Many cats won't drink water from a bowl when on wet food. They only drink from a bowl when they're dehydrated. Dry food dehydrates, so cats on a dry food diet will drink from a bowl.

Cheddar said:

 
Maybe pedialyte can help boosting hydration and water content?. My vet also said that mineral oil helps with constipation.

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Pedialyte is OK for occasional use, but it does have sugar in it. Mineral oil, if you're talking about the liquid kind, should not be given to cats because it is too easy for the mineral oil to go down the wrong way and cause pnuemonia. Hairball remedies such as Laxatone can be used occasionally, but as a regular treatment I don't favor it because hairball remedies block nutrient absorption. If you do give it, you need to administer at least 2 hours apart from feeding.

Raintyger said:

 
Did this happen when you switched to wet food? Many cats won't drink water from a bowl when on wet food. They only drink from a bowl when they're dehydrated. Dry food dehydrates, so cats on a dry food diet will drink from a bowl.

Pedialyte is OK for occasional use, but it does have sugar in it. Mineral oil, if you're talking about the liquid kind, should not be given to cats because it is too easy for the mineral oil to go down the wrong way and cause pnuemonia. Hairball remedies such as Laxatone can be used occasionally, but as a regular treatment I don't favor it because hairball remedies block nutrient absorption. If you do give it, you need to administer at least 2 hours apart from feeding.

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Yes, she stopped going to her water bowl after I switched her fully to wet food. Thus why I do not understand the apparent poop difficulties. She still meows like a nut job for her food right at the scheduled times and devours as much of the food as she can (until she pushes it into the corners and I have to push it back to the center for her and she then finishes it within a few minutes).

She is not any lazier than she usually is - she has always been a bit more on the lazy side but she always certain times of the day when she jumps up and prances around. Basically, no behavioral changes and no appetite changes. I am just sitting here scratching my head. I know the pumpkin will only work for so long and I want her to be able to poop without it. I really cannot afford a huge litany of tests to determine if she has a bowel issue; I am already putting my meager checks into getting her tumor taken care of! I am super stressed and just want to give her the best, healthiest, longest life I can.

Every other day is not too bad, so I would wait for the vet visit at this point. Antibiotics and other meds can disrupt the bowel movement cycle. Do not let her go past 3 days without output, though. Then it is time for the vet.

If the vet recommends high fiber food, please stop and consider the decision. High fiber diets for chronic constipation are controversial. The new school of thought is that cats do not handle fiber very well, so low fiber is better. There are many owners whose cats do well on high fiber diets, but often high fiber works for a while and then stops working. Some owners feel that the high fiber stretched out the colon and while results were good for awhile, ultimately they wound up in a worse place.

Although you do mention affordability as an issue, it would irresponsible for me not to mention that chronic constipation and megacolon can be expensive because it requires a lot of trial and error. There are many different remedies and each kitty responds differently.

Good luck!

Ugh, so confused an worried. She went Wednesday, did not go Thursday, and by all accounts should be going today. It is already after 7pm here. I am so confused and frustrated. She is on wet food, she is eating normally and acting normally! What the heck is going on?! I go to the vet tomorrow but she already has so much stuff going on I cannot afford tests to see what is happening with her G.I. Tract. I am so frustrated and just ugh.

Sorry to read about your cat's difficulties. My cat had a couple of bad constipation episodes that required multiple enemas. He was put on cisapride in June 2013, which we slowly tapered for four months to see if we can manage in other ways. He had his last dose a week ago today and I'm having a bit of litter box anxiety, so I understand your concern.

First, are you in the U.S.? If so, are there loud fireworks where you are? My cats hate fireworks and generally spend most of 4th of July under the bed. It throws off their poop schedule, like many other stressful events do. Maybe this is what's happening with your cat today? If fireworks aren't the problem, hopefully the vet can determine if your cat is, in fact, constipated.

Second, what antibiotic is your cat on? I learned from our holistic vet that some antibiotics can cause constipation, so you may want to check with your vet about that. We are very careful with what we give my cat, for this very reason.

It could be that your cat is still adjusting to life with wet food and the correspondingly smaller poops produced with higher-quality wet foods. I say this because I noticed as we decreased my cat's dose of cisapride, for a while it seemed like his colon needed to be pretty full before he would go, which worried me. But he seems to have adjusted and goes with much less in his colon, and he's going more frequently now, too (mostly 24 hours versus mostly 36 hours).

Take a look at these two websites, it you haven't already: http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/constipated-cats/ and http://www.felineconstipation.org/.

Unfortunately, like Raintyger mentioned, cat constipation is definitely trial and error. Come up with a plan, keep records, make slow adjustments but change only one thing at a time so you can have a better idea of the effect of changes.

So, an update on Enya. I took her to the vet today and she was indeed constipated. As odd as it is and as contrary to cat knowledge as it is, I think being on entirely wet food has constipated her. While yes cats are obligate carnivores, I feel like we also have to keep in mind that cats have been domesticated for a few hundred years and some cats have probably evolved to depend on the fiber present in dry foods. For now, I am going to return to doing half wet and half dry as that seems to be what works best for her. Wet is in no way being taken out of her diet ever, but it seems I am going to have to go against all logic and do half wet, half dry again.

As of right now, she is at the vet’s and they are administering an enema and cleaning her out. Ugh, cats can be as complicated as humans. Hopefully this will work. I am going to have to take her in at a later date to have her tumor x-rayed so we can determine what to do with it.