When does a cat pass a meal it ate?

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fluffscruff

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My younger cat, around 5 1/2 months, has loose stools occasionally. I'm suspecting that it's a food intolerance to something. (Her latest fecal panel was negative. She had been dewormed several times, treated for coccidia months ago at the adoption center.) She usually has solid poops, but now and then, she has soft stinky cow pies. I was wondering if anybody knew how long it takes for a meal to work its way through a kitty's system. I'm figuring that I could keep track of the wet food I feed her, and then, try to correlate it with when she poops (I know that she poops at least once at night). Or does it not make sense to do it like this? I know that I won't be able to do a food trial because she is SUCH a picky eater. She takes a whiff of her food and walks off right away if she doesn't like it, and will starve herself rather than eat food she doesn't like.
 
rubysmama

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I'm not sure how long it takes for food to move through the digestive system, however, with my cat, Ruby, whenever I give her a food that doesn't agree with her tummy, it seems the next bowel movement is runny. 

And when I originally switched her to the hypo-allergenic canned food she eats 99.9% of the time, her stools were normal the next day.

Seeing that your girl is picky, that will make is much harder to try different foods.  But maybe feed the same food for a few days in a row before switching it, and that should give time for the food to move through her system.
 
stephenq

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fluffscruff said:
My younger cat, around 5 1/2 months, has loose stools occasionally. I'm suspecting that it's a food intolerance to something. (Her latest fecal panel was negative. She had been dewormed several times, treated for coccidia months ago at the adoption center.) She usually has solid poops, but now and then, she has soft stinky cow pies. I was wondering if anybody knew how long it takes for a meal to work its way through a kitty's system. I'm figuring that I could keep track of the wet food I feed her, and then, try to correlate it with when she poops (I know that she poops at least once at night). Or does it not make sense to do it like this? I know that I won't be able to do a food trial because she is SUCH a picky eater. She takes a whiff of her food and walks off right away if she doesn't like it, and will starve herself rather than eat food she doesn't like.
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If you're feeding her the same food every day then you would expect more consistency with the stools, loose or normal.  Are you feeding the same diet every day?
 
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fluffscruff

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StephenQ said:
 
If you're feeding her the same food every day then you would expect more consistency with the stools, loose or normal.  Are you feeding the same diet every day?
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I have a rotation of different brands, with their varied flavors. The flavors are mostly chicken & turkey, sometimes beef & rabbit, and duck & fish that are sometimes mixed in to a flavor.  And both of my cat's tastes change as well, like they used to love Natural Balance and Wellness pates but turn their nose up at it now (& they seem to mimic each other's tastes most of the time, copycats?), so I feel like I should probably return the remaining cans...
Right now, both my kitties love Nature's Logic, Nutro Natural Choice, Fancy Feast and they're content with Merrick, Instinct, Blue Buffalo pates, but heaven forbid they eat the same thing all day.
 
stephenq

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fluffscruff said:
 
I have a rotation of different brands, with their varied flavors. The flavors are mostly chicken & turkey, sometimes beef & rabbit, and duck & fish that are sometimes mixed in to a flavor.  And both of my cat's tastes change as well, like they used to love Natural Balance and Wellness pates but turn their nose up at it now (& they seem to mimic each other's tastes most of the time, copycats?), so I feel like I should probably return the remaining cans...
Right now, both my kitties love Nature's Logic, Nutro Natural Choice, Fancy Feast and they're content with Merrick, Instinct, Blue Buffalo pates, but heaven forbid they eat the same thing all day.
Click to expand...
Well changing up foods and particularly brands is an easy way to cause diarrhea and loose stool.  You'll never be able to figure this out with so many foods and you won't be able to time the passage of a food in a meaningful way.  I understand he's picky, but if you can slowly wean him to just one food, you'll have a much better chance of either a) figuring out what the problem is or b) actually fixing it.
 
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