Teen Kitten Diet?

Boots is now about nine weeks old. We found him at about four weeks and fed him dry kitten food from the 'low dollar store'. Vet says he is healthy and happy.

But. When Boots goes to the litter box he meows (almost a cry of pain). His stool is very solid and, to me, quite large. This has been going on since we brought him into the house. Could this be due to his food?

It is about time to get more food and I'm wondering if it is time to switch to something like Purina Cat Food. He does get about a half ounce of milk in the evening as his regular evening treat (You can set your watch by it. LOL.). Vet said that should be no problem. 

Any suggestions? I don't like to hear him complain while in the litter box. That bothers me.

Thanks.

Boots' Door Man.

He could use more fluid, it sounds like. Maybe try feeding him some wet food as well.

What kind of milk is he getting? If it's cow milk, that could be upsetting his stomach. Kitten milk replacer or goat milk is much better.

You cou also try mixing some olive oil into his milk. A few drops should help with the constipation.

At nine weeks old, he should be getting mostly canned food with dry supplemented.  When my guy was 9 weeks old, he got fed wet food in the morning, at lunch, in the evening, and at bedtime.  We gave him dry food in between.  Dry food basically causes the body to use up a lot of its hydration to pass stools.  Adding wet food and even a bit of water to the food to make it the consistency of thick oatmeal will help the body stay hydrated, soften the stool and enable it to pass more easily. 

SteveNBoots said:

 
Boots is now about nine weeks old. We found him at about four weeks and fed him dry kitten food from the 'low dollar store'. Vet says he is healthy and happy.

But. When Boots goes to the litter box he meows (almost a cry of pain). His stool is very solid and, to me, quite large. This has been going on since we brought him into the house. Could this be due to his food?

It is about time to get more food and I'm wondering if it is time to switch to something like Purina Cat Food. He does get about a half ounce of milk in the evening as his regular evening treat (You can set your watch by it. LOL.). Vet said that should be no problem. 

Any suggestions? I don't like to hear him complain while in the litter box. That bothers me.

Thanks.

Boots' Door Man.

Click to expand...

A 9 week old kitten should be fed as much as he / she will eat. Growing kittens ned a lot of food to meet their needs. They can't overeat or get too fat. Please don't feed cheap dry food. Yes, it's easy on the wallet but the ingredients are horrible for a cat's health. Purina Cat dry is full of corn and fillers and junk. Your kitten deserves to be fed a better quality diet. Don't expect much guidence from the vet about food. Many vets don't know about proper nutrition because it's not taught in dept in vet school. Some vets are influenced by the big name companies to sell and promote the brands.

There's a nutrition froum here on TCS to get more advice on what to feed kittens and cats: http://www.thecatsite.com/f/64/cat-nutrition

Here are some articles on choosing what to feed:

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat-part-2

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/grain-free-cat-food-what-does-it-mean

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/what-makes-the-best-canned-cat-food

talkingpeanut said:

He could use more fluid, it sounds like. Maybe try feeding him some wet food as well.

What kind of milk is he getting? If it's cow milk, that could be upsetting his stomach. Kitten milk replacer or goat milk is much better.

You cou also try mixing some olive oil into his milk. A few drops should help with the constipation.

Click to expand...

talkingpeanut said:

He could use more fluid, it sounds like. Maybe try feeding him some wet food as well.

What kind of milk is he getting? If it's cow milk, that could be upsetting his stomach. Kitten milk replacer or goat milk is much better.

You cou also try mixing some olive oil into his milk. A few drops should help with the constipation.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the replies and suggestions. I'm going to TSC tomorrow (I hope they are open) and get some canned and some different dry food (with meat and little grains). I see now he is not getting water into his little body and that is probably the reason for the hard dry stools. I'll change that tomorrow.

SteveNBoots said:

 
Thank you for the replies and suggestions. I'm going to TSC tomorrow (I hope they are open) and get some canned and some different dry food (with meat and little grains). I see now he is not getting water into his little body and that is probably the reason for the hard dry stools. I'll change that tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Tractor Supply store? Several people here on TCS like to buy their cat food from there It looks like there are some good brands sold there. In a pinch, you can head down to the supermarket or even Wal Mart or Target. Fancy Feast Classic / Gourmet canned (not the Gravy Lovers or Elegant Medleys or any of the others) is a good inexpensive brand to feed. I wouldn't feed the Fancy Feast dry. Too junky, IMO.

Here are some suggestions on decent dry food: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/308919/best-grocery-dry-food-brands They're adult food, though.I believe Blue Buffalo makes a grain-free kitten dry food if you can find that at Tractor Supply.

Not enough water plus indigestible cheap dry food can cause constipation. Hopefully a change in food will solve the problem  

Glad to hear you're going to adjust his food .   Boots is very lucky to have you as his "door man" .

Just thought I would let you know that our Darko used to cry every time he went into the litter box too (I was like you and had no idea about the right kinds of food for kittens ).  I finally learned all about cat nutrition, etc, and got everyone on the right track, all my cats eat ONLY very low carb, canned food with lots of filtered water added to it, but for whatever reason, Darko STILL cries when he goes into the litter box. I think he does it from habit from his kitten days.  He did it for both urinating and BMs back then, and now 6 years later he's still at it .   So....your little one may not stop the crying, but he may still feel a whole lot better   Hopefully he'll stop it.  We didn't adopt Darko until he was almost 5 months old, so perhaps he'd already developed the habit or started having issues...who knows?  

Thank you all for the replies and suggestions. I started feeding Boots one small bowl of dry mixed with water. He went right to it like it was biscuits and gravy. He has not made a sound at the litter box for two days now. So not enough body fluid for the digestive system must have been the problem as ya'll suggested.

Went to TSC store today. Got 4Health grain free canned food and a test bag of 4Health dry food. I did not realize the selection TSC had in the store. Guess I never looked in the pet food section. I'd have been there for hours if I wanted to read all the package ingredients list.

Thank ya'll for the help.

Boots says "Meow."