4-month Old Kitten, Leaking Diarrhea, Suggestions? :-(

[srhfoster]

Hi all,

I have a 4-month old kitten that I got from a rescue 8 days ago. I'm free feeding him Kitten Chow dry (trying to transition to Wellness Kitten, which he isn't having) and one 3 oz can daily of Fancy Feast tender turkey Kitten, giving 1/3 can 3x.

He's had some loose stools/diarrhea this past week in the litter box, but this morning he's actually "leaked" twice, I guess when he's playing and jumping. I have cleaned him up with warm water, but I'm sure he's not feeling well.

He's playing, eating, drinking water. But this can't be good. I'm not sure i can find a vet on Labor Day. What should I do?? Stop feeding wet until he firms up?

I've contacted the rescue group to get more specific information on what foods he's had previously, which is something I obviously should have gotten when we picked him up. I didin't know at the time that Kitten Chow was so bad, so that's what I grabbed at the store the first day. :-(

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

A long as he's eating, drinking, and playing, this is not an emergency. It could very well be the change in food that is causing this, as you suspect. Once you find out what he was eating, get some of that and SLOWLY transition him to a new food. If you want, until you hear from them, you could give him meat only baby food (no seasoning at all), but this is NOT nutritionally complete for a cat, so don't feed it for more than a day or two. This might help clear up the diarrhea since it's very bland.

Do you know if he was de-wormed? It's possible he has worms, which is very common for young cats, although you might be seeing evidence in that diarrhea .

 

[srhfoster]

thank you so much! He was dewormed. But the shelter staff called back today after they talked to the foster mom, and he had NEVER had wet before. I hadn't been given a list of foods (nor had I remembered to ask, stupid me) and just assumed that he was on wet. So i'm sure I've overloaded his little tummy. I've cut out the wet completely and we'll start over. thanks for the tips!!

 

[stephanietx]

If you abruptly changed his dry food from what he was eating while at the rescue, that could be the culprit. Also, I have a cat who could not tolerate Wellness kitten food when he was a young whippersnapper and ended up with severe diarrhea when we fed him that food. We ended up switching to a different canned food for him. My favorite food for littles is Royal Canin babycat.