Fresh blood on cat's stool

[sasha ella]

Hi there, how is your kitten now?

I have 2 kittens who were weaned onto Royal Canin dry food with occasional feeds of the kitten wet food from the same company. one of the kittens developed exactly the same faecal symptoms as yours, but from wet food exclusively. I have tried several time to include and exclude it from both their diets, and I know for a fact that it's not an infection (or they would both have it) and it is only the wet food. Something in it just really irritates their little tummies which is a shame because I can see a start difference in the two cats (the other still gets wet food) and I feel sorry that one of them is missing out on the other nutrition, better coat etc 

 

[irinasak]

I thought about updating, but I was too afraid I'll jinx it

Sophie is doing great, no more blood and she has a lot of appetite and desire to try new wet foods. I think that the slippery elm bark is helping her a lot. I was so surprised to see she likes it!

@Sasha Ella, I am pretty sure something in Sophie's diet disagreed with her tummy.

As for your two guys, I can see why RC wet would irritate them. It has a lot of grains and weird ingredients:

"Meat and animal derivatives, cereals, vegetables protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, milk and milk derivatives, oils and fats, minerals, yeast.". The dry is worse. I am NOT judgemental, as I am still feeding some RC dry. 

Have you tried giving them a no grain food? It might be just what the more sensible one needs. I am now going through a series of regrets regarding the mistakes I made with Sophie's diet: because I knew nothing about cat nutrition, I only gave her RC dry and Applaws as a treat while she was growing up, so now I have a fussy kibble resilient addict. I wish I didn't feed her dry and rotate a lot of wet - this I am doing now and my other two cats are doing great with no grain complete wet food.

 

[irinasak]

@mrsgreenjeens and @stephanietx I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for the slippery elm bark suggestion. It is helping Sophie and she really likes the taste of it, she has it mixed with water and with wet food.

Does she have to have it for a limited period of time or can she have it  long term?

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I am SO glad she's doing better 

As far as staying on Slippery Elm Bark indefinitely, I just don't know.  I did find one article that stated "long term use may have some effect on nutrient absorption".  It doesn't go on to say what exactly is long term or any more than that general comment.   That being said, I also ran across some blogs where people have been giving it to their cats on a permanent basis.  One thing of note, though, is that it definitely interfers with other medications, so if she is taking anything else, you need to give the SEB at a different time. 

 

[stephanietx]

YAY!!  So glad the SEB is working for her!  I also don't know about the long term implications.  @otto might have a better answer for us, but I'm just so happy for you and Sophie!