Should I Be Concerned?

[Notacrazycatlady]

Okay, I have a 14-15 week old kitten. For the last couple of weeks his poop has been super soft/borderline diarrhea, light tan in color--like diarrhea and smelly--like diarrhea. He also re-positions himself several times in the litter box and I've been finding marble-sized clumps of urine. I've tried to get him to pee on paper towels to check for blood but he just eats the paper towels so that hasn't worked. He's been treated for parasites in his first vet visit and a gram stain was done when he was neutered due to the continued soft, smelly poop and gas. He was dragging his butt across the floor and cried when he hopped in the litter box so I took him back in and one of his anal glands was impacted. That was last Thursday, about four days ago.

I thought the gas and smelly poop might be lactose related as the kitten food I was feeding him was made with milk and the smelly poop didn't start until a few days after I started him on it. I took him off of that 7 days ago and the gas has stopped but the smelly poop hasn't and it fluctuates between normal, semi-solid and diarrhea. He's not dragging his butt or grooming that area a lot anymore and he's not running a fever. He's also still leaving marble-sized clumps of urine. He's eating fine and drinking water normally and he's played here and there with my ten and a half month old kitten.

My question is this, for the past two days he's been doing a lot of kneading and he started suckling me whenever he's on my lap or I'm holding him. He's done some meowing but not in the litter box again. I found him on September 1 and yesterday and today are the first times he's exhibited the kneading and suckling behavior. I know those are self-soothing behaviors and I'm glad he feels safe enough with me to suckle like that, but I'm worried that he doesn't feel good and I'm just not seeing it. He has a vet appointment on the 28th for his booster vaccinations so I'll definitely bring it up then, but that's 10 days away. As long as he's eating and eliminating and playing, should I just continue to play litter box monitor and wait for more definitive symptoms? What should I look for?

He doesn't react when I press on his belly. My niece's grain-intolerant cat just went home so I can leave dry food out and he's now got access to Blue Buffalo Kitten Formula dry food in addition to wet food morning and night (I've tried different wet food brands, balancing what he'll eat with healthy content, now I'm going to see if Sheba Perfect Portions has any effect).

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! Now that you have more food choices for him, if it were me I'd just keep an eye on things.
Look for any changes, and maybe in a couple days of a diet with the variety, you'll be able to use paper towels

You're weighing him as well?

The suckling might or might not be related, that's the difficult part of this kind of thing.

 

[1 bruce 1]

How long have you had him, and are you and the vets absolutely sure of his age? (At 13-14 weeks he should be losing his kitten teeth and at 14-16 weeks most of them are gone or well on their way to being gone, if that helps you out any!)

 

[Notacrazycatlady]

The vet estimated him right about 12 weeks (at most) on Sept. 4th. I found him in my parking lot on the 1st and it was a holiday weekend so I got him in on that Tuesday because he was doing a lot of re-positioning in the litter box and I was worried about UTI. He tested negative for urinary infection at that visit.

Thanks for the heads up about getting his adult teeth--at least I won't worry too much if he doesn't eat a lot for a day or so since he should be getting those any time now.

 

[stephanietx]

I have had problems with Blue Buffalo causing gastro problems in my kittens in the past. I would ask the vet to do the PCR diarrhea panel to check for various parasites. The test is more in-depth than the regular fecal done in the office.

As for food, I always feed my kittens Royal Canin babycat food, both dry and canned. If you've been feeding dry food and didn't transition gradually, then that can also cause problems. At his age, he needs to be on both canned and dry, but especially canned.

 

[Notacrazycatlady]

He's gotten primarily wet. I had dry available for him to free feed between meals. Originally I had Purina Indoor Delights but after reading pawdiet.com's review I switched to Blue Buffalo which had a much better rating. After a successful introduction to the other two cats, I had to take away the dry because Riddle, my niece's cat, got into it and he's grain intolerant so none of the cats could have free access to dry food.

So, for the past week or so he's been on entirely wet although I'd put his dry out for him as a snack when I could be there to keep Riddle out of it. My niece just finished moving and picked Riddle up over the weekend so I was able to return dry food for free feeding/snacking between meals for both the kittens (Angus is almost 11 months and a walking stomach, he'll try anything once).

Now that Bruce has pointed out the transition age between kitten teeth and adult teeth, I'm wondering if the self-soothing behaviors over the past couple of days might be his mouth bothering him and not related to the impacted anal gland or smelly soft poop at all.

I will watch both kittens --I have some Blue Buffalo Indoor Cat formula dry out for Angus as well as the kitten formula for Leo. If Angus starts having gastro issues, I'll pull it. Pawdiet gave it five stars so I thought it would be healthier than Purina's Indoor Delight dry that I was using before Riddle's issue was discovered. I tried a grain-free wet food when we first figured out Riddle's grain intolerance but none of the cats would touch it. Friskies has been the wet food they've eaten (after I figured out that Fancy Feast kitten was likely causing the gas and Friskies was all I had to give him instead).

 

[stephanietx]

I wonder if he's possibly teething. He also needs to be on a kitten food, or at least part kitten food since he's still a kitten and kitten food is chock-full of good nutrients they need to grow. Here's something else to consider. I have a cat that I've had since a kitten (9-10 wks old). He cannot tolerate an all grain-free diet. It causes all kinds of gastro issues, including diarrhea. He has to be on a special Rx food from the vet that we blend with grain-free food. Initially, we fed him the Rx food (it's dry) for a couple of weeks to firm up his stools, in addition to his canned grain-free food. Now he's 8 years old and we've figured out how much of the Rx food he needs in his diet to keep his poops firm.

 

[Notacrazycatlady]

Thank you to all who commented--I do feel better about Leo's behavior. I think he probably is teething and the soft smelly stool was caused by dietary changes first with the kitten food that contained milk and then the limited carb/very little grain diet. Now that I can re-introduce some dry with healthy grains and Leo does like the Blue Buffalo for Kittens, I'll just keep an eye on things over the next couple of weeks but it should resolve itself once I get the dietary needs and preferences ironed out. Angus was six months old when I took him in and aside from some mild gingivitis he hasn't had any real issues around food.

 

[Furballsmom]