Sick Kitten Help!

[TKZERO]

Hi all,

We just bought our kitten home on Tuesday and since Thursday she has had diarrhea and has been sick multiple times. We keep having to bathe her because she is getting messy each time she goes to the bathroom. We stopped giving her food for 12 hours and it seemed to help. We started giving her dry food last night and again this evening she has been sick and has runny poop. She will still eat and drink and once she goes to the bathroom/is sick she is back to running and playing. With the holiday the vet is closed and we don't have her booked into a vet until next Monday. I'm really worried about her and unsure what to do. Should we try wet food again? Take her food away again? Currently we have Purina One healthy kitten formula (dry food) and fancy feast kitten. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[molly92]

Kitten diarrhea is very common and frustrating! Most common culprits are a variety of intestinal parasites, or maybe she has some sort of bug causing the vomiting, but all of these need a medication from the vet.

If you absolutely cannot get to an emergency vet, it sounds like you're in for a rough couple of days but she will likely be fine until Tuesday. I would see a vet then though, and get her started on a deworming medication (probably something like Panacur, metronidazole, or albon if it's coccidia).

Until then, make sure she stays hydrated, because she is losing a lot of water with the diarrhea. Keep a couple bowls of fresh water available, and keep feeding the wet food, but just give her small amounts at a time so she doesn't scarf it down too quickly-eating too fast can sometimes cause vomiting.

I think you can keep feeding the dry food too if you want, just small portions like with the wet food, and spread it out on the plate so she can't take huge gulps.

Food is going to "cause" the diarrhea whether it's wet or dry, but she still needs it, because it's dangerous for cats to go without food for too long. You can try feeding something bland and see if that helps a bit, like human baby food in chicken, turkey or ham flavor (just make sure it doesn't have onion or garlic. Gerber Stage 2 are good ones for this). Baby food isn't a balanced diet for a cat, but it's a perfectly fine source of calories for a few days until she starts getting better. Quarantine her in a bathroom or other room that is easy to clean while she's going through this, and disinfect surfaces with an ammonia solution to prevent reinfection.

 

[TKZERO]

Thank you for the advice. I feel better lol It's been a stressful few days! Just want her to be healthy and happy. We will be calling the vet on Tuesday. Until then we will keep making sure she is getting lots of water and monitoring her wet food intake.

 

[SeventhHeaven]

Changing foods suddenly rather than progressivley can create diarrhea. Maybe part of problem. Best not to feed any Dry kibbles right now stick to moist only or kibbles soaked in water or chicken broth juice keeping liquids up. Good quality high end kitten kibble Orejen or Royal Canin plus moist kitten food with water added Canin has popular kitten moist. Plain pure pumpkin tiny bit (tablespoon) they love it mixed with moist food helps can also ad tiny bit of plain yogurt room temp. Washing being wet plus the move with strangers all that is stressful, did previous home offer you a blanket with moms scent on it or anything for comfort? Rather than bathing each time I've used baby wipes no problem then damp warm cloth then towel. Hope he she feels better.

 

[SeventhHeaven]

delete

 

[talkingpeanut]

How old is the kitten?

 

[StefanZ]

As she has much diarrhea and even some throwing up, she needs to compensate for salt loss. Its not enough with giving her just water for hydration.

bough clear flavorless pedialyte for babies is best, but you can make your own,
easiest with having a trifle water and honey into her drinking water. so it barely flavors the taste. Mix up by boiling.

Better still may be,
you take some white rice and much water, and boil it twice as long as usually, so the rice is well overdone.
You take the water from there and add some salt - preferably some type of minerale salt. Not much, so it barely gets salty.

Its a terrific homemade pedialyte useful against diarrheas.

T TKZERO