Stinky kitten poop

[spinbaby]

Late this week I became foster mom to four tiny unnamed kittens. Their mother was trapped in a feral colony, spayed, and returned. The kittens are being socialized, so they’ll be ready to go to forever homes. Mostly my first foster kittens are coming along nicely—they’re eating, playing, and enjoy human attention. My only problem is that their poop is the stinkiest cat poop I’ve ever experienced—eye-watering and awful. No one is available at the cat place to ask about this until after the weekend. The kittens are five to six weeks old and mostly eating a slurry of kitten Fancy Feast and warm water. They’re just beginning dry kitten chow. They don’t have diarrhea. They were wormed just before I got them. I’m hoping the smell is just from the worming.

[fleur-de-lisa]

1. Kitten poop is always horribly smelly.

I always forget this fact, so when we got a new kitten last year, I was worried that he was sick. The vet said it’s perfectly normal.

[Midnight Writer]

3. I had a little girl cat like that. She was healthy and lived to 19, but never lost the smelly poop.

I talked to multiple vets, but they laughed it off with "Well, cat poop smells really bad". But this was awful.

I had other cats with the same diet, but not at all the same smell.

I dealt with it by immediately scooping her box into a sealed bucket as soon as she was done. Didn't have to watch closely to know when she was in there. As with you, no diarrhea, in fact very firm, dry stools that she labored to pass.. She, too, ate Fancy Feast, but so did my other cats. She was also from a feral litter. She also had sensitive skin, lots of infections throughout her life.

Luckily, it was usually a once a day thing. To be clear, her poop stank, but she did not.

Hopefully, yours will outgrow it, but mine did not.

[LakeArenal]

4. Possibly a bit of yogurt in their diet?

We have a rescue dog who has the worst breath ever.

We put some yogurt and it helped.

My vet said it was okay.

[Laffy Kat]

5. My kitteh was rejected by her mother and bottle-fed by humans until she was weaned.

She has always had a horrible-smelling poo and terrible breath. I mean, she had bad breath when she was six weeks old. I honestly think both are caused by the lack of colostrum after she was born. Since her mother gave birth and walked away, both the surviving kitties never got colostrum, so their guts were never set-up with whatever bacteria and antibodies they get post-natally from mother's milk. Anyway, that's my totally unproven theory and it's all I got.

[Karadeniz]

6. The poop should be analyzed for coccidia and giardia. Worming won't make poop smelly.

Put the poop in a baggy...o.k. if there's some litter stuck to it...and the kitties can stay home.

The yogurt is a good idea, plain.

Dry food is the most difficult type for felines to digest. I wouldn't give it to kittens.

Let's try this. A decent canned food, some yogurt, a raw egg yolk, some canned pumpkin (no spices). To make a slurry, I add kitten milk replacer, but I'd add a digestive enzyme to it.

I've raised close to 500 kittens. Foul poop usually means coccidia or giardia.

[spinbaby]

7. Thanks

I’ll get a sample out Monday.

The kitten chow isn’t their main food, but I leave it out for them all the time for nibbles because they do have to learn to eat dry. Their main food is wet kitten food six times a day. I’ll add a bit of Greek yogurt to the next round. I’d worry about raw egg yolk because of salmonella.