Here are the scenarios: They were fed Purina Friskies (Kittens) earlier prior these ongoing problem. Before that, I found out that they were rejecting the Purina Friskies (Adults) although they were old enough to consume that. The Purina Friskies (Kittens) were out of stock for some time and I did replace it with Cindy Cat Food (Japan)’s Ocean Flavor, Mackerel Flavor and Tuna Flavor for about two weeks or so. All the products have hair ball control. They tend to like the Tuna better so I continued serving them that. That was the time I gave all of them deworming pills. From that time onwards, Justin started having the “bowel” problem followed by Jayson. The rest were fine except that their stools went from hard to soft (until today), although I has switched back to their usual Purina Friskies (Kittens).
I had consulted the vet on this problem but the answer given was their diets. Maybe some of you might have encountered the same scenarios and could advise me further as I had ran out of solutions here. The J kitties looked rather tired recently too. Here are their photos taken barely 20 minutes ago.
Poor kitties and poor you. 🙁 We assume the vet has tested their stool for things like giardia? We both had diarrhea for a while because Merlin brought giardia with him when he moved in with us. Dragonheart also had problems before Merlin arrived because it turns out that he’s allergic to chicken, and chicken is present in many cat foods, even fish, duck, and other non-chicken flavours. So now we both eat venison food that doesn’t have any chicken products whatsoever in it.
Good luck – we hope all the kitties are feeling better soon.
Ideally if a cat/dog has reached adulthood, they should be fed with adult formula to ensure they are getting all the vital vitamins and minerals to aid in their good health maintenance. That is why, it is not advisable to feed cat food to a dog, or dog food to a cat.
Sudden change in a cat/dog’s diet may cause diahhorrea. To avoid this, gradual change is recommended. Hence, if you switch suddenly from dry food to wet food especially, the likelihood of diahhorrea will be much higher.
For pet can food, even though it may be branded as “Japan” or “USA” – look at the label, if they are MADE IN THAILAND, most likely they are produce by same factory but branded under different labels of different customers. These can food have very high content of “jelly” thus, they are more “wetter” than say a can of food that are filled with more chunks of meat than jelly.
I would recommend a gradual change by mixing dry food with wet food, to avoid upset tummies. Usually, runs happen when you switch from dry to wet, rather than the other way around. With dry, you will definately have more solid stools but do ensure if your pet is on dry food to make sure they drink enough of water. Too little water consumption can also cause stones and other complicated problems.
Deworming pills should only be given when your pet has solid stools and eating normally and defecating normally as well. The pills should never be given when they are starting to have soft stool/diahorrea. It will worsen the condition.
Do you have access to Iams dry food formula? If YES, try your cats on this brand as they are better formula than Purina.
If not, try to mix Purina Kittens with Adults and gradually wean your cats off Kittens and just put them on the Adults. It may help to add some wet food to encourage them because wet food have very nice aroma 🙂
Still, if you have mostly boys in your household, when they grow into adults, check with your vet if they sell “IAMS LOW PH/S”. This dry food formula is great for prevention of “stones”. The boys will tend to get stones because of the nature of their anatomy/urinary tract, and its perfectly okay to feed to the girls too.
If this is due to diet change, and dewormning pills being given at the wrong timing, it is still a lucky break for you. The worst scenerio would be a case of one of the cats catching a virus from outside and passing it on to other cats within the household. These things spread very fast. So, as a precaution, always make sure to separate all the cats from each other when you have a diahhorrea or flu within the household. They spread very fast amongst themselves. Even if you don’t clear up the stool fast enough, that in itself is already a ticking time bomb as the bacteria will be airborne and any passing cat can pick up on it.
So, even if you have to cage up a sick cat, do it no matter how pitiful they look. It will help to stop the spreading and you also “localised” the infection or area of cleaning/administration of care to the sick animal.
Vaccinations for all the cats is a precaution to make them strong, but, even these vaccinations have a time limit – usually last for 1 year only (for adult cats). And if the virus is a stronger one, sometimes, even vaccination cannot fight it.
Always remember that when we can already see that our pet is sick, it will usually mean that its immune system was trying to fight it (eg. fever is a result of fighting hard). And the fever or diahhorre, will trigger its caretaker to take a hard look at what’s gone wrong. So, it helps in the sense that it draws our human attention (just like in humans too).
And if despite all medication and prevention etc. your pet is still sick, go to the vet and ask for a blood test. If it does not reveal anything, go for a further CBC and FIV/FELV combo test. These will more or less determine what is wrong with your pet and the correct course of treatment/medication to administer.
All the best and don’t worry, your pets will get well because you are a dedicated “Daddy” of theirs.
Warm regards,
Wee Zh
P/S: This is written by Mummy’s friend.
Thanks Dragonheart and Merlin. I’ll have to wait for the vet’s report to confirm that.
Psss… I just saw one just like Merlin few minutes ago 🙂
Felix, Garfield & Jawsy: Wow! That’s a very detail step by step advice. I love it. Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me with the procedures 🙂 No matter what, I’ll still have to wait for my vet’s advice before proceeding with other methods. Thanks anyway.
We hope that your babies will be feeling better soon. Please keep us posted. How are Jimmy and Joey doing?
Oh I hope they all start getting better.
Goodness, we are so sorry to hear about the J Family troubles. We can offer nothing that has not already been said by others. We do hope that the illness is not serious and everyone feels better soon.
purrs,
Mindy and Moe
We are so sorry ta hear that you guys are hafin problems! We are glad our Frskies adult food isnt gifin us trubbles like that.
Hope yer all feelin better soon!
Criz, I don’t know what kind of food is available to you, but I feed my babies Nutro Natural Choice kibble and they do very well with it. I had tried feeding them other foods at times, and Sabrina and Simon were good with it, but it gave Sam the hershey squirts. All I can say is that it is just a process of elimination (no pun intended) regarding the right food. I hope you can find something that will work for all of your J babies.
Good luck and take care,
Momma Jan
Oh Criz, we hpe everyone gets well soon! Being sick is no fun fro anyone!
Your FL furiends,
Criz,
We hope Jayson is feeling better and the others aren’t any worse.
Take care.
Poor fings! My vet said I could haf kitten food until I was one year old. Hairball remedy food mite soften their stools, but is there something else they might have gotten into? A plant or human food?
We hope everyone is feeling better soon! Purrs
Hi Criz,
Not sure if you where aware of this, and didn’t see it mentioned so I thought we’d bring it up. First, watch all the kitties suffering from diarrhea for dehydration. Dehydration can occur awfully fast. A simple way to test for this is to check the elasity in their skin. Pinch the skin(pulling up on it) somewhere along their back, if the skin is slow to balance back, it is a sign that your cat is becoming/is dehydrated. It the skin bounces right back, then all is good, at least as far as dehydration is concerned.
Now for the diarrhea itself, purchase a can of pumpkin. You can give the pumpkin to anyone suffering from diarrhea directly or mix it with a little wet food. The fiber in the pumpkin should help firm up any runny stool. This is a trick that we often used when I volunteered at our local cat shelter.
🙂