How do I teach my kitten to use the litter tray properly?

[HawaiianSunset12]

We've had our kitten since she was 11 weeks old. She is now 20 weeks (4.5 months). When we had her, she was fully litter trained, never had any accidents. However, she knew she had to cover the poo with litter but she never got it right - she'd sort of scrape away but never cover it. Didn't matter to us.

Over the past 3-4 weeks, she's started to scrape at anything and everything other than litter. She scrapes the actual litter tray, the door, the floor, the bin etc.

She's done two poo's this morning. The first one, I saw her doing. She didn't even sit in the litter tray right. She had her 2 front paws up on the top of the box and sort of squatted! The second, I've just discovered. On the floor. There is a tiny bit in the litter tray, the rest is on the floor next to it.

She has quite sloppy poo, always has done. We originally starved her for 24 hours then gave her boiled chicken over the course of 3 days, gradually re-introducing her normal food. And she was fine for about a week. And then the sloppyness started again. Sometimes it's "formed" but sloppy, other times it's just really sloppy. Our vet has said she has happy and healthy in herself, so not to worry. She does have a hernia in her stomach which we believe may be the cause of the sloppy poo. This will be fixed when she is spayed next month [waiting for her to reach a certain weight]

We have an older cat (16 months old) who uses the litter tray correctly so we thought the kitten would learn from the older one.

What can we do to teach her??

[kimthomasandaimee]

What are you feeding her?

[Meow75]

Go back to basics.

Once kitty has had a meal, give her a few minutes to have a wash, etc. and then put her in the litter tray. That should stimulate her to have a poo, especially if you use a bit of dampened tissue or kitchen roll on her back end. It's how breeders and rescue centres teach orphaned kittens to use a tray.

Also, make the litter a bit deeper for a while, until she's been spayed and got that hernia sorted. Maybe the behaviour is related to her feelings/discomfiture about the condition of her poos.

Good luck xx

[Iseeall]

Is the litter tray large enough. Maybe buy a very big one and fill it quite deeply.
My cat used to 'miss' because he had grown out of his original litter tray.
Some cats are particular about the cat litter you use, are you chopping and changing?

[EweHaveGoatToBeKiddin]

I had this problem. My female kitten is now the same age as yours.

Here's some tips the vet gave me.

Buy an additional litter box and place it somewhere different from the first (e.g. put it upstairs if the current one is downstairs).

Place kitten into a litterbox after each meal.

When it poos elswehere, place the poo into the litterbox and let is sit for a while. Place kitten into the litterbox so she gets a scent for it.

Try a new brand of litter.