To be really irritated by how much our kittens are pooing?

[RUOKHon]

I have two kittens. They are about five months old and each do about five shits a day. The first thing they do when they wake up from a snooze is go and have a shit. After each meal they go and have a shit. I’m sick and tired of them shitting so much and having to clear it up. I change the litter tray twice a day and I am still convinced I can smell poo. I feed them the recommended amount of ludicrously expensive special food that I got from the vet. They are fine and healthy, they just won’t stop pooing! Is this normal?

zooplus has a brilliant selection of grain free food - because its online you buy in bulk, but it's a lot cheaper per kilo than whiskers and other brand leaders in supermarket.

My one only poos once a day, but I don't remember what she was like as a kitten.

Apparently male cats shouldn't get wet food. Found this out from a vet who put my male 4 year old to sleep after a severe blocked bladder, on my birthday of all days. My little man was born in my house

If you can still smell poo, have you checked under furniture? I've had 5 litters born in my house and not all the kittens used the litter tray. The smell of poo after cleaning the trays is what alerted me to the fact not all of them were using the tray. Its amazing the tiny spaces they can squeeze into!

None of my seven cats have been prolific shitters except the only one I have left who is 19, holy cow I don't know how she can shit so much and still live, her whole life. It used to absolutely stink to, to the point I really didn't feel I could have people over any more.
She had every test under the sun, cost the insurance about £2.5k and in the end, they never found anything wrong with her
She is now on the kidney diet and the smell has gone overnight. It doesn't hurt to put any cat on this diet. It does kill the smell.
Kittens do tend to poo more though so hopefully they will settle down. Its better when they can go out.

What are feral male cats supposed to eat????? Rats/mice/birds are all ‘wet’ food 🙀

Sorry for the loss of your little man - those born into our trust are so hard to lose. May he be bounding about at the rainbow bridge with my ginger boy.

@BuffyTheBuffetSlayer that’s bonkers, a cat’s natural food is ‘wet’ food....

Kittens poo loads but it stops after a while and levels out to one a day (ish).

Worlds Best cat litter is an absolute game changer. Literally blows up into a ball and can be scooped out and flushed down the loo so you don't have to keep changing the litter, just top it up. Works out cheaper in the long run too.

I think it’s the opposite way round that dry food is bad for make cats especially. Cats were not made to eat nice little dry biscuits, they should be eating mice and birds in the wild. Dry food messes with their kidneys causing kidney stones in male cats (I speak from bitter experience) as they don’t drink enough water. Can’t remember the two types of crystals but my cat had the rare oxalate kind ended up being opiated on twice to remove them despite special food, he was a chubby boy too was a constant battle to stop him eating other cats food too.

My three are all adults now and all tend to poo at night in the one tray for some reason they have a designated poo tray (the other two are for wees only) so it only gets cleaned in the morning. I buy cheap cat litter and bin it everyday

@BuffyTheBuffetSlayer

Apparently male cats shouldn't get wet food. Found this out from a vet who put my male 4 year old to sleep after a severe blocked bladder, on my birthday of all days. My little man was born in my house

If you can still smell poo, have you checked under furniture? I've had 5 litters born in my house and not all the kittens used the litter tray. The smell of poo after cleaning the trays is what alerted me to the fact not all of them were using the tray. Its amazing the tiny spaces they can squeeze into!

Its dry food that increases the chance of crystals blocking the urethra.

Male and female cats have an increases risk of both kidney disease, diabetes and obesity on a dry diet as well. Due to the sheer amount of water they would need to drink, they also suffer dehydration.

@RUOKHon come over to The Litter Tray chat topic. There are lots of us with kittens. I have 2 that are 6 month old. Mine poo at least 2 a day and it sometimes stinks.

If you follow all the advice in this thread your cats will now be on a raw, wet, dry, grain free, homemade, frozen food diet. :)
There are lots of different ways to feed your kittens and lots of different cat litters. The bit that worries me is that your cat is doing diarrhoea poos....that isn't normal. Come to litter tray and get some great advice - plus see some lovely cat pics!

Its dry food that increases the chance of crystals blocking the urethra.

Male and female cats have an increases risk of both kidney disease, diabetes and obesity on a dry diet as well. Due to the sheer amount of water they would need to drink, they also suffer dehydration.

Really?? That's outrageous! My little boy was the only one in the litter who preferred dry food but I persevered and got him eating wet meat. So you can imagine the guilt I have felt after the vet told me his blocked bladder was caused because I fed him wet meat

My teen’s 8 month Ragdoll kitten that lives with us is fed a raw food diet (well, except for the kitchen scraps he keeps begging for and getting). Teen is a vegetarian so I’m guessing raw food must be the “best” as normally she wouldn’t go near meat. Raw food seems to involve adding some sort of nutrition powder mix into water and adding meat into it from the supermarket- chicken, beef, sometimes pork or lamb, often she gets this as cheap Mark downs end of night. She freezes it too first for a particular reason but I have no idea why. She’s researched this extensively, is on a Facebook group about it and vet is on board with the diet. Cat seems perfectly fine, extremely energetic too and always ready to wake the dog up and play. No multi poo issues!

@Mykittensaremyfriends A bit off topic, but I don't think you're supposed to put cat litter and faeces down the toilet if you're in the UK. Although some brands of cat litter are technically flushable, the problem is that water treatment services are not designed to kill cat parasites, such as Toxoplasma gondii. These parasites could in theory find their way into the drinking water supply and cause toxoplasmosis infection, which can be harmful, especially to the fetuses of newly-infected pregnant women.

Just chiming in to support raw feeding: I raw feed my dog and his poos barely smell at all. Buy a complete food like nutriment so you don’t need to faff about mixing your own.

I never knew that @theconstantinoplegardener I’ve just looked it up and apparently it harms otters and marine wildlife too.

If you're interested in raw feeding, this website is worth a look: www.rawfeedingadviceandsupport.com/prey-model-raw-pmr . There's a linked Facebook group which is very active and helpful. I'm in week 3 of transitioning my former prolific crapper shitehound from kibble to raw following the frankenprey model. I wouldn't say the poo is less smelly but he has now has one small one everyday. His farts are still pretty eyewatering but seem to be subsiding with time!

It's a little more of a time and money investment to begin with than canned/kibble feeding. I ended up buying a chest freezer just for dog food, but it's not that much more expensive per meal than a decent brand of kibble. If you're wanting to stick with kibble/canned then I agree with the PP who recommended zooplus, they normally have good deals on trial packs too and delivery has always been quick in my experience.