Smelly cat driving me mad!

[JeesamPeesam]

I'm struggling with our cat who's quite smelly!

We live in a small flat and his poos stink out the whole house whenever he uses it. He's had a sensitive stomach since he was little and will regularly have runny poos and always smelly. Poo samples didn't find anything and with increased vet costs I can't afford to spend another £300+ just yet.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get rid of his smelly bum? I've had cats so expect a smell but this is next level 🤧 and makes a part of our flat unusable because of the bad smell. I've even stopped inviting people over and dc hasn't even been in that room. It doesn't help that he won't bury his litter either.

Grateful for any advice 😊

What are you feeding it?

Also, just to check, you are changing the littler tray immediately after the cat has used it, yes? Youre not leaving it?

i know some people like to just scoop out the poo from a litter tray, but this sounds like it needs a full change each time immediately.

What sort of tray snd litter are you using

@ConnieTucker Changing the whole litter tray after every dump is excessive. Would be at least once a day. They would need to spend a lot on cat litter as the tray is meant to be about 5cm deep with it, if not more.
Poop scooping is enough with a window kept open. You can get powder to put in the litter to deodorise it.
If they constantly have a bad belly definitely sounds like the food isn't agreeing with them.
My cat was like this - poos were always liquid almost. We changed them to biscuit only (purina one) and poos are fine now.
Also make sure you give them a worming tablet.

Try grain free food.

Also think about what litter you use. I swear by Ever Clean. I’ve saved so much money since switching to it, because it has reduced how often we have to do full litter changes dramatically.

It smells nice and clumps really hard so needs a full change far less often because you can scoop out the urine without leaving bits behind. I have it poured very deep in a big deep tray. I think it’s important not to skimp on the litter in the tray or the urine soaks down to the bottom of the tray and then urine soaked litter sticks to the bottom.

We put pretty much a whole box into the tray and then just scoop regularly with an odd top up of litter. My cat’s poos are generally not too smelly but if she does one that is smelly I scoop straight away into dog poo bags and bin it.

Smelly, runny poos are a sign that something isn't right. If vet tests aren't picking anything up, and the cat is up to date on worming, then my money is on a dietary intolerance.

What food are you currently feeding?

It's not it's fauuuuult.

Are you feeding grain free? Made a huge difference to my cats. I also give one a spoon of live bio plain yogurt weekly which helps. You can also add some tinned pumpkin to the food, Tesco used to sell it (proper stuff with no added sugar), this helps to firm things up!

😄

Try Arden grange dry food and grain free wet food, most pouches are grain free now or butchers choice.

Thanks everyone, to answer all questions

The cat has an extra large hooded litter tray, we use non clumping litter. We scoop daily and change the whole box every 3 days. Or change the box immediately if he's had dirrohea.

He gets 3 pouches of wet food daily and has access to dry food. If we remove the wet food he will starve himself, raid bins etc.

I was previously feeding him smilla and Feringa grain free food but this didn't make a difference and I can't stretch to this at the moment on SMP so he's on aldi wet and dry food. I'll research the food suggestions above and im happy to move things around in the budget, its not just about the smell I want him to be as comfortable as possible! He's also wormed every 3 months religiously.

It could be an intolerance to a certain protein like chicken - it may be worth Red

Oops! It may be worth looking at food with more unusual proteins, or swapping to a fish based food if you feed meat (and vice versa).

I have a cat who is intolerant to tuna flavoured wet food - as soon as he stopped that particular flavour he was fine!

They won't take it to the vet,
it's obviously not their favourite pet

Has he ever been tested for guardian, do you know? That causes stinking.

One ofcours is wheat intolerant. He has Sainsburys own pouches, which are so much cheaper than other wheat free foods.

And twice he's had an on going bout of diarrhoea that he struggled struggled shift and a dose of Pro Kolin has sorted him out. It's probiotic and other stuff to firm up stools. You can buy it direct, eg pets at home, amazon, it doesn't have to be prescribed.

But we do also remove every shite as soon as it has been done. Makes so much much difference even when their stomachs are fine.

^ oh, thanks autocorrect. I meant giardia. It causes stomach upsets and STINKING in people too.

Also, when my cat is having a bout, which he hasn't done in years actually, we switch him to plain white fish for a day or 2 which also stinks.

@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon If you'd read the OP you'd have noticed that we've taken him to the vet and ordered stool samples, which didn't find any issues. Its been an ongoing issue since he was a kitten and the vet hasn't been able to help us so far.

Thanks all, I'll look into trying different foods and the probiotics

It’s a joke… referencing this.

One of mine had awful runny guts on every brand of dry food we tried (and we tried about 20 brands!), we are talking serious poo explosions where he sometimes didn’t make it to the tray in time 😫 he was losing weight and looking dreadful, I felt awful for him.

Then we switched them all to raw (Bella and Duke) and now they are all thriving, shiny and produce only tiny, solid and almost odourless poos and 10L of litter lasts us around 4-6 weeks for three cats.

My bad, apologies for the prickly response! @JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon

Thank you! we've considered a raw diet. How many trays of food do you feed per day?

I hear you, I have 2 cats. 1 does totally unnoticeable poos. The younger 1 smells like raw sewage has just been poured into my house.

I have tried expensive food from the vet (got worse) and very thing from cheap food to grain free etc.

You cam buy proflora sachets from the vet at about £1 each but I haven't found a cure and the vet tests haven't shown anything up either.

My vet basically said as long as she isn't losing weight then it might just be one of those things.

Sorry can't be more help but I feel your pain!

The Bella and Duke is all calculated for you (and their customer services staff are exceptionally friendly and helpful), mine have 80g each per day. It sounds (and at first looks!) like a miserably tiny portion of food but they stay full between meals, whereas when they were on standard wet or dry foods, they were screaming at me by dinnertime. They’ve all gained weight on it (even poo boy and old lady!) and look great.

Just checked my account to see if they have a ‘refer a friend’ scheme - turns out I have a referral code for 70% off your first box if you would like to try it 😊

Thanks all,

I'll look into it more and try the probiotic sachets. I might try him on a raw diet aswell