I am just dropping by to say hello and I hope everyone is doing well! I adopted a new kitty 3 weeks ago. I wasn’t really ready for a new kitty because it hadn’t even been a month since losing Max, but it seems that it was meant to be. This is Charlie. He was accidentally caught in a feral cat trap and taken to the local animal shelter. I follow posts from the animal shelter and Charlie was described as a sweet boy, definitely not feral. They believed that he belonged to someone, but nobody claimed him. Our animal shelter here is a high kill shelter because they don’t keep the animals long. I was hoping someone would claim, adopt or rescue Charlie but they didn’t, so we went to get him. Nobody knew anything about him, so I took him to our vet to be vaccinated, dewormed, and treated for an ear infection. He’s adjusted well except he has had very loose stools once daily. He was used to eating dry food at the shelter and I don’t know about before then. I gradually have tried to switch him to Weruva canned food and I’ve also tried Wellness and Tiki cat canned, but his stools are still loose. I’ve tried S. Boulardi, psyllium husk powder and pumpkin. The vet treated him with metronidazole and told me to feed him only dry food. I wasn’t happy about that but was out of options. The loose stools got a little better but not resolved completely and he’s finished the antibiotics. He has been also taking Visbiome. I was just wondering if anyone here had any other ideas? Charlie is not diabetic, so I won’t be posting but there are such great people here that I’ve trusted before for ideas. Thought I’d reach out this once. Any idea what I can feed him? I don’t want to keep him on kibble. He’s no Max. He is a little firecracker with a mind of his own! He can be a sweet boy when he wants to lol. He’s scheduled to be neutered next Wednesday so just maybe he will settle down a little anyway.
Congrats on the new addition. They seem to find us cat lovers! Any idea how old he is? He’s adorable. When Mocha was about a year she was having the same issue. I switched to raw at tge suggestion of the rescue and it worked. I’ve read so much lately about cats having issues with cat food so it very well could be the food.
Thank you Elise. The vet estimates he’s about a year old. I’ve read a lot about pet food lately too. I was thinking about going with raw. Max was on raw for a while. I kind of was hoping for doing something as simple as changing brands but I have no idea what to try. I probably will try raw eventually. That seems to be the best option.
Hi Lori it's so wonderful of you to adopt Charlie ❤️ He is soooo cute. It sounds like you're doing everything right. I wonder if the loose stools are from the antibiotic? Have you considered freeze dried raw? Cleo has been finicky with Weruva lately. She'll only eat the ones out of the pouch and not the cans. Very strange. There's Koha limited ingredient foods that my Cleo likes as well as ZiwiPeak. Ziwi has air dried raw which passed as kibble for awhile . Sending lots of love and hugs your way. Congrats and welcome Charlie to your family
Thanks Angela! I hope Miss Cleo is doing well! I thought about the antibiotic may be the culprit as well. He has had it since we brought him home though, but I started canned food the same day. My vet says some cats can’t eat wet food. I have never heard such a thing before. Where do you get freeze dried raw? I have never tried that. I’ve not tried ziwipeak or Koha either. Does Chewy have that?
Lori, I am so happy that another kitty has spoken to your heart. He does look like a sweetie. Metronidazole isn't the greatest solution - it can unbalance the microbiome. I'm glad you are giving Visbiome and s. boullardi. You might want to also try psyllium husk fiber. Start low dose then increase. Both Stelly and Chewy's and Primal make freeze dried raw - there are more but they are the most common. They are available in most independent pet food stores. Ziwipeak also make an air dried raw that has lots of crunch if kitty needs that.
Lots of independent pet food stores carry freeze dried raw. You can get some from Amazon and Chewy as well. I like Small Batch and also feed Primal.
Remember the rule, 'change one thing at a time' I know that Ziwi is sold at Chewy. Koha can be found usually in a mom and pop pet store and of course online at https://kohapet.com/collections/shop-all-cat They have a sampler option. You can find freeze dried raw almost everywhere now but I'd start with a local pet store so you can sample. Cleo has recently developed a liking for raw food. She will wake up from a hard core nap at the slightest smell of chicken or lamb or any raw meat really that we're about to cook for ourselves for dinner .
Thank you Wendy. So good to hear from you! Charlie has been entertaining to say the least and I do love the little guy. Max will always have the center of my heart, but I have room for Charlie too. Thanks for those suggestions. I’m looking some of those up now. Hopefully I can find something that will work.
Yes, one thing at the time! I keep saying “baby steps” to myself. Charlie has been through a lot it seems. I am going to go to Petsmart this afternoon and see if they have anything. If not I will check out Chewy. I don’t think we have any other pet food stores besides Petsmart.
Hi Lori, congratulations on your new love, Charlie. He is precious and Ivy and I wish you all the best for a happy, healthy life together. It’s wonderful to see you again here. Sounds like you’re off to a great start together. I know Max will always be with you in your heart. ❤️❤️ Sending lots of love to you and your family
Hi Max And welcome Charlie I'm so pleased to know Charlie has a loving and caring home. Fistuk gets diarrhoea and loos stool with antibiotics. No psyllium, pumpkin or any S.B. helps if he's taking antibiotics. basically antibiotics destroys the good bacteria in the gut and come cats (like humans) are more sensitive to AB than others. If it was my cat, I won't give dry food but keep on with the PR, because now that the AB course is finished I'm quite confident that his gut will restore its balance. That's my two cents Wish you to enjoy each other's presence
Hey Staci. You’ve always been so caring and kind. Thank you so much. Charlie is keeping me busy, which is good. He’s into everything! I will check on you and Ivy from time to time. Hope all is well with you both.
Hi Lori!!!! It's soooo good to hear from you and congratulations on rescuing sweet Charlie! Mikan had horribly loose stool when she was a kitten. I tried all kinds of things but what worked was a little bit of psyllium powder in her wet food. It kind of turned into a gel-like, uh, substance soon after and gradually solidified. FYI. Kittenhood is such a special period and goes fast. Enjoy the rambunctiousness . Sending you
Hi Kit! Thanks so much! It’s been a long time since I had a kitten, but we’re really enjoying our little Charlie.
He's so adorable. It sounds like it was meant to be. I'm so glad you adopted Charlie. It may just take a while for his stomach to stabilize. Sending prayers.
Hi Lori, oh my God Charlie is so precious looking. He's adore. I'm so happy you adopted him. I hope you will find a food that Charlie will like and solve those loose poops. Enjoy that little firecracker I think your love Max sent Charlie to you because Max knew you were the best Mom ever . Please stop in from time to time and let us know how Charlie is doing
Thanks Diane and Carla! I think it was meant to be too, just because of how it happened that we got him. Once I saw his picture and that nobody had claimed him, I couldn’t get Charlie off of my mind! I am still heartbroken over Max and still think of him often, but getting Charlie has made it a little easier.
Please stop in and say hello Lori. I would love to hear from you when you have a minute and share Charlie with us
Hi Lori, @Max & Lori, I am late to the post but just had to say congrats on your new baby Charlie! He is absolutely gorgeous, and an Or-inch on top of that! I was hoping and praying a lucky kitten or two would find their way into your home. He's a Heart Kitty, no one will ever replace Max, but a heart kitty is there to help fill the hole left by Max. So precious!!! I hope you will stop in more often and give us updates, love reading about the newbies! My tuxedo boy Buster was orphaned when less than 7 weeks old when rescuers saved him from a pitbull which had gotten the rest of his family!!! He was treated for coccidia and had the stinkiest runniest poop of all time. By the time I found him at the shelter, of course the coccidia was gone but that diarrhea stayed. My vet also gave him Metronodiazole, which I now think further upset his poor little insides. I got him on Proviable, pumpkin and after a year, the diarrhea finally stopped. Still has the stinky poop though
Thanks Ruth, Charlie had his neutering today so he’s had a rough day. Hopefully the diarrhea will resolve soon!
Charlie is still having loose stools and also had some vomiting last weekend and we ended up at the emergency vet. They did some tests including an X-ray which showed some abnormalities including enlarged kidneys, liver and spleen. He had an abdominal ultrasound today and everything was okay except his spleen was enlarged and his bowel was slightly thickened. It has been sent to a board certified radiologist and I will get the results on Wednesday. Charlie is only a year old. He’s been tested for FIV/FELV and it was negative back when we got him. He has been dewormed several times yet nobody has seen any parasites on the fecal tests. He had a Convenia shot when we first got him because he had an abscess on his front leg, which has now healed. He was full of ticks but we took care of that with Revolution. I have him on probiotics including S. Boulardi but it hasn’t seemed to work for him. The vet who did his ultrasound thinks he may have IBD, but the radiologist would tell us more. He’s so young. He’s playful and happy. I am worried about him though because of this ultrasound. I just wondered if @Wendy&Neko or @Marje and Gracie had any experience with this. Or maybe lead me to another source of information. I know I shouldn’t be posting here for him. I’m sorry, but desperate for answers and confused. Thank you, if you can help. I can’t believe I’m worrying myself sick over another sweet kitty. I hope it’s nothing bad. We’ve come to love little Charlie so much.
Hi Lori, I don't have any advice or answers for you but just wanted to drop by and congratulate you on finding and adopting Charlie. He's beautiful and definitely in good hands. I hope he gets better soon and that you will get some answers
s. boullardi won't work if his B12 levels are low. Maybe next time he gets blood work, add that test to the list. You could try Visbiome as a probiotic, it's made for IBD. Have you thought about trying a completely different protein for him? Did you try the freeze dried diet options? And yet another option is to get fecal testing done by Animal Biome. He's had a lot of antibiotics, so it could be his GI system is out of whack and gut bacteria balance needs restoring. I know Marje has used them and I did it too for my IBD kitty. She didn't have bad bacteria, but rather an imbalance and low on some of the good bacteria. Their Gut Restore product helps balance the gut.
I haven’t tried the freeze dried but I did get the Koha brand wet food in rabbit. He’s been on that a week and still loose stools. He’s on Visbiome already too. He has been on a lot of antibiotics and he’s been through a lot so I’m hoping the enlarged spleen is an immune response to all that he’s been through. I’m pretty sure his GI flora is out of whack because of the antibiotics. Thanks for the suggestions. I will look into that Animal Biome fecal testing. I’ve ordered a sample of EZ complete and was going to try raw with him but I know to go slow with the change. Max used EZ complete with pork and rabbit. I don’t have anything left of Max’s things. I didn’t think I’d get another cat, but here I am. Is it possible for a cat to have IBD, or worse as young as Charlie is? His regular vet seems to think he has food allergies and we just haven’t found the right thing, but I haven’t talked to him about the ultrasound yet. We just had that done this morning. I have a different vet now than I had with Max, and he of course will want me to try a prescription diet if that’s the case. I’d rather find a protein that he could tolerate and make my own food. So is something like IBD common in a one year old cat? I will ask about getting his B12 checked too.
I don't know a lot about how early IBD can show up. My current IBD kitty I adopted at 5 years old, and she came with "food allergies". She did fine on EZ Complete for a a year I figured out what food to avoid, then got worse again. The IBDKitties website apparently has an FB group that is good, but I'm not on it.
Hi Lori (@Max & Lori) Congratulations on your new little kitty, Charlie. He is definitely a cutie. I’m so sorry he’s having issues. Also sorry for the delayed response but we were in France all of May and I’m just settling in back home. Wendy has made some great suggestions. I would also suggest you join the Raw Feeding for IBD Cats on Facebook. You don’t have to feed raw to post there but they have alot of experience which far surpasses mine and I have seen some very, very young cats on there with IBD. I also hope that is not what is going on with Charlie. If you want to see if he has food sensitivities (not allergies), you can look into Nutriscan. I did this for both of mine and Tobey had a sensitivity to chicken so we stopped all chicken before he could develop any issues. Also, Wendy is correct that I ran a fecal test through Animal Biome just to see what Tobey’s gut flora looked like (he does not have any gut issues). It’s my thought that the AB people are always going to suggest buying their Gut Restore unless a cat’s gut flora is almost perfect which is probably rare. I did the consultation with them that comes with having the sample analyzed. Tobey’s gut flora was pretty good although he had one strain that was ok to have but was at a marginally higher level than desirable and so they suggested we move him from the Jarrows S boulardi with MOS to one with FOS. I might have already given you this info for Max but now, at my vet’s suggestion, use Four Leaf Rover S boulardi with FOS. Wendy is correct that this will not help if the cobalamin is low and IBD cats very often have an issue with low B12 so I agree next time you have labs done, get at least a cobalamin and folate test done through A&M UNLESS he has super smelly poo that is a really weird color like yellowish. Then you will also just want the full panel so they can check him for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. I don’t know how much S boulardi you are using, but if his B12 tests are normal, you can likely use a bit more of it. Let me know as I believe somewhere I have info on how much they can be given. Tobey had really bad diarrhea as a kitten and we had him tested for worms and parasites but it all came back negative. However, because his poo was so horribly stinky (not like normally stinky poo), my vet felt he likely had coccidia and did a course of Albon. That did the trick and he’s never had the issue again. Of course, Albon is an antibiotic and Charlie has already had too many (I also don’t like Metronidazole) so I wouldn’t jump to talk to the vet about Albon unless his poo is really really stinky (but a fairly normal color). Just keep that in your back pocket. A close friend of mine has a 17-year old cat who has had mild IBD for about five years. She’s been on budesonide but it was starting to be less effective. She heard about Smalls partially cooked cat food (she has 13 cats and can’t afford to feed them all raw) and she said the food has worked so great for Corey that she’s been able to stop the budesonide. I would avoid the chicken and fish as chicken is often reactive in cats and cats shouldn’t have fish. But they have turkey, beef, and pork and my friend said her cats go crazy over it and she’s seen a great improvement in all of their health (she has a majority of geriatric cats). I had to contact the company to get the as-feds and dry matter basis analysis so if you’d like to see those, please PM me and I’ll get them to you. My thought is their beef is pretty high in phosphorus but for a young cat, that’s good as they are still building bone. Their ingredient list looks ok although I don’t think cats need fruits/veggies but most companies use them. And, with most commercial cat foods, the protein runs 32-45% calories from protein because high quality protein is very expensive. Contrast that to the raw diet with EZC I give my cats and their % calories from protein is about 70. Because Smalls is trying to keep the carbs low, which they do, then the fat is higher than what I feed my cats with raw but it is in the ballpark of most commercial foods. They will send you a sample pack and it might be worth a try for him. Sometimes moving a dry fed cat straight to raw is a little tough even if you do it slowly so using a partially cooked food is a great alternative. I looked at the Koha and it has guar gum so I would definitely try to avoid foods with gums in them. Three other resources which are great for cats with gut issues are Adored Beast Apothecary and Dr. Judy Morgan’s PEA which is an anti-inflammatory. AB has some great products for the gut and my vet is a big fan; she’s spoken often with Julie who really is very picky about her sourcing and also knows her stuff. You could even contact her to see if she recommends a specific thing but I use her Feline Healthy Gut (digestive, NOT pancreatic, enzymes), Feline Gut Soothe, and a few other things. The Chaga mushrooms are also good for inflammation but it’s best to talk to Julie to find out what is the best support product for a cat like Charlie. I also like Animal Essentials Slippery Elm. You can also buy Slippery Elm Bark Powder at health food stores and make a syrup yourself. I used that for my CKD kitties and never had to give any pepcid for acid tummies and I also gave it to Gracie for her IBD. Really good stuff! I’m also going to tag @Sienne and Gabby (GA) because she had a close friend whose kittens had horrific diarrhea for quite some time as kittens I think up until they were over 1 (not sure about that). She might be able to tell you what they exactly found out about it and how they treated it but I know they did manage to get it under control. I hope this helps and you can get this addressed for your sweet boy. He’s so lucky!!!
This is excellent information and thank you for those resources @Marje and Gracie . I’ve managed to get Charlie off of the dry food. Still having liquid poops once a day though. He also had Albon, even though nothing was on the fecal slide. He’s had too many antibiotics definitely and at the emergency vet they wanted to give another convenia shot. I asked why and they said to cover an infection even though they couldn’t say he had one! I said no to the convenia. I’m supposed to get a call about the ultrasound report later today so I will see what they recommend but I definitely am going to look into some of the testing you mentioned and the supplements he may need. I will request a sample of the Smalls food also. I was pretty comfortable using the EZC with Max so that’s not a problem if that’s what I should do. You mentioned the gums in some cat food. I suspect that may be part of the problem and possibly chicken and fish are sensitivities he has also. I am so appreciative of your help Marje. I will keep you informed and will PM you if that’s okay. I hope you enjoyed your trip to France. That sounds so exciting. We are getting ready to go to Myrtle Beach in a couple of weeks. I hate that this is going on with Charlie and we are leaving him, so I’m hoping we can get him better soon. My sister will be looking in on him and feeding him. Thanks again for all of your time helping me!
You’re welcome, Lori, and I hope something helps. I’m glad you are getting to Myrtle Beach. I hope you have a wonderful time and get some R&R.
