Yes, I'm planning to drop the food for sure, but want to avoid causing problems in the future by knowing what to avoid.  (I have a manx and they are prone to bowel problems.  Cameo has no problems so far, and I want to keep it that way.)

O-M-G!  This...THIS is such a great thread!!

My LIFE is KITTY POOP!

My MIDDLE NAME is KITTY POOP!

I wish we could all get together to chat about this because I have so many comments and questions that if I were to write everything here, I believe the internet would have to shut down for the day.

I......I keep a diary of my 4 poo machines on a different forum.  I don't think anyone reads it though LOL.

I have been so obsessed with poop as of late, and I celebrate and inspect each and every piece.

I've been transitioning The Kibble Kats 4 over the past...what, 2 months?  Feels like FOREVER.....from free-feeding dry -- scheduled dry + wet -- scheduled grain-free dry + wet and now I'm stuck in a limbo, since nobody will eat their wet unless it has a side order of dry.  (The goal is to get to homecooked or raw..........hhhhhh.)

But ever since we got to the grain-free point (Wellness & Evo wet/Evo dry), all 4 of these guys' poop production has gone waaaahaaaaay down and had/has me freaking out enough to...start that diary I mentioned above LOL.

Not only that, but they eat waaaahaaaay less (which makes sense that poop production would be down).

I've seen them go to the box and act like they're going to go, but then decide it's not time yet...though they don't strain or anything.  They just stand there a few moments, dig once or twice, look at the wall, and then kind of look like "Hmm.  Not yet." and then they skedaddle out.



My boys are a bit over 5kg each, and the girls are about 4kg each, and I've been concerned about the small food portions they eat.  On average, this is what they eat per meal, and they get fed morning and night :

Both girls and Yoyo : 1 tbsp Evo dry + about 1 oz wet (with a little freeze-dried chicken on leftover wet to bribe them to try to finish it). 

Mooch : 1 tbsp Evo dry + 1 NV Medallion (bless his heart) or  1-2 oz wet (with a little freeze-dried chicken LIVER to bribe him to finish his wet & raw)

They poo every other day.  And the poos are small.  And hard.  (I was so relieved to see the photo of Kaffe's poops!  When my guys were eating grains, man almighty, they'd make big enough ones that made ME envious.  It's a total change!  And I've read that cats eating raw only poop every other day, but I hadn't read that about just grain-free?)

When I feed them, they're happy to eat but not with major gusto (they only go gusto for dry - I'm limited in wet selection over where I am), and they're simply not hungry to eat a lot.  They're indoor only and we live in a verrry small Japanese apartment, so I try to run around with them between my two rooms and up and down the tower and over my bed as much as possible (I wasn't expecting to be hosting 4 cats - two of them are Mom's who lives downstairs, but she always asks me to babysit), but they don't have much adventure time, as much as that really, really pains me.

Okay.  I'm writing a diary HERE now it seems.

I'm stopping.  I'm just excited to see this thread.

Of course it got warm here around the time they went all grain-free, so I can't tell if they're sleepy because of what.  But everybody plays, sleeps, drinks water, and seems to be their normal 1 yr-old selves, just minus a ton of poo.

Okay.  I really am stopping here. 

Wait - one last thing - I did buy canned pumpkin a few weeks ago at my highest worry point and mixed it in with the wet and they ate it and all was all right.  I froze the pumpkin in fingertip proportions and put them in a Ziplock.  That's all right?


Wow.  I feel better having been able to "dump" that out.   

Welcome to Itchmo, August!  Yes, many of us keep *journals* of our kitty poop and inspect every single one so you're with the right crowd!  Canned food with or without grains is sometimes just dependent on the kitty's needs.  I switched mine to canned grainless from kibble, which cleared up a lot of problems with their skin and fur.  However, the older ones didn't do as good on the grainless and became constipated.  I would supplement with fiber and eventually with Lactulose.  I'm of the opinion I would rather give canned/raw than kibble.

I see your babies are so young though so supplementing with fiber or Lactulose shouldn't be an option, although pumpkin seems to be fine at any age.  The poop from canned should be a lot less in volume because the kibble has so many fillers, thus the huge poops.  But if the stools are small and hard, and pooping every other day, is not right for young kitties.  You may have to keep them on canned with small amounts of grain or veggies as fiber. 

Wellness makes a good canned with grain, so you may want to try that, or even rotate the Wellness grainless/with grain and see if that helps.  IMO, it's more important to keep them off the kibble and on a decent canned with or without grains.  HTH!

Catbird,

I have been reading about your success with home-cooking.  I'm vegetarian, too, but I've been trying a bit to buy some meats and gizzewwwds.  Now I'm all gung-ho to try that simple recipe.

For crying out loud, it's 3am where I am.   

I don't have an oven -- do you think the chicken thigh would taste all right steamed or boiled?

I'm going to try to find some baby food veggies tomorrow.

Wait, I need to be talking about poop in this thread.

I hope my babies aren't all feeling miserable.  I wish I could go shopping right now!!  I need to get something to crush egg shells.  And I need to get a food processor.  And the ingredients.  Heh.

How on earth am I going to be able to sleep.  Yoyo hasn't pooped yet (the others have).

Thank you!


   Lightly boil would mean putting enough water to cover the bottom of the fry pan and then letting the ground chicken in that until not pink, is that right?

Also, because I don't have an oven, I can't bake the eggshells (actually, I have a toaster oven, but it's not like American standards and as you can guess, I'm rather lame in the food-prep department).  I think I read that someone just dried one out?  Any ideas how long that takes?  It's just an eggshell that has been washed and sitting out to dry?  Then I crush it up?


Come on you four....Poop......!!

Catbird,

Thank you!  I'll try toasting them some.  And thank you for your kind mail!

I'm starting to feel all confused again about what I'm feeding these 4 and what is best for them.  Urgh.      Now all I can think about is getting them to poop.  And finding something they'll enjoy to eat.

My dream would be to find a food that makes them go absolutely bonkers, and then make glorious perfect poops.  That would make me so happy!

I sometimes just dry the shells out under a strong sun --- which we don't get very often here in rainy rainy Oregon!