clumping litter + stool sample

hi all.

advice please. poor punkin, my four year old long-haired tabby, has had diarrhea for the past few days. i tried the butternut squash baby food (heinz organic) in her cat food starting last nite, this morning and just now. she eats it like a trooper, so that's fine, but i'm not really seeing much improvement yet (how long should it take?). poor baby is miserable. crying in the litter box, acting like she's digging a hole to china - not to mention the yucky fir i've had to cut away from her behind :yuck:

anyway, i called the vet's office, and was told i should put her on just strained baby food (no cat food), and that i should bring in a stool sample in the morning. my question is - will it be okay that i use clumping litter? will they still be able to use it to do the fecal test?

thanks!
tracy :cat:

As long as the majority of the sample is sample rather than litter this will be fine for most fecal tests. :pawprint:

hi dr. lee.

thanks so much for the quick response. at this point, she is pooping little bits of mushy stuff. here is a picture so you can see what i mean. i put a key next to it so you could tell how small it is: let me know what you think...

thanks again.
tracy :)

Vivid picture :yuck:

It looks like it is a 50/50 mix of feces and litter? Is that correct or are the flecks from the food and not the litter? If that is all feces, then that should be fine.

If that is almost half litter then I would like a little more. While most labs state they can get by with "the amount of two peas". I often find they like at least double that for a 'good sample'. I usually try to send them a teaspoonish.

For patients that are suffering from frequent but very small diarrhea episodes (often an indicator of large bowel inflammation), then sometimes I will recommend keeping them in a bathroom or other small cleanable room and use a litter box with barely any litter. Do this just until you get a sample, and then put them back in their normal, happy routine. :cat:

hi dr. lee.

yes, it is about 50/50 (feces/litter). i do have some no-sorb here (plastic litter) that has never been used. should i try it instead? don't know if she'll use it... anyway, i'll try to gather up what i can (it would be nice if she could produce a larger sample) and take it in in the a.m. other than being a small sample, how does the poo look? i'm encouraged that it is not as wet as when all this started (verrrrrry liquidy).

tracy :)