Help.. cats have the runs... :(

Here is the story:

I took in a stray cat about 5 months or so ago. Well, she was tiny.. still only a kitten, not more than like 6 or 7 months old. She had really bad runs, was sneezing and eyes were wattery. I took her to the vet and they gave her an allergy shot, and we chalked it up to allergies for the sneezing and watery eyes... now she only seems to sneeze occasionally, but when she does, she has projectile runny poop.

Well, turned out she was pregnant also. She gave birth to 5 healthy kittens. all lived, and all were nice size. Her belly got huge, but the rest of her stayed far too skinny. After giving birth, she went back down to being nothing but skin and bone. Her runs have gotten worse, and I have not idea what to do for her.

Her kittens also have runny but sometimes just loose stoole and I have been racking my brain for wuite some time trying to figure this out. I had some money issues the past couple months and could not take her to the vet, though I am planning to do so either thursday or friday because I finally got some money.

Sometimes her poop is mucousy, and I have tried deworming her with round wormer and tape worm wormer. I read up about the rice in the stoole thing, and the poop looked very grainy.She is very skinny but her condition has not seemed to worsen really, however, one more tid bit, she sometimes leaves a trail of drips of poop and it seems like she does not even know she is pooping! She has been doing this all basically since I found her 5 months ago. I do still have the kittens and would like to keep them all but this pooping everywhere thing is getting sooo frustrating! I also need to get her fixed, but I am waiting until I find out if she is really sick or just I need to start giving her better food or if it is worms or what??

Reminder.. they all eat like pigs. Daisy(the mom) is a pig! She eats more than my other cat.. who I have had for a long time, and she is spayed and has all her papers and stuff, however, Tubby (other cat) is like 3 times Daisy's size in fat.. LOL. Tubby is a big cat though.. her paws are huge!!!! LOL. But Tubby is chunky for sure.. I just am really lost here. :confused::pray:

Now, my plans are to find a better food, quit feeding her dry food and I want to give her that bark stuff.. but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it exactly.. please help in any way you can.. I need to find out...

1):The best food to give her/them.. I have a list of ones that might be good.
2): What might be wrong with her
3): what the name of that bark stuff is..

Please help.. and know, all the help will be very appreciated!

~Krys~

Food - anything with meat as the main ingredients NOT by products
Fresh water - always available
Worm meds - probably needed and not the over the counter stuff. It does not work.
The bark stuff - slippery elm
Vet visit - priceless

LOL, thanks! That was a bit comical really, I needed a bit of comic relief! LOL Thanks much for your comment! :D

Also, she always has water.. fresh water. She is odd though, she likes to drink out of other things with water in them too.. she does drink a lot of water.. but.. she eats ALOT!

This is an interesting article you may want to read.

http://www.catchannel.com/vetlibrary/article_ask_drinkwater.aspx

Also - have cat checked for diabeties and a few others I am sure our regular wonderful posters will be able to mention.

All of this is another reason why aforementioned vet visit..... priceless. :thumbs up

Thanks for the article. Her urine is concentrated,not diluted. I think it has to do with me not feeding her wet food at all. I had thought if I feed her dry food always, it would be better than wet and would get her to have more solid stools.. I was wrong apparently. LOL. Anyhow, I went out and bought them all some new food, and lo and behold, after feeding them the wet food, they have not ate as much dry food, or drank as much water!! Kind of nice really.. now.. I just need to figure out the runs thing. Also, some of my kittens I noticed have had regular poop but at the end of it, have had runs. So.. I am thinking I was really just feeding them the completely wrong stuff. I still plan to take her to the vet, though I am hoping this solves the problem. I did not buy any of the bark stuff.. I might do that tomorrow and see if hat helps at all. :) Thanks for everything though!! :D

It still could be worms. Over the counter de-wormers are not particularly good. And you will need to de-worm all of them at the same time so they do not end up just passing worms back and forth. The Vet will need to prescribe doses based on the weight of each cat/kitten. most de-wormers you give a dose then two weeks later give a second dose.

Dry food is not a great thing to feed cats. It's ok as an occasional treat but they need meat, not corn! If you take a look at the ingredients of dry food you will not be impressed. Cats do not drink enough water normally to get their daily needs. Feeding them dry only exasperates the problem.
There are tons of great threads in the food forum here. We have some of the very best food gurus anywhere on this forum. Take advantage of them! :thumbs up
Also - for the runs you could try pumpkin - not the filling, the actual 100% pumpkin mixed in with their food. It works for both the scoots and constipation. Or try plain yogurt. It is also good.