Thread: sick kitten? =(
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Old April 16th, 2012, 11:36 AM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dinokitty13 View Post
She eats whiskas kitten food for both the dry and wet food. I'm not sure of the grain content of them, but I will check them for sure.
That's likely the culprit in the stinky poopage. Even if it isn't, Whiskas has pretty lousy ingredients for an obligate carnivore. Here is the dry food:
Chicken by-product meal, Corn Gluten meal, Ground Yellow Corn, Rice, animal fat (Preserved with bha/bht), Soybean meal, Natural Chicken flavour, Wheat Flour,...
Tons of grains, making it really high in carbohydrates, and a poor quality protein source with the chicken by-products (which could be beaks and feathers, not actual muscle meat).

I can't find any Whiskas canned kitten food online, but I'm betting there's a lot of wheat gluten and more by-products in it. I highly recommend finding some better quality wet foods like Wellness, Merrick, Precise, Nature's Variety, By Nature....etc. Doesn't necessarily have to be specifically for kittens (there aren't any "kitten" variety mice or birds in nature - growing cats just need more food per pound than adults do).

Quote:
Originally Posted by dinokitty13 View Post
I only have one litter box but I am planning on getting another as soon as I move (in 2 weeks) once I can live on my own without my housemates. However I clean it everyday, and that seems to have been enough for her up until this point.


Try cleaning it twice a day and see if that makes a difference. What type of litter do you use? Is it maybe starting to smell, even though you scoop it regularly? I find clay litters retain odors and can get kinda nasty after a couple weeks, requiring total replacement. Maybe she'd like a pine or paper based litter better. There is also something called Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter which has herbs in it that encourage cats to use the litter box. It's clay-based so you'll have to swap it out for fresh litter more frequently but it can be quite effective.

Where is the box located? Is it possible she got startled when peeing at some point and now associates the box with a scary event?
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