[shinyspade]

OK so here goes.

I got my kitty 1 week ago, her name is River and she is incredibly cute! When I got her she was 8 weeks and I was told she had been both flead and wormed and was eating well. I was told she was on whiskas kitten.

All was fine until later that night I noticed she had fleas, I got her because I had been told this had already been done.

She hadn't eaten anything that day which worried me because she is so small. I put it down to her being stressed out from the new move and tried her on a little bit of whiskas cat milk which she seemed to love.

The next couple of days she picked at biscuits, didn't touch the wet food at all and ate a tiny bit of tuna and drank the cat milk.

After 3 days of this I took her to the vets to get checked out. She had a little bit of diarrhea but I wasn't too worried about that.

The vet told me she was quite wormy and was a little underweight.
She got flead and wormed and the vet gave me some dry food to try her on (hills).

The next day she had diarrhea all day long. Again all she did was pick at her biscuits and have a wee bit of milk.

I took her back to the vet of Thursday where she was given an antibiotic something called pro-kolin to help with the diarrhea and a high calorie paste type food to try and get some weight on her.

She ate the food (HURAAH!) and even seemed to like it a little bit. The pro-kolin helped, her poo wasn't just water it was a little thicker and browner (sorry for the detail) and she was going less often.

Back to the vet today (Saturday) She hasn't put on ANY weight in an entire week. Her temp was fine, she wasn't dehydrated (she drinks plenty of water) she was given a little more antibiotic and a little steroid to reduce the inflammation in her gut. The vet suggested to give her some boiled chicken to get her eating bland food just incase she has a sensitive tummy.

She LOVES the chicken and has been happily eating that throughout the day and purring away.

She had some diarrhea when we got back from the vets but since then nothing in... 6 hours. So I'm hopeful that things are settling down?

What I'm wondering is, does anyone have any insight into what this could be? Has anyone had any similar experiences?

Also how often do kitten's normally poo?

If things don't improve we might have to get a faecal sample and send it away which the vet said can be pricey and after 3 vet trips in 1 week I'm hoping she gets better on her own.

Thanks for reading!

 

[minikin44]

My kitten Bear had raging diarrhea for the first probably two weeks that we had him. It turns out he had worms and also two types of protozoa, coccidia and tritrichomonas (the coccidia for certain, the tritrich suspected). The most important thing is keeping her hydrated, as she's losing extra fluid through the diarrhea. The second most important thing is to get her to eat (I'm glad she's eating the chicken). If the diarrhea still doesn't go away in a day, I'd ask the vet to do another fecal test to look for some protozoa. On the bright side, it does get better! I got Bear at 0.85 lb, he went down to 0.75 lb with the diarrhea, and now he's almost 4 lb only a month and a half later! :-D

 

[doodlebug]

Diarrhea is pretty typical in kittens...new home, only been on solid foods for a few weeks and her system is adjusting, deflea and deworming meds, the worms themselves can cause diarrhea.

I know that she wasn't eating, but it seems like she's been given a lot of different foods which can also cause diarrhea in kittens. I'd stay away from the cat milk and tuna, both are not appropriate foods for kittens. Stick to one food for a while, introduce new foods one at a time for several days and ensure there is no issue before adding another new one.

 

[shinyspade]

Thank you. She has only been eating boiled chicken since yesterday and already seems better. Only 1 poo yesterday and only 1 today so far. It still looked a wee bit soft but it seems to be getting better. We'll see how she does over the next couple of days!

 

[minikin44]

I'm glad she's doing better! I hope it stays that way. Keep us posted!

 

[shinyspade]

Looks like it's another trip to the vets for us tomorrow. She has been eating the chicken just fine, drinking well, playing and generally seems happy but the diarrhea hasn't gone away and has probably gone back to how it was before her last vet visit on Saturday.

Poor wee girl. I hope it's nothing too serious.

 

[minikin44]

If I were you I'd get the vet to do another in-office fecal test to look for protozoa... they're often harder to find/see. I'm not sure why he/she wants to send the poo somewhere else...