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Oh no - constipated?!
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Chami and Mooch are constipated. Mooch hasn't gone since yesterday. Chami went into the box to try to go and finally got out a tiny rock pellet, then arched her back up and ran away into the other room.
Yoyo and Lulu went, but they were small and very hard.
No wonder everyone was so sleepy today.
I've been trying to transition my guys from dry to wet....
I'm not sure if this is a reaction to suddenly eating too much dry food that mom gave them (against the menu plan I wrote out for her) while I was away on business for three days.....or if this is because I stopped dry two days ago (the day after I got back).....or if it's from putting tuna in their wet today in hopes to make them eat more (first time to eat tuna)....
I feel terrible.
It makes me want to put out a bowl of dry. But I won't.
I fed Cham a little more Evo wet by letting her lick it off my finger (apparently it tastes better that way). Hopefully that will inspire her. After she naps some more, I'll try to get her playing and moving around.
Please send good poo vibes that Mooch and Cham will go soon.
Oh I know how the constipation thing is , that is what happened to us, mom gave me a tiny, and I mean tiny bit of pumpkin puree (an 1/8th of a teaspoon) and it helped us. The first time she gave us too much and we had very runny stools.
Try adding about a teaspoon of warm water to their wet food and mix it up good, almost soupy. The extra water will help aid with passing stools if they are too hard.
It might have been the switch back to dry and then back to wet so suddenly that has caused this. Once they are back to a consistent diet things should get back to normal. Of course you know that feeding wet food will make the stools smaller, harder and darker. That is normal because they are absorbing more nutrients from the food, unlike with dry food where much of it is undigestable and passes right through.
The canned pumpkin is good to use, but like Shadow said, only use a tiny amount, you don't want things going the other way
Mooch, here's hoping everything gets settled down. I am extremely confused at this point, so maybe you and the other Catsters can help. Quatchie is one week from surgery to remove a GIANT hairball that had blocked his GI tract to the point that he couldn't get anything through. We had told the darn vet, and (this is not our regular vet, who was unavailable at the time) she said he had a sensitive stomach and wasted time putting him first on all wet, then decided he needed S/D for sensitive stomachs in the dry form, exclusively. By doing that, he nearly died! Anyway, I got our regular vet to look and he made the diagnosis right away and did surgery to remove the blockage. So here's my dilemma. I haven't gotten a straight answer as to his diet. Of course, I've gotten some Petromalt and stepped up brushing for BOTH our boys, and Quatchie is eating well, both the S/D dry, and some wet in the a.m. Should it be one or the other? or is letting them have both OK? They've been eating dry and sharing a tuna-sized can of wet on a daily basis for years. Now since his surgery, Quatchie had his first post-op BM on Sunday, and it was very dry but not a strain on him. Then last evening, his BM was on the dry side. He continues to "hack-hack" as if he still has the hairball, but otherwise doesn't act sick. He's still on antibiotics and will have his sutures out on Thursday, but does anyone else have some input? Could it just take time for his digestion to level off, given that the stupid vet misdiagnosed him and let things go for over a month? If not for the coughing, he would be fine, but that still worries us. Any thoughts?
Hi there Quatchie!
So sorry you had to go through all that, but glad your regular vet was finally able to get you fixed up.
See that is just another example of how some vets will "push" the SD foods instead of doing some research to find the real problem.
Anyway, I'd ditch the Science Diet food. It is nothing but grains and grains are very hard for cats to digest. I don't know what kind of wet food you are getting, but do your best to find something with good ingredients and try sticking with that for awhile. I'm betting everything will get better once you're on a good diet and have time to heal from your surgery.
If you'd like to ask me more questions feel free to PM me.
Keep us informed how you're doing, OK?
HARVEY - Thanks for the good poo cheers. We're still working on it.
SHADOW - Thank you for the reconfirming of the pumpkin puree. I did a search here (and surfing) and found out about the puree. Since we're in Japan so I'm going to go to an import store today to get a can (they probably have Japanese ones, but I want to get something that I can read the ingredients list). The main problem is, will they eat it in the wet? LOL. They're not too enthusiastic about wet yet. But who knows, maybe it will be a nice, new flavor for them!
BANDIT - Thank you for your encouragement not to give into the dry. It's so hard and I keep getting confused (though I really shouldn't) because they just aren't eating much wet...and now this (constipation). I broke a little and gave them 5 pieces of kibble each this morning, in some crazy hope that it would inspire their bowels....(sigh....)....
I actually do mix the wet with warm water and make it halfway soupy for them, I wonder if part of the problem is is that they just aren't eating enough.
More than anything, I hope you're right about the suddenly getting too much dry while I was away on business. Before I left they were doing so well and were so regular - yes, the poops had become much less stinky and smaller and more firm. I was so thrilled for them! Especially Chami who used to go between being a bit too soft and a bit too hard. She was making such beautiful poos. I hope she'll make another soon.
TAQUATICHIE - I am so sorry to hear about the all-wet, no! all-dry diet you had to go through, and then a giant hairball discovery and surgery. You have every right to have a worrywart mommy! It's only been a day since my guys haven't gone #2 and I'm already in tears pulling out my hair to get them to go. I even ran back and forth between my two rooms (small apartment) in an attempt to get them to jog lol.
As for wet vs dry vs wet&dry.......You'll hear lots of different things from a lot of different people. How did you do when you were on all wet?
I did a lot of research before getting my kittens 10 months ago. And from that research, I felt that giving a combination of dry and wet was the best way to go, but that those two products should be as grain-free as possible, have no by-products (chicken MEAL etc) and have no wheat, gluten or soy. I'd also read that you should only feed your cat fish once a week because too much fish can result in a Vit E deficiency and then other evils.
However, recently, I've been finding new information. The more I read, the more I find that all wet is the more natural, healthy way to go (to go a step further, feeding raw meat is the ultimate natural way to go). Apparently feeding dry leaves a cat in a constant state of dehydration. That obviously can lead to horrible illnesses.
But who is right? And is that true? When my family had three cats growing up, they ate any ol' dry and wet that was bought at the supermarket and all lived to be 18. But then on further thought, I realized for the first time in my life, that they were indoor/outdoor cats, and were very likely thriving on a fresh rodents, birds and snakes buffet every day.
Ahhh. That is, after all, the original natural diet of a cat.
I am convinced now that all wet, if not all raw, is the healthiest choice.
You might take a look here. You'll find these links a lot at Catster :
And here is a place where you can find out about safer or better wet or dry foods :
http://hubpages.com
And do a search for Cat Food - Safe List
There are also lists about best and worst wet/dry foods.
We hope you feel better!
And Bandit's right, if you're mom is happy giving you wet + dry, and you were doing fine on your wet + dry before your surgery (before they found the hairball), things will probably go back to normal after you're off those yucky medicines.
On the other hand, it might be a good time to do a little research about dry vs wet, because it might be nice timing to get you guys into an all wet diet.
I'm back from the store. I went to a Japanese store first and just as I thought, their answer was, "Pumpkin?....In a CAN?!"
So I went to the import store and got Libby's.
I smeared 1/8 tsp on their favorite snack and both Mooch and Yoyo chomped down. But both girls were on to me and wouldn't bite.
So I took 1/8 tsp into a tbsp or so of their wet food. Lulu licked maaaaaybe half. Chami would have nothing to do with it. And I just saw Chami try to go in the box but nothing came out.
This is awful. I can't do anything else until everyone makes a nice poo.
ETA : By the way, can I freeze this pumpkin somehow to have it on hand in the future should I need it.....not that Cham ate it but....
PS Taquatchie, if you don't have any, you might look into growing some kitty grass to have on hand to nibble on to help get rid of fur balls! We love it. It's really yummy!
It was the size of my thumb (it's usually MUCH more) and verrrry hard. It was hard but somehow it got stuck to his bum-bum, and then he raced around the apartment all balled up, poor guy! I scooped him up and found the stuck poo and removed it and now he looks very happy!
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Chami and Mooch are constipated. Mooch hasn't gone since yesterday. Chami went into the box to try to go and finally got out a tiny rock pellet, then arched her back up and ran away into the other room.
