I’ve been recently adopted by a kitten who, I assume, actually belongs to someone else in my apartment complex as she has a relatively fresh flea collar that still smells strongly, healthy shiny fur, and is housebroken.
Despite that, she is still in my apartment constantly any time I am at home and being a natural cat lover, I have bought her canned food to feed her whenever she’s around to encourage her to stick around and keep me company.
Lately though, I’ve noticed that when she comes to visit me after her meals, her stomach gurgles and roils and she sometimes has gas. What could this be an indicator of?
For the record, she’s never gotten sick, I’ve yet to find one instance of her having any sort of accident in my apartment, and she looks healthy and definitely acts it… she drives me nuts with her shenanigans just like every other kitten I’ve ever owned has.
Well, she could be lactose intolerant and someone is feeding her cow’s milk. (Seriously! Cats don’t necessarily metabolize cow’s milk well…)
Or, she could be getting into the trash and eating garbage that’s spoilt…
I suggest that you only feed her cat food or cat treats, and that if you can, you should avoid feeding her at all unless you can discuss it with her owners.
Her stomach makes those sounds only after she’s eaten a freshly opened can of cat food and they subside within ten minutes of then so it’s highly unlikely that milk, which I have never given her, or trash, which she will not find as very little of my trash is food.
…it’s highly unlikely that milk, which I have never given her, or trash, which she will not find as very little of my trash is food, is the culprit. The only thing I’ve ever fed her that was not expressly for feline consumption was a can of tuna that I gave her once when I had nothing else to feed her.
Sometimes kittens can just be gassy, like some human babies are. Sometimes they grow out of it. That was our experience with our latest kitty – he stopped clearing the room with his gaseous emissions at about puberty. The vet said it was normal.
However, I suppose it’s possible the little one has some other digestive problem that causes these symptoms. Do you know whose cat she is? I’ve been advised that flea collars are not really good for kittens below a certain age.
I believe she is my next door neighbor’s. About a month ago, when I first moved in, I had a kitten visit me and I knocked on my neighbor’s door to see if it was her’s. She said it was and that I was free to let it come in my place if I wanted.
I petted it and let it out about fifteen minutes later and forgot about it mostly until a week or so later when I was visited again by, I assume, the same kitten but I’d already forgotten what it looked like by that time.
Since then, it’s been in my apartment daily and spends more time it inside than out. It even greets me at my patio door when I come home in the afternoon.
If it’s her’s, she doesn’t pay very much attention to her, if any at all.
I doubt it. For one, she never finishes a whole can of food in one sitting and, for another, she’s generally in the kitchen for a long while eating when I first let her in and feed her.
Get kitten chow for your kitten, we use Purina kitten chow for our kitten. She’s almost a year old now. Iams isn’t bad, but a bit pricey. I’m not sure which brand would be best, maybe CrazyCatLady could advise? The ash content of the stuff we used wasn’t bad, we haven’t had a problem with gassyness or over smelliness from Rhiow. AFAIK, cats should be fed kitten chow the first year of their life, because it has the proper balance of nutrition they need for growing. It’s also kinder to their digestion I believe.
It might be the canned food making her gassy. Wet food does that to some animals, especially if it’s really rich, fatty food. It can also make their bowel movements incredibly vile-smelling, even for cat poop, or give them diarrhea. Put her on a dry kitten kibble. We always recommended Science Diet or Iams growth formulas, but something on the order of Purina is fine. Just don’t go any lower than that, because cheap food is low quality food and will cost you money in the long run.
They can also have bad cases of stink-ass if they’ve got certain intestinal parasites. If she hasn’t had a worm check at the vet, I’d suggest getting one. And lose the flea collar; those things are a waste of your money.
Can you give me some other Purina-level brands that would be good for her? I’d like to have a couple brands to choose between because I don’t exactly have a lot of money and would prefer to buy the cheapest brand that is still reputable.
Blah, hit “submit” too soon. Do NOT buy Special Kitty brand cat food. Bad, bad nasty smelly poos result from it, it’s quite ashy. I learned that the hard way with my tomcat, only bought one bag, never finished it. Once I got him his previous brand, he wasn’t smelly anymore. That’ll teach me to read the labels before buying it, and also if a brand is “that cheap” it’s too good to be true.
Any major national brand of kitten food should be fine. By major national brand, I mean something you’ve seen advertised on television. No Special Kitty, or Deli Cat, or anything else you’ve never heard of. Purina, Nine Lives, Meow Mix, that sort of thing (although I don’t think the last two have kitten formulas).