Salt content, at least from my vet’s perspective, is the leading problem in regular store bought cat food.
But I cant tell, because theres no nutritional information written on the can or bag. Just crude fat, moisture, protein, etc.
Salt is listed in the ingredients, but it’s in everything. You do need some in your diet. Not a lot, this isn’t McDonald’s, but some. But you’ll never know how much is actually in your pets’ food.
I wish they had proper nutritional information…
What were you feeding them before? What are you feeding them now? Things like high carbs and even certain sources of carbs are another common culprit for stinky poops.
I have a litter box right next to my couch and the only time I really notice fresh poop stink is when I have fosters battling parasites. My cats are fed almost exclusively wet food, absolutely no fish.
How do you keep them fed regularly?
I work 12s. I do not want food to go bad and also do not want them to get hungry
My cats poop absolutely reeks. It didn’t used to, but he has tons of allergies and stuff and was just horrible sick for the longest time until I found 1 food that works. I’m talking like eve hydrolyzed foods didn’t help. But I tried the Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit food its made from Raw Rabbit, Tapioca, and something else I can’t remember. It makes his poop smell so bad it could clear out an entire house, but its worth it since he isn’t sick anymore. This dude can’t eat any protien I’ve found so far except rabbit. Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Fish, etc all make him sick. He vomits, gets constipated, his skin itches like crazy and he starts to get dandruff and tear at his face til he bleeds, he gets ear infections, etc.
So honestly if the stink is the only downside to this food then I’m just gonna let it stink.
We’ve been feeding raw for well more than a decade now. My one regret is having not switched sooner. People are often surprised that’s our cats poop barely smells (to humans) at all. Its not surprising when you realize that a species appropriate diet prevents a lot of digestive issues but I guess the pet good industry has been dominant for so long most people don’t realize what physiologic cat and dog poop is actually like.
What brand? My only thing with that is my wife and I work 12s and I do not want them to go hungry, and I also do not want their lunch to go bad
We keep our food in the fridge. We have three containers. Two days worth of food (morning and night) is defrosting at any given time. 1 days food in each of the two containers. Once one day is empty, that container is put to wash, and the third container is refilled with another days worth of food. The second container is brought forward for the next day and the third container is put at the back so it has 24 hours to properly defrost. Think stock rotation basically. This keeps the food edible without spoilage. It is always either in the freezer or the fridge. We’ve never had food go bad. Some of the meats can be a bit pungent (e.g. possum and fish) but never bad. We also occasionally fast them (about once a month) yo replicate times where hunt would be unsuccessful. (Fasting for dogs and cats has similar benefits to humans). They get meaty bones (chicken necks, duck necks, feet, whole fish, possum bones, hare shoulders, rabbit frames, etc) in the mornings. Then a minced meat mix in the evenings. The bones help keep their teeth clean amongst other things. In winter they get slightly less meaty bones as otherwise they put on a bit too much weight. But its very easy to regulate their weight by the amount of meaty bones. Mince amount is always the same. We’re in New Zealand and use a local brand (Raw Essentials). Their mince mixtures come in preformed amounts that makes portion sizes easy. Its important to feed a variety of meats through out the week. Its fine just to give chicken based mixtures for 2-3 days and then switch to something like goat for 2-3 days. Just so long as overall there’s at least three different meats in different meat types (muscle, bone, organs, etc.) in a week (more variety is better).
Raw Essentials has pretty good info on how to and also can see the types of products they sell if you want to find equivalent in your area: https://www.rawessentials.co.nz/education/raw-feeding/raw-feeding-101
Hope this helps 😊
Thank you. I more or less meant leaving it for them to eat or letting them go hungry between 6 AM and 7:30 PM without food going bad, you know?
{Note to self: see if cat poop will make a good battery.} <grabs flashlight and looks for neighbors cat>
I’ve gone down the pet food rabbit hole so many times. I buy like 10 different foods that are supposed to be super healthy for them. For a while I was grinding raw chicken thighs and bones for them. Each time I decide that the best cat food is the one the cat will actually eat and we go back to the shit from the grocery store that they eat every bite of.
I got my moms old cats to take care of, they are 18 and 16, and refuse to eat anything else but Latz (aka Felix). I’ve tried a bunch of different ones both for variety and because that’s a Nestlé brand I’d rather not buy, but they just won’t eat any of them, so Latz it is.
My cats fucking LOVE the costco wet food. Not the pate, the chunky stuff. They lose their shit over it and howl at me incessantly until I pop a can for them.
They’re fucking pigs of the highest order. They’re not fat, they’re just greedy howly fucks. I have no idea if the costco food has mercury or some shit in it, but if it does, they CLEARLY love mercury.
The animal digest they use causes almost an addiction. It’s engineered to be irresistible.
LOL. Yeah, that sounds about right actually.
They do eat. Thank goodness. We need to get them something that doesn’t stink up the whole house T_T our vet will know by Monday though.
Other than the stinky ass shit, they are perfect
Have you tried probiotics? Either in natural pumpkin or the bottles of probiotic drops. Fixing your cat’s digestive track is a good start to ease such stinky poops.
Some stink is fine, just like our own. Once it’s buried, or flushed like a humans, it’s not as bad.
Don’t use highly scented litter, some cat’s won’t bury their poops if it’s too floral (or other) for even them.
I’ve tried about 10 different litters. She just wants to pee on a weewee pad. Most days she poops on the floor in front of the box. My Mom used to put down newspaper for her to poop on. I thought that was ridiculous, so i spent 3 years cleaning up floor poop before i gave in and accepted that newspaper poop is better.
It sometimes happens. Cats sure are fickle. I’ve been raised by cats my whole life, and each one was unique with their bathroom habits.
At least they went bathroom!
We use unscented baking soda, I use it whenever I scoop.
I woll also ask my vet about probiotics. Not a bad idea
Switching diets can cause issues, so if it was just a short trial, maybe the smell is from them adapting to it, and continuing will let things settle. The vet may know why it’s smelling more, maybe the better diet and adding something with it will neutralize whatever reaction is going on.
There is also the litter question. I think some litters work better with different cats, both in absorbing the smells and also encouraging them to bury it better.
I will do that. The new food will not come until Monday anyway and that is when her clinic will be open. She will know better than my wife and I hehe
I’m loving the corn litter. I think the brand is world’s best or something like that. It’s great for my two standard issues, but smells bad for my void. She doesn’t use the litter much anyway - i put some in the bottom with a weewee pad on top, so it only bad when she misses the pad. Cats are weird.
My solution to that: put the litter box in the bathroom and run the extractor fan 24/7 😅
Yup you’re an animal lover.
Heavy metals is something that is overblown frequently like lead which are both found naturally in soil everywhere and there will always be some amount. They are still excreted over time so it only really matters if you builds up large amounts and becomes toxic. For cats this is less of an issue than humans.
Speaking of heavy metals being everywhere, I wonder if that has anything to do with humanity always being fucking dumb
The advent of leaded petrol is suspected to have reduced IQs.
My senior cat stopped eating her dry food and was ravenous for the grocery store canned food. Took her to the vet and he diagnosed her with kidney disease. Now she’s on a prescription canned food only diet and has gained a bunch of weight back, but her poops do smell quite a bit worse.
I bet (idk) both reasons are for increased fat content? My former food has low fat content, this one has high.
I’m sorry to hear about your kitty :( so sad that kidney disease is common for our babies
Maybe so? I know one of the main differences with the kidney care diet is that it has much less of the things that kidneys need to filter out, like phosphorus, but increased fat would make sense since they do tend to lose wait.
She’s 16 and doing pretty well so far, so I’m not feeling like her life is being cut too short. Thank you for the condolences.
I hope for the best years for your senior kitty ❤️
Thank you!
I dunno, maybe observe that there are millions and millions of seemingly healthy cats eating cat food all their lives, and living 15-20 years, and just call it good.
My cats will be immortal, goddamnit!
Kittens
What? Which cat foods have significant levels of heavy metals? All of them?
No, not all of them. But also I do not recall which ones. I will find a report
Heavy Metals Found in Up to 99% of Cat Food Products - Clean Label Project
https://cleanlabelproject.org/cat-food-study/
This report was taken up by many other reputable sources, so I trust it. My vet said she also believes it. She was telling me that fish tends to have more heavy metals than poultry.
Wtf. Can’t actually read the report without providing my email address?
Protein source was the strongest predictor based on the package. 85% of poultry-based cat foods met our standard, compared with only one in four fish-based cat foods. This does not mean that fish-based products cannot be cleaner choices–some products within every category achieved high marks.
People need to stop using and eating fish, the overconsumption of fish and fish based products is killing our oceans.
Email walled.
Aww, sweet kitties.
No use to me, I don’t live in America, so the brands here are all different :(
What country?
Shit smells like shit. No shit, Sherlock.
Yeah, nah. Shit smells like shit and this shit smells worse, which could mean fermentation, which could mean abdominal cramping.
Shit can tell you more about health than one would think.
Oh shit!
