Expert: Norman Auspitz - 11/23/2009

Question
Hi -

We recently rescued an abandoned kitten; it's been a lot of ups and downs, but he's now nearly 3 weeks old and is very energetic. However, for the last week, he's been experiencing chronic diarrhea.

A week ago we took him to the vet because he was a bit sneezy. He had already been on antibiotics to treat an abscess as a result of his having been attacked by a larger kitten before we rescued him. :( Although the abscesses had subsided, the vet decided to keep him on antiobiotics (although change the type of antibiotics) because the sneezing had not subsided.

At that point (a week ago) the vet weighed the kitten, and estimated him at about 200 grams (the vet doesn't have a digital scale and it wasn't very accurate).

HOWEVER, given the chronic diarrhea, I began to suspect that this estimation was high, and that we were feeding him too much based on the misestimation of his weight. Last night I calibrated our food scale (with a half pound of coffee) and reweighed the kitten, and found that he is, in fact, only 180 grams, one week after the vet estimated him at 200.

That means we've been overfeeding him for a week now. His diarrhea was mustard yellow at first, which we're used to; however, two or three days ago the color became darker and the consistency changed to a more mucusy texture, very sticky. He also has lots of gas.

I suspect that the chronic overfeeding has led to a loss of digestive enzymes, so I know we need to cut back dramatically on his food so he can regain those enzymes. However, I'm not sure how much to cut him back. For the past week we've been feeding him about 56 cc's (8 cc's per ounce of body weight) of high-quality milk solution (which he previously had no trouble with); starting this morning, I've been feeding him 4 cc's, 8 times a day (for a total of 32 cc's daily).

How long should I keep him on this reduced diet before I should expect to see the restoration of those digestive enzymes and (hopefully) the end of his chronic diarrhea?

Thanks in advance!

Answer
Robert,

At age 3 weeks, you may want to consider weaning him.  However, the total amount the kitten should get is about 8 mL -- 10 mL for every 4 oz (100 g) of body weight each day.  I would also weigh the kitten each day on a digital postal scale (not every expensive). I would do only 4 feedings a day (about 2 mL -- 2.5 mL each feeding) at 7:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 6:00 PM, and midnight.

We wean our kittens at age 3--4 weeks of age.  We like to use a good strained meat baby food (only ingredients strained meat and broth or gravy), to start the weaning process and then graduate to cat food within a week or so.

I would not worry about digestive enzymes for now until you start the weaning process. The digestive enzymes should be OK  If the stools are still not quite right on solid food, a bit of unflavored yogurt is good for restoring the digestive enzymes.

Please let me know how he does.

Best regards... Norm