Expert: Jessica - 6/30/2010

Question
My new little kittens' pooop smells so bad.  What's up?

He is only 6 weeks old.

Answer
Hi Cathy,

It may be due to his diet, since kitten food is very rich in fat and protein.  But kittens very often are suffering from parasites such as roundworms, and protozoan infections such as coccidia or giardia.  Additionally, 6-week-olds have immature digestive systems that can have a difficult time digesting certain ingredients found in many cats foods, such as corn.  With all of this undigested matter in the intestines, the bacterial population in the gut can explode.  Bacteria will feed and thrive on any leftover nutrients in the intestines, and bacteria produce a bad odor.  Worms, protozoa, a rich diet, or bacteria, all of these things can result in very foul-smelling stool.

You should bring your little one to the vet, and try to bring a stool sample that has been collected within the last 24 hours.  The vet may wish to run a fecal exam.  But even if it comes back negative, the vet may choose to treat him for common kittenhood parasites, since there can be false negatives for worms and protozoa in about 30% of cases.  Luckily, these things can be treated with a dewormer and an antibiotic.

If the odor persists, you may want to try switching him slowly to a different diet.  Usually, the higher the quality the diet, the less stool odor it produces.  This is because high quality diets don't tend to use fillers and byproducts that will be difficult to digest or result in large volumes of stool.  Look for foods that don't contain lots of grains such as corn, wheat, barley and rice.  A mostly canned food diet is ideal, in my opinion.

Best of luck!

Jessica