A Poopy Story

If you remember, the kittens were having problems with, well, gooey poop. Being long-haired kittens, this was quite intolerable to live with (probably for them, too).

Well, Ginger said to reduce the wet cat food, and I did, and saw some improvement but not enough. Thus I stopped feeding them wet cat food altogether, and that did the trick. As far as solid poops go, anyway.

They still stink to high heaven. I suspect it's the dry food I'm feeding them. It might be too rich for their digestive systems. Even Apricot's poop smells worse than Pippin's ever did.

However, Apricot, who used to have to fend for himself, knows quite well that the smell draws predators, so he was always very fastidious in covering it up until no smell could be smelled. Then he discovered that when I come home from work I clean the litter box.

Unlike your average cat, who waits patiently while you clean the litter box and then uses it with much excitement (it's a clean litter box!), Apricot figured out that if he pooped right before I cleaned it, and then put up with me messing around in the litter box while he covered it up, somehow the smell was much easier to cover. So that's what he started doing.

The kittens want to help. As always.

When Colby and Thimble first came, they were like your normal cat, eager to use the litter box after I cleaned it. And I would go back and scoop it again after they were done, in order to get the smell into the litter bucket which has a lid, plus a handful of baking soda thrown in on top before I put the lid on.

I think perhaps Apricot shared his wisdom with them, If you go before she cleans it, the smell is much easier to cover! Because first Thimble started doing it, and then Colby, with as much consistency as Colby ever musters for anything, has started doing it too.

This is very convenient for me and my ultra-sensitive nose! I just hang around and wait until the "production" is over, and then while they are busy covering it, I sneak in with the scoop and make the whole pile disappear. I worried for a while that this might make them less inclined to cover it, but they were well-trained by Mommy Cinder and they still cover the poop even after it's gone. Probably because some of the smell lingers on the litter that's left.

On the weekends, where I haven't figured out a helpful trigger that tells me to go clean the litter box in the afternoon, Thimble will usually wait until I walk into the bedroom and then make a pointed entrance into the bathroom (where the litter box is). He makes sure I notice him!

I hope that as they grow up, their tummies will better be able to handle the food. Apricot is apparently picky about his food and prefers this one, and I would hate to have to find another one that all three of them agree on. (They all love this food.)

Also, Thimble is suffering from the kitten malady of putting anything he finds on the floor into his mouth, and trying to eat it. I found a rattle mouse skeleton without any fur, and I have yet to find the fur. I suspect it went through Thimble and into the litter box. 

He peeled off the edge of packing tape that was still stuck to a box I was letting them play with, and tried to eat that. (All packing tape now removed from box.)

I've also caught him trying to eat the flattened end of a straw. He chews on the ends till they're flat, and then severs the flat end from the rest of the straw, and then tries to eat that bit. Now I trim the straws regularly to prevent the ingestion of bits. However, there are more things for him to try to eat than I can think of, and I suspect this is causing part of his stinky poop problem, as Colby's isn't as bad (still worse than Apricot, though).

Why isn't Colby suffering from the same kitten malady, do you ask? I wondered about that. Either he's doing it when I don't see him, or, what I think is more likely, he's waiting until Thimble tells him if it was worthwhile eating!