Stinky cat

Heroditas

We got two kittens (adopted them from another poster here) a week and a half ago and they're doing absolutely great. They're about 6 weeks old now and are fully litter trained.
However, one of them absolutely stinks a lot of the time. I'm not sure if it's his breath or his ass but when he jumps up on you, you know all about it. The other kitten never smells like this (female).
Is this possibly a self-cleaning issue?

Currently they're both sitting on my knees playing with the strings for my hoodie top! Either that or playing "king of the castle" up and down my legs. Oooow!!!!

biko

Could be the diet. Perhaps whatever it is you're feeding them doesn't suit one of them.
What are you giving them?
Have you changed to something else at some point?

All taken from the song "Smelly Cat" by Phoebe B.

Heroditas

We're alternating between raw mince and GoCat complete (carrot, chicken and milk nuggets).
We only started giving them mince on Saturday and I don't think he was too bad before that. Too much protein maybe???
They drink milk but we're diluting it with water so they won't get kidney stones.

anniehoo

Heroditas wrote: »

We're alternating between raw mince and GoCat complete (carrot, chicken and milk nuggets).

They drink milk but we're diluting it with water so they won't get kidney stones.

Try and get a decent complete kitten food..raw mince at 6 weeks old is too much and GoCat is for older cats. Wean them off milk totally..just water and give them kitten milk as a treat.

Heroditas

The GoCat is the kitten food version specifically for kittens under 1 year old.
I'll try and wean them off the milk though, diluting it definitely seems to be helping.

Any recommendatiosn for what brand of food to feed them?

Thanks for the help.

Lemon

Hills dry food is probably the best you can get, my vets swear by it! You can usually buy the kitten version in most veterinary practices. Have to second what anniehoo said re milk, it really is bad for cats. You can get Kitten Milk from Whiskas but vets dont really recommend that either!

anniehoo

You'll get a mixed bag of opinions on what foods are best, i suppose it depends on your budget. This http://www.royalcanin.us/products/productdetail.aspx?ID=99 is quite good (most good pet shops should sell it) but they should recommend something decent for you depending on what you can afford.

MsFifers

I found the better the quality food, the less stinky the cat. I gave my kittens Hills Kitten food which was great for them - lovely shiny coats. Once they were neutered they were gradually changed over to Royal Canin. I tried a few cheaper brands a couple of times but they love the ol' RC!

Sigma Force

Try cat milk rather than the cows milk (ie if you are using cows milk) as said go for the Hills or Burns kitten food. Will make a big difference and poops should become more solid, follow vets advice on amount to be feeding them, there is a guide on the back of the food packs usually with a better quality food you sometimes need to feed less. Have plenty of fresh water available with any dry food.

Themadhouse

i like royal canin baby cat, you can use it til they are 4 months old and then switch to RC kitten 34. they are very young to be adopted out at 6 1/2 weeks and they could probably do with some lactol or kitten milk diluted with water. You could also mix the dry food in with that.
I would stay away from the raw mince until they are older. If you are feeding them raw mince freeze it for at least 24 hrs before defrosting it for them to eat.

Heroditas

Thanks for all the advice folks. It's much appreciated.

TBF, we're not too sure how old they were because the person I got them from had rescued them so I guess nobody really knows how old they are.

I'll try some of that food recommended.

Also, why should the mince be frozen for at least 24 hours?
Is this to kill any bacteria?

The Sweeper

Freezing doesn't kill all bacteria, only cooking does.

Instead of buying mince, try buying cheap cuts of raw beef and chunking it small for them when they get a little older. Mince is open to more contamination, through the mincing process, than whole cuts of meat are, so usually it needs to be served well-cooked - except that cooked meat isn't great for cats.

Read up on it - cats require a diet that is over 95% protein. The bulk proteins in most dry cat foods are vegetable sourced proteins, which isn't as good for cats as animal sourced proteins. The better quality dry foods do have more protein from animal sources, but what you'll probably find is that the quality of the dietary supplements in more expensive dry food is higher than in supermarket brands.

Feeding our cats dry cat food is sort of like feeding our kids mac-n-cheese, with vitamin supplements. They'll survive on it, and the better the vitamin supplement, the better they'll appear to do on it.

Feeding just raw meat doesn't redress the balance either, because there are many dietary requirements not met on a diet of exclusively raw meat.

I feed my cats a mixture of things - vitaminised raw meat (with added kelp powder, amino acids L-lysine and taurine and added vitamin C), the best quality wet cat food I can find, (through just reading the labels and trying to find one with as much protein from animal sources as possible), plus Hills oral care. I have noticed they are certainly brighter in the weeks where they get more of the raw food - more energetic.

Interestingly, the guy who loves raw food the most gets smelly very quickly if I give him canned wet food more than two days in a row.

I want to move to a higher proportion of raw food for them, but I'm not done reading up about it. There are a couple of sites out there, including one where someone has put some work into reverse-engineering a mouse - the perfect cat meal. Their recipes include ground bone, muscle meat, fat, skin tissue, and some supplements to reflect the fact that cats in the wild get their vegetable matter from eating the half-digested contents of a herbivore's intestines. The reverse-engineering of a mouse site is useful because they've had the contents of their food recipes analysed by a laboratory and it's come up really good, against both a cat's needs and the regulatory standards applied to the petfood industry for what is a sufficient diet for a cat.

I watched some film of a lion once, with an antelope's intestine. He was pulling it through his teeth and eating the half-digested vegetable contents that squeezed out - sort of like pulling the sausage mixture out of sausage casings. Gross, but interesting. A cat's digestive tract is very short - designed for processing meat. A herbivore's digestive tract is much longer, designed for processing vegetation. It makes sense then that a cat will get benefit from eating the half-digested vegetation from the intestine of an animal it has killed, because the half-digested matter will travel more easily through the short carniverous digestive tract.

There is ACRES of information on this subject, and to be honest I'm not happy enough yet that I've found the be-all and end-all in my research, so instead of directing you to one place, I'd just suggest you google 'cat raw food'.

Themadhouse

Mince gets contaminted easier and bacteria spreads quicker because of the large surface which is why freezing it is important. Most vets will recommed you dont feed raw, freeze first if you do.

Dyr

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

I watched some film of a lion once, with an antelope's intestine. He was pulling it through his teeth and eating the half-digested vegetable contents that squeezed out - sort of like pulling the sausage mixture out of sausage casings. Gross, but interesting. A cat's digestive tract is very short - designed for processing meat. A herbivore's digestive tract is much longer, designed for processing vegetation. It makes sense then that a cat will get benefit from eating the half-digested vegetation from the intestine of an animal it has killed, because the half-digested matter will travel more easily through the short carniverous digestive tract.

There is ACRES of information on this subject, and to be honest I'm not happy enough yet that I've found the be-all and end-all in my research, so instead of directing you to one place, I'd just suggest you google 'cat raw food'.

A lot of predators will eat their preys stomach contents, including dogs apparently, the stomach is also the softest part of their victim, which might explain it too.

What's the benefit in finding this holy grail of cat foods anyway?

The Sweeper

Personal choice tbh. I'm big into cooking and food generally and that interest naturally spills over into this.

anniehoo

As Minesjackdaniels also said...cats need an essential amino acid called taurine in their diet, you wont get this in raw mince. Other animals can synthesise it in their bodies but cats cant so a complete pet food will have this added to it.

Heroditas

Well, since I stopped feeding them the mince a couple of days ago, he seems to be a lot less smelly. He still stinks immediately after he's just dropped off a parcel in the litter tray but it doesn't cling to him for as long now.

Phew!