Small kittens, like small children, have their own characteristics of defecation in the first stages of life. If you decide to have a monthly kitten for yourself, or your ward cat brought you a brood of nice little lumps, then you should know how to properly care for them. While the nutrition of kittens in the first months of their life is more or less clear, then the process of emptying may raise questions. One of the most common of them: "How often should a kitten poop?" The health of your pet depends on the answer to this question, so you need to be especially competent in it.
Do newborn kittens defecate?
This question will seem strange to some people. Kittens can not poop? But where then do the products of their livelihood go?
In fact, kittens write and poop from birth, but the owners may not even notice this, because a cat-mother comes to the rescue. She just licks the stool off her cubs. In the process of bathing, the cat involuntarily massages their tummies, which improves blood circulation and digestion.
The stool of animals during the first month of their life is uniform, similar to condensed milk. Therefore, it is quite difficult for the owners to determine how often kittens poop during this period. But this does not mean that they do not defecate at all.
What to do if a kitten grows without a cat mom?
It doesn’t always happen that a small pet grows with her mom next to her. In this case, you should become a mom for the baby.
You will have to feed the animal and help him defecate. It should be remembered that food for a kitten up to a month should be only liquid or semi-liquid. This has a significant impact on the process of emptying it. If you do not know how to feed a monthly kitten, then it is better to contact a veterinary pharmacy. There you will be helped to choose the best "baby" food for your ward.
If you do not know how often small kittens poop, then pay attention to the appearance of their abdomen. When he is swollen, it means that the baby has problems with bowel movements. Perhaps he just can not, due to age, do without outside help.
A swollen stomach will hurt him. You are required to gently massage his abdomen, avoiding strong pressure. Then you need to take a piece of gauze and moisten it in warm water. With a device, slowly massage the outlet of the rectum. These manipulations should help the kitten begin to relieve itself. Perhaps in the future he will no longer need your help.
Adult food and tray training
How often kittens poop in 1 month is already easier to determine, since now this process is becoming more pronounced. This is because at about this age, that is, in 3-4 weeks, pets begin to be transferred to more solid foods. Therefore, the process of bowel movement is also complicated and becomes more organized.
At the same time, it is necessary to accustom the baby to the tray. So you need to act from the very first independent emptying, otherwise it will be more difficult to do this in the future.
Watch your pet's behavior closely. Usually, before the process of defecation, the behavior of animals acquires certain features. They have activated the so-called "search activity". They can rush about the room, look for a suitable place to cope with needs, sniff the space around them and, finally, scrape their feet on the floor.
This is how most kittens behave. However, there are also "tikhoni" who silently do their work somewhere in the far corner under the bed. So be careful.
Bowel movement
Despite a more organized process of defecation, to determine how often a monthly kitten should poop is still difficult, but possible. On average, this occurs three to six times a day.
The difficulty in determining is that the stool in animals at this age is mushy. It is easy to confuse it with urination, especially if you are accustoming your pet to a tray with fillers.
In general, how often kittens poop at this age is not important. The main thing is that there should be no undigested food, mucus, blood, and other impurities in the structure of the feces, which may indicate a violation of the digestive system.
If your kitten is active, playful, cheerful, his stomach is soft and not pout, then you have nothing to worry about. So you are doing everything right!
Difficulty defecating in kittens
Switching to adult food and the need to defecate on one's own, and even in a designated place, can lead to a number of difficulties. By how often the monthly kitten poops, you can determine whether it has difficulties with the bowel movement.
A prolonged absence of stool (more than two days) or a problematic bowel movement indicates the presence of constipation in the kitten. The reasons are malnutrition or a small amount of water consumed by the animal. However, everything can be much more serious. Constipation can indicate a disease, not just the gastrointestinal tract.
You can help the little pet by adding a little vegetable oil to the food. The presence of vegetables, cereals and dairy products in the diet will also have a laxative effect.
If these methods do not help, then use medicinal laxatives such as "Dufalac", "Festal", "Espumisan" or liquid paraffin.
In the case when these methods do not help, you have to use the most radical: put an enema on your pet. At home, you can put only a specially designed microclyster. Only a veterinarian puts a deep cleansing enema, as you yourself can harm a kitten.
Diarrhea in kittens
Another equally unpleasant bowel movement disorder in kittens is diarrhea.
Before diagnosing your pet, you need to figure out how often kittens poop and whether it is diarrhea at all. Many owners believe that if the stool of a kitten has become a liquid consistency, then this is already diarrhea. However, it is not.
Diarrhea is not only the watery consistency of the stool, but also the frequent urge to defecate. Bloating may also be an additional symptom.
The causes of diarrhea in an animal can be helminthic infestations, malnutrition, infectious and inflammatory diseases. At a psychological level, diarrhea can provoke early weaning of the kitten from the mother.
With diarrhea, it is advisable not to feed the kitten for about 12 hours, but give only water. By the way, he must drink. Refusal of water is fraught with dehydration.
Of the medicines in this case, you can use the sorbent type "Smecta" or "Enterosgel."
If the attacks of diarrhea are no longer repeated, then after 12 hours the pet can be fed. First, a little boiled rice or three-day (!) Kefir is given. Fresh sour-milk products can only worsen the situation. The next day, boiled chicken, and so on, expanding the diet.
In any case, self-medication is not recommended to people or animals. Therefore, for various violations of the process of coping with your little family member, you must show it to the veterinarian.
Host Mistakes
You can find out how often a kitten poops at 2 months by the number of times it visits the tray. But not always an animal chooses a pot to meet its natural needs. This may be the fault of the owner. Here is a list of possible reasons:
- Late accustomed to the tray. The best age for this is one month. It will be harder later.
- Dirty pot. If you did not clean the tray in time and did not change the filler, the kitten may go to another place. Remember that cats are clean animals!
- Inappropriate place. If the tray is in a place that scares and does not like the kitten, he will not go into it.
- Another tray. If you decide to change the tray for your pet, be prepared for the fact that in the new one he may refuse to relieve the need. In this regard, cats are monogamous.
- Foreign odors. The cat may not like the smell from the pot, and therefore he will refuse to go into it. Therefore, you need to exclude all sorts of flavorings, wash the tray with plain water. It is also impossible for several animals to go into one tray.
- Do not punish. This method will not help you teach your pet to the tray, but only will settle the fear of the owner.
- It does not crap where it eats. If your pet has chosen a different place as a toilet, make his dining room there, having previously washed everything with means to eliminate odor.
- Health problems. If you follow all the rules, and the kitten still crap in the wrong place, you should contact your veterinarian.
Prevention of constipation and diarrhea
You have already learned how often kittens poop and how to care for them. A loving host should take care of preventing bowel problems. To do this, you need:
- regularly comb out the animal so that excess hair does not clog the intestines when licking;
- give kittens phytomines for bowel cleansing;
- feed your pet a variety of foods, using foods rich in fiber;
- give room for an active life of the pet, which improves intestinal motility;
- contact the veterinarian on time.