Thursday, April 6, 2017

One side effect of feeding your cat raw food


You are going to talk about my poop again, aren't you? -Muffin

One side effect that is rarely talked about when talking about feeding a cat raw food is what happens to the food once the cat is done with it. We don't talk about poop nearly enough when we talk about cat health, which is a real shame as it gives a lot of vital information if you pay attention to it.

Traditional food for cats produces a variety of sizes and shapes of stool. Normally, you aim for a tootsie roll looking stool. Cats fed dry food usually have large stools that have quite a bit of odor. Cats fed canned food usually have stools that are slightly smaller that has less of an odor.

A cat that is fed raw food generally utilizes most of the food so their stool is much smaller and there is very little odor. Generally, you can't smell it unless you get right up close to it.

I use generalizations because every cat is different and you might have a cat that falls outside this spectrum, but generally when you 'move up the food chain' of cat food the stool gets smaller and less smelly because more of the 'input' is utilized so there is less waste to be pushed out and less waste to sit in the colon and let the odor producing bacterias do their thing.

My cats generally poop every other day. I don't keep schedule and I don't watch, but the time I was attempting to collect poop samples for the kittybiome project, most of my cats took two days. Skippy actually took three days to produce a sample and I only got it after giving him a meal of canned food.

This post is spurred by the conversation I was having the other day when I was telling someone else how my cat's poop doesn't stink. I know it sounds like a line, but here at Casa de Gato we do not suffer the stink bombs that most people put up with when their cats use the litter box. Occasionally, we have "klingons" because of the long haired kitties and pieces of poop end up in odd spots around the house... like this one, I found in the hallway


I actually found it when I kicked it when walking down that hall. It left nothing on my shoe, on the floor, on the kitty or on the piece of toilet paper that I picked it up with. It almost has the consistency of freeze-dried raw kibble. This is what it looks like it when I pushed on it.


I folded the toilet paper over on the poop and pushed and you notice the paper is still clean. So I thought I'd smash it.


Knowing what your cat's poop looks like, and what your cat's poop smells like, can help you understand your cat's health. If you notice any major changes in either the look or the smell it is a warning sign that something is changing in your cat. Which is why we should not shy away from talking about our cat's poop.

11 comments:

  1. My human is always looking at our poop! I kind of wish we got raw all the time, if only because she would have less to look at and bother us.

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  2. Oh, man, we talk about poop *all* the time. It's pretty much the first question a foster coordinator will ask a foster with a new cat: "Has s/he pooped? What was it like?" ;-) If someone's worried about a cat: "What's its poop like?" As you said, a good indicator of health.

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  3. Poop was a big topic when we had kitties!

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  4. I do watch the cats if one goes into the litter box to see what they do and how they do it, either urine or poop. It is good to know your cats' litter box habits.

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  5. Cat poop is a daily topic around Eastside Cats too! Poor Chucky is having difficulties again, probably because he wasn't eating much (pretty much living on pill paste and meds!) until we found Trader Joe's food which he now gobbles. I have wanted to switch them to raw food, and almost had The Hubby convinced, then Chuck was diagnosed with a bad heart and the vet said NO RAW.

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  6. Anonymous12:08 PM

    Great post! Poop is extremely important and I'm not ashamed to admit I examine mine & kitty's equally!

    ~ Chris

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  7. Yeah, the mom looks at our poop all the time. She's weird. ;)

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  8. Like the others, I am also a poop watcher. I love Muffin's picture and line! Perfect!

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  9. Ah, very interesting and informative.

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  10. I always check what I am scooping, not that I would know who did it with so many cats.

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  11. Claire noticed the same when Loupi and Zorro went from kibbles to canned food, and then when Zorro and Pixie went from canned food only to mostly raw food. And she always knows if Pixie ate Zorro's chicken neck ! Purrs

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