I recently took in a stray and boy does his poo stink so bad compared to my existing house cat.
I had dewormed him 2 weeks ago but whew. It was bad and has stayed bad. Like a stank that will wake you up in the middle of the night even though it’s two rooms away.
I googled some suggestions. A lot of people with similar issues. Not much help for my situation.
Firstly. I do want to say that if you see blood or diarrhea. It could be food allergy or medical condition. But if that’s all good it’s likely gut bacteria is off.
De-worming can also exacerbate that problem.
I found very little help through conventional searches so I started looking at research articles.
Long story short.
Yogurt.
Lactose bacteria. A few specific strains can help get things back on track.
Dry cat snacks saying they have probiotics are often misleading. Don’t buy those. Your cat needs live bacteria re-introduced.
Here was my approach. I bought plain yogurt.
Put some on a plate. Cat wasn’t interested.
So I got a liquid cat treat. Specifically Delectables Bisque. Which the cats go crazy for but is a little $$.
But I mixed it with about 1 tsp of yogurt. Maybe a little more.
Cat ate it right up.
That’s one time so far. 2 days ago.
Cat poo smell is already way better. It’s almost unbelievable how much it’s improved.
Like half as smelly. I’m going to buy a few more bisques and give him some once a week for a while.
Here is the research article if you want to read through it yourself.
Lactobacillus plantarum is found in yogurt.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11205573/
Lactobacillus plantarum L11 may affect fat metabolism in cats by exerting a positive impact on the gut microbiome, thereby reducing odorous substances and improving nutrient digestion [22]. These preliminary findings indicate that probiotics may alter the gut microbiota by increasing beneficial bacteria and reducing harmful bacteria. Further research is needed to investigate the effects of these probiotic-based alterations to the gut microbiome on feline health, as well as other action pipelines.
https://www.petplace.com/article/cats/pet-health/cat-health/cat-diet-nutrition/can-cats-eat-yogurt
Feed in small quantities. 1tsp.
Rather buy lactic acid bacteria product from a drug store and put it in your cats wet food. Cats don’t handle lactose in cows milk too well.
Yogurt has much lower lactose as the bacteria eat any available sugars first (lactose is a sugar)
yeah my wife can’t handle lactose but eats yogurt and cheese. Still upsets her system if she over does it but can have some.
Not to mention there’s almost certainly sugar in the yogurt, which will cause dental problems.
No added sugar in plain yogurt. And there is low lactose in yogurt.
It doesn’t need to be added. Plain yogurt still has a decent amount of sugar and that will still cause severe dental problems for your cat. Cats can’t even taste sugar and it’s not supposed to be in their diet
There is sugar in cat food.
Sugar is present in most vegetables. Like the ones in cat food.
It’s true you shouldn’t give your cat sugary foods. And yes sugar is bad for teeth.
But plain yogurt in small quantities is not bad for cats. It actually doesn’t have much sugar in it.
https://www.purina.com/articles/cat/feeding/can-cats-eat/yogurt
Maybe if you feed your cat shitty cat food. Cats are obligate carnivores and should not be eating vegetables either.
Go get your cat some tiki cat wet food and thank me later
I feed my cat high quality food.
I agree the low quality stuff can also cause digestive woes.
But that’s not my situation.
Also cats are obligate carnivores.
Vegetables just aren’t a primary part of their diet. But they can eat them to get nutrients.
But they must eat meat to get their essential nutrients.
You can’t put a cat on a vegetarian diet.
Worth noting:
- Journals published by MDPI are notorious for being low-quality.
- Academic literature out of China is notorious for being low-quality.
- The actual info relevant to your point is in this study published again in MDPI’s Microorganisms.
- It reads: “These results [from 12 cats; 6 control, 6 treated] all show that the bacteria L11 could be related to the fat metabolism of cats and affect the gut microbiota positively so that the odorous substances decrease for the improvement of the digestibility of nutrients.”
- Many cats are lactose intolerant. Your own link discusses this.
Not saying this is wrong, just that taking veterinary advice from someone on the Internet isn’t necessarily a great idea. You can buy bacterial cultures rather than feeding your cat yogurt and messing with their digestive tract more than you have to, and certainly ask your vet if possible if your cat is having GI issues.
I mean that paper is a review paper. It just discussed existing literature on the topic.
Papers published from other countries and on other publishers.
I don’t think it’s fair to outright disregard research just because it’s from China. The u.s has a pretty big track record for falsifying data and findings.
“Publish or perish” is a thing in the u.s too. Which encourages scientists to report false data.
I had a cat who had this issue as well as bad gas when we got him. I swear we did like ten stool samples and they all came up no parasites. At one point he ate some bristles off a broom and coughed them up with a yellow worm thing wrapped around. The vet prescribed parasite meds and he was cured immediately.
For the record, if that happens the correct thing to do is to put it in water in a baggie and bring it in to the vet, rather than taking a photo and immediately trying to get it as far away from you as humanly possible, which seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time.
I’ll take my yogurt plain, why thank you.
Also this yogurt was from Aldi and has all the good stuff in it.
Avoid flavored yogurts as they may have added sugars. Double check the packaging for information about if it actually contains any bacteria cultures.
Different types (Greek vs regular) and different brands may use different bacteria strains.
I was sure this post was coming from the dad jokes community, but no. Much more in here than I expected.
Someone wanna help me wrap my brain around yoghurt with garlic or onion?
Savory yogurt is reasonably common in e.g. Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. For example (see also, e.g., tzatziki). I will say that don’t know why anyone would be specially feeding that to cats, but hey, I guess it’s better to make sure there’s no ambiguity.
If you have never mixed yoghurt with garlic and tahini, you are severely missing out.
Great, now I want to eat falafel.
Garlic and onion are toxic to cats
Those sound delicious in labbeh.
But can’t don’t handle lactose well right? Still very interesting
Yogurt doesn’t have much lactose. Also the guide I found said Only give 1tsp of yogurt.
This is gold, thank you for sharing your experience.
I also stumbled upon some pouches of food specifically formulated to help with stinky poo, but they touted cranberries to be responsible for the improvement. They do work but they were pricey and hard to come by. Yogurt is definitely a nicer way to address odours.
Thanks for this advice. I feel like this so something ill remember in exactly the right moment
I’ve seen quite a few posts and it’s almost always strays and people saying their vets says nothing is wrong. No parasites.
I had a friend a few years back with this same situation.
Stinkiest poo. Clean bill of health. Was a rescued stray.
I don’t know what all they eat out there but possibly eating rotten garbage or other foods kills off some of their good bacteria they get as kittens and if it’s not re-introduced, they just go on having an unhealthy gut biodome.
Most lactose based bacterias are pretty much only present in milk. So I assume most cats get it as kittens. But I don’t know for sure.
Surprisingly there’s not a huge amount of research on cat health.
It’s not funded the same as human research. And there are less vet scientist.
When im rich I’m gonna donate to cat research. Or start my own institution.
