I do feel a little silly for asking about this, but here we go…
So, about one month ago we adopted a little kitten, she is now 3months and a bit old. Been having her inside for the most part with some occasional walks outside to get her used to being outside, as she is an outdoor breed and will eventually be allowed to walk freely in or out. For as long as she is for now indoors, we’ve gotten her used to using the litter box, one of them with a small hatch to get inside, which she is good at using. BUT, whenever she decides to to curl one down, it f*cking reeks, it smells quite bad. I’ve had other cats before and none of them have smelt like this… Obviously we get rid of the shit asap, but then also clean her with a wet cloth so that she run around smelling equally bad and to teach her to was herself.
We’re not feeding her anything unusual, she mainly eats this dry food(which was quite expensive) https://www.specific-diets.co.uk/cat/everyday-diets/kitten-fpd-gb. Furthermore, we’re using some silicon cat sand, as that was what we got recommended.
Edit: Forgot to add an essential part to this!
This is the litterbox in use;
She tries to dig her shit down, but instead of digging it down into the sand or put sand over it, shes just scratching the sides of the cat litter box. Also after going out of the litter box, shes wiping her paws on the floor. But yeah, the scratching of the box inside is very loud and doesnt seem normal either. Is the box too small for her? Or could this be related to the sand of choice?
So, anyone got any tips or tricks here? Is this normal-ish? Obviously shit smells… but this seems almost out of the ordinary… Does the type of cat sand matter a lot?
I have lived with many cats. Most were normal but one, when he was a kitten, could drop a deuce that would clear out a football stadium. Eye-watering bad. Etch the window glass bad. On top of that, he didn’t know how to cover his stuff. Raked the sides of the box, the wall next to the box, the floor outside the box, you name it, but never got near the actual poop. So it just sat there steaming until someone else went over to cover it for him or scoop.
Our vet told us it was related to diet and gut biome, and that he would probably grow out of it. We despaired for a while but he was right and eventually it got better. He’s about twelve years old now (the cat, not the vet) and still stinky but not nearly as bad as he used to be. Still hasn’t figured out how to cover his stuff though.
I have a 1 year old Tonkinese cat. When she was younger she was known for her toxic flatulence (I swear that she knocked out a golden retriever with her farts).
But after changing her food to Fussy Cat grainfree dry biscuits along with Fussy Cat raw beef mince the farts have disappeared.
The smelly poops may be from her gut not liking the food, I would suggest getting small bags in a few different reputable brands and see what she goes for and try giving a quality pet raw meat as a soft food replacement.
As for the litter it may be too fine for it to cover up everything to her liking, I have used clay litter for years with several cats without issue.
And lastly the tray may not allow enough digging room to cover things. I have used trays with removable raised lips like this one with good results. If you are wanting it enclosed you can get furniture that holds the tray and accessories out of sight but easily accessible for cleaning.
We had a cat a while back with horrible flatulence among other stomach problems for a couple years. He was kind of a dumbass and at one point he ate some bristles off of the broom, caught him chewing on it and didn’t realize he had actually swallowed anything. A tiny bit after I had taken it away from him he coughs up the bristles with a tapeworm tangled in there.
I swear we did like a million stool samples the first couple years we had him that showed no parasites. We had just brought in two of them a couple weeks apart in the past month when that happened. My wife took a photo of the worm, we went straight to the vet and he got medication that solved all his issues essentially overnight. For the record, if this ever happens to you, the vet we saw suggests putting the worm in water to preserve it and bring it in, rather than just snapping a photo and trying to get the thing as far away from your household as possible immediately afterwards.
I think “Thank god our cat ate that broom” is a phrase not used very often outside of our household.
Like anime_ted said, it’s likely her gut biome. One of the cats I took in (Moops) used to be able to kill a canary from a quarter mile away when he’d drop a load. You could always tell if it was him in the litter box no matter where you were in the house.
I think it took about 6 months to a year before the demons in his butt settled down and we could breathe easy again.
I used silica years ago and noted that it never hid the smell of poop. If you want something that masks it and don’t want to use clay, quality wood pellet litter can be good. Personally we use low tracking clay because it is what has worked best. I would mention it to the vet that the poop smells more potent than past cats. It could be health related as someone mentioned. Litter box choice? I don’t think matters for smell much. I have had several different designs over the years (no mechanical ones) and they all function about the same for smells.
Her poops shouldn’t smell like roses, but the smell shouldn’t be so terrible that you can smell it from the next room either.
Are her poops solid? If they’re not, definitely talk to your vet, as she could be sick, and diarrhea is especially dangerous in kittens.
Assuming it’s not a medical issue, looking at the ingredients of that food, I think you might find the smell improves if you try a different food. One of my cats has a very sensitive stomach, and my vet said that ingredients such as fish, beef, lamb, corn (maize), soy, and wheat are frequent triggers for cats. I see that the first three ingredients of that food are on that list. For proteins, poultry (chicken, turkey, duck) or rabbit tend to be well accepted. I’ve had to switch my cats to 100% wet food, but my vet previously suggested Dr. Elsey’s chicken kibble, and they both liked it.
Also some cats are just really bad at covering up their work with kitty litter. My last cat would drum for 30 minutes after pooping.
My current youngest cat had very very smelly poops. If you feel it’s truly unusual bad, get your kitten tested. Ours had a sort of fungal infection.
Also What do you mean by silicon stand?
