Kitten keeps using bed blanket and carpet to poop on

Question

I've gotten a new kitten recently, and I'm facing quite a few poop related problems.

The kitten had been fed dry food and BARF before I bought her. At my place, I started off with only dry food (although a different brand) and after a few days, wet food (high quality, lots of meat). Since around 1 week, she has had diarrhea/soft poop now. She is still really playful and active and eats/drinks quite a lot, so I'm not too worried about her health yet.

But I can't manage to get her poop back to normal.

Upon a recommendation of a friend, I started giving very little wet food and mixing it with carrots that had been cooked for very long and then mashed (search for Moro Carrot soup). I've done that for 4 days, and when I didn't see any improvement, I started feeding only the dry food, without any wet food at all. This was 2 days ago. Today, still no improvement.

The first time she had diarrhea last week, she pooped once on my bed blanket, once on my carpet and once on the floor where the carpet used to be. After removing the carpet and closing the bedroom door, she started using her litter tray as normal. Today, I opened the bedroom door again, and after 1 hour or so, I find her poop on my blanket again. It's still soft/diarrhea (no form or anything). But even when she uses the litter tray, she always steps into it or touches it with her paws, probably when she tries to bury it. I keep having to clean my apartment, twice a day.

I'm told the kitten has been dewormed 3 times before I got her, so it definitely shouldn't be the problem. The dry food she was used to had "poultry" for a protein, while mine has chicken. Now, as poultry is a generic term, I'm not sure what protein was used exactly, but I'm gonna assume that it's not a protein allergy. That being said, the food she was used to had rice and other stuff in it, and is marketed as being easily digestible, while mine is not marketed anything. She was used to Josera Kitten and her new food I'm using is Applaws Kitten.

I will go and buy the dry food she was used to, and see if that fixes the problem (and hope it doesn't cause my other kitten problems). I will also boil some chicken breast, as this seems to be generally advised for pets with soft stool. I do wonder however, if she uses my bed blanket and carpet to poop on because of her soft stool or if this is some other issue I need to follow and fix.

I have found other posts, but most of them are about a cat peeing on rugs. Mine actually seems to use the litter tray for peeing, but like to use the carpet/bed blanket to poop.

I have 2 litter trays, with different litter in them, and the kitten seems to use both of them regularly. They are closed trays with a swing door, but the previous owner had closed trays as well, so I don't think this is a problem. Especially because she uses them with no problem when the bedroom door is closed.

Answer 1

Solving the diarrhea will likely solve the pooping outside the litter box. She is probably sore from the diarrhea, or may feel urgency to go and not make it to the litter box.

There are lots of causes of diarrhea but in kittens they tend to be either (1) diet related or (2) infectious.

Regarding the diet, any recent food changes can lead to diarrhea. It will invariably take more than 2 days on the new diet to see significant change in the stool consistency, often a week or more - therefore transition slowly to the new diet and be patient with any new diet before deciding whether it is working. A bland diet as you have suggested is a good choice for the short term.

Consider adding a probiotic formulated for cats to the food. There are many products available.

Do not be hasty in ruling out infectious causes of diarrhea, even though the kitten has been dewormed. I would suggest collecting a fresh stool sample and having your vet test it for parasites and possibly other organisms such as Giardia. No one dewormer covers for everything, so even though she may have been dewormed several times in the past there could be a parasite that was missed. For example, coccidia are often not covered by the routine dewormers used.

In the short term, I would suggest keeping the kitten isolated to a small area such as a bathroom, that is easily cleaned. As for inappropriate urination, thoroughly cleaning the blankets or carpeting to eliminate odours is important to make sure she does not form an association and think it is ok to keep defecating in those places.