2 Siamese male cats, 2 months old, thowing up and diarrea

Question
I recently got 2 male 2 month old Siamese flame point cats.  I have had them owned them now for 7 days.  They saw the vet on the 4 day, given their second shots and given a full bill of health.  They are currently eating Nurtrice Kitty food - dry.  No wet food and water.  Since getting them home they have both had diarrhea on and off, and throwing up on and off.  We mentioned it to the vet and they advised it may be just be stress of the change from the pet store to my house, and advised that after this shot they might have flu light symptoms, so I am not overly worried.  However, when they do throw up, it comes out very chunky as if they did not chew their hard food and just expanded in the stomach and then they threw it up.  They are drinking water regularly and are for the most part very active and happy.  Can you recommend maybe a different food that would be easier to digest, or should we put them on wet food?  Or do you think contacting the vet again is best, or wait a few more days?  It has been 2 days since their shots.  Thanks so much for your help!

Answer
Nicole,

I would suggest that you contact the vet again simply because kittens of that age don't have a lot of reserves to fall back on and they can become dehydrated rather quickly. The vomiting and diarrhea could be anything from a vaccine reaction which should be noted and treated supportively until your kitties feel better to stress. I would guess that since your kittens seem not to be chewing their hard food that they likely weren't being fed a hard food while they were at the pet store. I do think that it would be advisable to see that your kittens are given a dewormer as worms can sometimes cause loose stools and sometimes they can even cause a cat to produce stools tinged with blood. If you find that your kittens are a little on the thin side I would recommend that you have the vet use a dewormer that kills round worms, hook worms and tape worms just to make sure that you kill any parasites that may be lurking inside your kittens. You should be aware that most kittens are born with worms that are passed to them by their mother so deworming is pretty standard at first health checks especially when you mention that the kitten is having loose stool and vomiting. The other recommendation I have for slightly light kittens is to feed a good quality hard food and moisten it with a kitten weaning formula. The weaning formula that I generally use is made by KMR and I tend to moisten the kitten food, allow it to sit until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the food has a porridge like consistency if you were to pick up a kibble in your hand. This should help the kittens put on a bit of extra weight, and they may not vomit as often because the food is slightly broken down and easily consumed. I would only use the weaning formula for about a week or so in your case, if the kittens like the moistened food you can replace the weaning formula with water over time. I would recommend that you slowly decrease the amount of liquid in the kitten food over the space of 2-3 weeks until you are not using any liquid to soften the kibble just so that the kittens learn how to chew their food and get the added benefit of the kibble scraping some of the tartar off of their teeth as they eat. Since your kittens have had diarrhea for some time I would recommend that you offer about a teaspoon of plain yogurt to each kitten twice a day until the diarrhea stops. The reason that I recommend plain yogurt is that it will help to replenish the good bacteria in the kittens' tummies and may even help to slow the diarrhea down. I am not familiar with Nutrice Kitten food. I would recommend that you do your research and try to find out what the ingredients actually are as labels can be somewhat misleading. If at all possible I would recommend that you look for a kitten food that is made with high quality human grade ingredients, and that is filler and grain free. I tend to like the higher quality foods for a number of reasons. The main one is that the better the quality of the food that you feed your cats the fewer health problems that they will be likely to have. Another noticeable change in cats who go from being fed a substandard diet to a high quality diet is that they tend to be less stinky in the litter box and they also produce less waste simply because the nutrients are more easily accessible to them and they can actually use them. Don't be fooled by labels, if for instance your pet food label has things like meat by-products, meat by-product meal, etc what many pet food manufacturers are describing is basically ground up parts of the animal that are not deemed fit for human consumption. Things like bones, skin, hair, hooves and other rather disgusting things are labelled as meat by products so you really do need to watch what your ingredient list says. Many of the lower quality foods also have a fair bit of filler in them, things like corn meal, ground corn, numerous grains, corn and oat flour...These are all simple carbohydrates that are pretty much chips and chocolate for animals. What I mean by that is that many animals are becoming overweight by eating diets too rich in carbohydrates and other "garbage foods" and obesity can affect your pet's health just as much or more than it can a person's health. I must admit that I have never seen a dog or cat raiding the farmer's wheat crops or corn fields looking for the plant matter, generally a cat in a field is looking for mice or rats, not corn or wheat. In a perfect world cats would eat raw meat that came from things that they could catch on their own. I don't tend to recommend that you feed a raw diet simply because in order to guarantee that your pet will not get parasites or food poisoning the meat must be processed in such a way that it is somewhat nutritionally compromised in my opinion. Hopefully this information helps. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me again.