mature cat diarrhea

Question
QUESTION: I have 4 mature cats (2 males and 2 females).  The oldest came down with crystals in his urine, so I changed all of their diets to Science Diet - Light Adult.  Now they all have diarrhea (consistence of pudding).  They have been on this dry cat food for about 5 weeks.  They were on dry cat food before, too.  They never had diarrhea before.  Any suggestions?


ANSWER: Hi thanks for the question. Did they get the diarrhea as soon as you changed to the new food? This would not be unusual although it doesn't usually last for more than a month. Are these cats a particular breed? Some cats are more sensitive than others about the ingredients in certain foods. Perhaps your gang is sensitive to the science diet light. You may have to change them again to another food that is low ash to help with the crystals but this time do the change really gradually. It should happen over 10days to 2 weeks. The first day just mix a few granules of the new food in with their current food.. the next day a few more.. etc.
You may even find that the cat food they were on previously makes a specialized food for this problem so I would check that out first since they did well on that food initially. Write back if you have any more questions ! Teresa

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QUESTION: It seemed to be awhile afterwards - approximately 2 to 3 weeks later.

Answer
Ok... then we will have to assume it was something besides the food that caused this. Is there anything in the house that they all could have got into?? ie. garbage, plant, new cleaner, ..or did they all get something different in their diet like a new bag of treats or ?? They could also have diarrhea if they have picked up an upper respiratory virus. With these if one cat gets it.. they ALL get it !! They could also have picked up a parasite and have passed it to each other via the litterboxes. You may want to run a stool sample into your vet for a lab check and see what that shows up. If the one stool have worms or other parasites then you should treat all your cats.
Teresa