My Cat Stinks!!!

Question
Help!!! My cat smells so bad. I swear she poops like 10 times a day and it
smells like rotten eggs or something it's really nasty. I was wondering if there
was a way to stop or reduce the odor? Should I change her food, Is she sick,
what kind of litter boxes and liter would you suggest? Please let me know
any and everything I can do to get rid of the smell. If you canj't help me
please let me know who can. Thank you.  

Answer
Hi Shannon.  If she's pooping this much and it's this smelly, there is a possibility she has a pancreatic insufficiency.  That's when a cat doesn't produce enough enzymes to digest their food.  So much of their food gets passed partly undigested in the stool.

Parasites like worms and protozoa can also be the cause of smelly stool.  They often cause diarrhea.

With those two issues possible, I would recommend a vet visit.

There's also a possibility that she could benefit from a higher quality food.  Grocery store brands, even some brands at pet stores, have lots of fillers in them, like corn and wheat, that cats cannot easily digest.  So these foods produce much more stool, and usually smellier stool, than foods that contain more meat, less filler.  Perhaps try a higher quality food.  They cost more, but you feed less, and your cat's litter stays clean longer, so the cost evens out.  I personally recommend Wellness foods, available at pet stores.  It contains chicory extract and lactobacillus to help digest food and reduce stool odor.  Some other premium foods do, too.

I do encourage people to feed their cats more canned food than dry.  I find it produces less stool and less stool odor because it's easier for the stomach to digest.  The more a food is digested before it hits the intestines, the less stool is going to smell.  That's because if the food is still largely undigested when it hits the intestines, bacteria that live in the intestines feed heavily on the food, and bacteria produce odor as a result of "feeding".

As for litter, what I find to work best by far is Feline Pine or other pine pellet litters.  I've tried every litter on the market, I think, and this one has won my favor and the favor of most breeders and fosterers that I know.  I don't think the litter box matters so much when controlling odor unless you use one with a hood with a door on it, but some cats won't use those.