I see you mentioned elsewhere that automatic boxes probably won’t be sufficient. While I generally wouldn’t recommend a litter box that fully disposes of the waste automatically (because scooping the poop might be the first or only warning sign of health issues), something like the Cat Genie might help.

If Kika is willing to use an enclosed litter box, you might create a litter box enclosure using one of those pet doors that can be set to unlock only for specific animals based on their microchip or a collar tag.

Omg, look at those little floofs! How old are they now? From your original post, I wasn’t sure if they’re 3 weeks now or were 3 weeks old when you found them 3 weeks ago.

Oh, I’m so glad! I’ve been thinking about your last post and hoping for the best. It can be such a tough call, because you don’t want them to suffer, but sometimes they do pull through. Damn adorable little drama kings and queens!

I’ve been fostering kittens for a few years now, but had my first bottle babies and my first loss last year. In fact, 4/5 of the bottle babies I had last year tried to die at one point or another. The only one that didn’t was accepted by a nursing queen that I was fostering at the same time. The most dramatic kitten was actually the last one:

I had a litter of 3 orphaned kittens. First one refused to eat, so she got tube feeding & antibiotics. A week or so later, her brother’s appetite went from 200% to 5%, so he also got tube feeding & antibiotics. Both of them spent a few days on a downslide before eventually turning around. When they were about 3 weeks old, and I was finally starting to relax a bit, the third one decided it was her turn.

I was feeding them every 3 hours around the clock, but occasionally skipping one feeding per night so I could sleep for more than 2.5 hours at a time. At 6p, she threw up, but was otherwise fine, and at 9p, she didn’t want to eat, but was still alert and active. I couldn’t fall asleep that night, so I figured there was no point in skipping the midnight feeding. When I went to feed them, I found her completely limp and barely responsive, so I rushed her to the ER, and I was scared she’d die before we even made it there. The vet immediately took her and it was probably 20-30 minutes later when they came back to me and said she wasn’t responding and it would probably be best to put her down, but they’d keep trying a little longer. It was probably 15 minutes later that the vet came back again and had me follow them to the back where the little kitten was suddenly alert & responsive again.

On the vet’s advice, I went back to feeding them every 2 hours for a bit. Everything was smooth sailing from there, and I got to send them off to their forever homes when they were about 10 weeks old. I hope they don’t give you any more scares!

You might find that switching to a different food helps with the smell. According to my vet, corn, wheat, soy, fish, beef, and lamb are ingredients likely to cause digestive issues in cats, so switching to a food with less/none of those ingredients might help. My friend’s cat had terribly stinky (but solid) poos and when she tried a different food, the smell became much more tolerable.

And at the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s cats who intentionally don’t cover it, as a way of marking territory. One of mine has a lot of “dominant” tendencies, including a habit of not even trying to cover his poops.

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.

He’s pooped in that stance since he was a tiny kitten. We have litter boxes of various styles and sizes, and I’ve even tried setting up an identical box for him, minus the lid, but he seemed to prefer the one with the lid. 🤷

I have 2 cats, one who generally yells the entire time I’m preparing food, and the other is totally silent. I have also found myself quite annoyed with the yelling and have tried various methods to train him. The most effective method to stop his meowing has been feeding him via an automatic feeder, meaning that there’s a separation between when I prepare his food and when he gets to eat. For a variety of reasons, I had to stop using the auto feeder, and have instead worked on training myself to be less annoyed by the meowing. It still gets to me when I’m already stressed, but I’ve learned to appreciate it most days. The other thing I notice with my cat is that if I respond to his meowing, he tends to meow more, so if it’s one of those days where I’m annoyed by it, I try my best to keep my mouth shut while I dish up their food.

One other idea that I haven’t actually tried yet is clicker training. Well, I’ve done some super basic clicker training, but haven’t reached a point yet where I’ve tried using it to train “speak” or “quiet”. My loud cat is also HIGHLY food motivated, and seems to pickup new commands with the clicker training very quickly, so you might also have some luck with that option.

Noooooo! Never encourage cats to see hands as toys! I’ve been watching “My Cat From Hell” recently, and so many “vicious” cats have a guardian who thinks roughhousing their cat is a good idea, but can’t understand why their cat attacks everyone else. Once they get into a routine of using appropriate toys to play with the cat, suddenly the cat stops attacking everyone else.

Me. I’ve been gone for way too long and just got back home this afternoon.

Hey! Who said you could post pictures of my cat? Lol

Read up on Jackson Galaxy’s guide to cat introductions. I foster and have 2 cats of my own, so I go through the process a few times per year, and I still pull up his guide every time as a refresher.

Secondly, if you have an adult cat at home and want to adopt another, most cat experts recommend either a single adult cat or a pair of kittens, never a single kitten. Kittens are bursting with playful energy, and even a playful adult cat is unlikely to want to play as much as a kitten. When you have a pair of kittens, they can play with each other, while a single kitten is more likely to be annoying to your adult cat.

I foster kittens and have 2 cats of my own, so I’ve done introductions MANY times, and introducing them face to face so quickly is a very risky way to go about things, but luckily, it doesn’t seem to be a total disaster for your cats. I highly recommend checking out Jackson Galaxy’s guide to cat introductions to make sure things continue smoothly.

This is part 1 of a 5 part series. The subsequent parts are linked within: https://www.jacksongalaxy.com/blogs/news/cat-introductions-part-1-before-the-introduction

I went through a similar journey, but with different motivations, and have unfortunately given in to feeding Friskies/Fancy Feast wet food for one of my two cats because he’s slightly underweight and it was the only wet food he would eat enough of to maintain his weight.

The other cat eats Nulo Freestyle minced and shredded poultry flavors. The picky cat seems to rate Nulo somewhere in the middle of the pack. He never tries to eat Nulo if he has Friskies in his dish, but he does sometimes go for the Nulo when I offer something other than Friskies.

At this point, I’m in a love/hate relationship with Friskies. I love how much cheaper it is compared to everything else, but I would like to find something that works for both cats without being even more expensive than Nulo.

As for kibble, Dr. Elsey’s was recommended by my vet as being one of the lowest carb/highest protein kibbles available, so I use that for treats, and both of my cats love it. Dr. Elsey’s also has a line of wet food, but I’ve never tried it since my non-picky cat has a sensitive stomach and all of the flavors contain mussel, and I haven’t found anywhere that sells single cans.

Such a cutie!!! I’m having serious kitten withdrawals right now and my “dealer” (AKA the shelter) has been out of kittens for a few weeks. You’re very welcome to join us (me) over at !fosteranimals too!

Such a great picture!

I also foster kittens and started fosteranimals@kbin.social to connect with other foster families.

Oh! And as much as I hate cleaning up after those soft poos, I would never get one of the automatic boxes that totally disposes of the waste via toilet or whatever.

1. Unusual eliminations are often the first sign that your cat isn’t feeling well. If you never see their poo, you might miss the early signs that they need to see a vet.

2. Sewage (and commercial composting) treatment processes in many cities are not designed to handle the microbes found in cat (and dog) poop, so their waste products should not go down the toilet or into your green waste bin unless you confirm that your city’s processes are equiped to properly treat it.

To be on the safe side with whatever automatic box you end up buying, I suggest leaving it unplugged for a few days while she gets used to the new box & litter. Once she’s using the box consistently, plug it in and press the button to manually run the rake when she’s nearby to see/hear it. If she seems stressed by it, unplug it and stick to manually running the rake until she’s no longer stressed by it.

I use the PetSafe automatic box, but instead of the proprietary trays, I picked up a “Forever Tray” and you can then use any non-clumping crystal litter.

The biggest challenge I’ve had with it is that it turns into a big mess if your cat ever has soft poos, and one of my cats has IBS, so that happens more often than I’d like.

How old is your cat? How set in their ways are they? My cats have taken to the automatic box without any trouble, but my friend’s cat completely lost his mind when she introduced the Litter Robot and he started peeing on laundry, etc. instead. She ended up getting rid of it, and 6 months later, he’s still afraid to go in the room where the Litter Robot was.

Ha! I had to zoom in to make sure you hadn’t stolen my cats! I also have a short-haired SIC (standard issue cat, AKA brown tabby) and a long haired void, and this looks a lot like a situation I’d catch them in, even the same positions.