Young cat, gut problems..

We have an 11 month old rescue cat, who was about 5 months when he arrived here. He’s had phases of gut problems since arriving, frequent brief spells of small drops of poo around the house and him looking uncomfortable; it’s like he’s struggling to keep it in. We’re 4 days into a phase just now and it’s pretty wearing. Since arriving, he has also had complete evacuation a couple of times… Has been to the vet, who’s recommended various Hills / ID products, which we have tried with only minor successes. He eats wild food regularly, sometimes two or three things a day. He’s being tested for parasites and we are awaiting those results. He has been dosed with sulfalazine a couple of times, which may have helped by reducing irritation or he may have settled coincidentally. I wonder if it might be the result of eating the whole of each prey item, something that none of our other cats have ever done.  I suppose it could be stress but we live on a farm, in a very peaceful place, so that seems unlikely.

Ok, anyone had a similar experience and found a tactic that reduces frequency ?

We have his twin sister and she’s been completely fine.

I’m open to any sensible suggestions for coping strategies!

Middle two words of the title are the solution. Any racquet repairers nearby?

We find the special diet stuff usually works. Hydrolysed protein I think it is? Sorry nothing beyond that.

Keep it indoors?

In the past I have used the following strategy for kittens and older cats (that were otherwise well!) for food intolerance:

Find ONE protein source he will consistently eat (chicken, white fish, plain cottage cheese or similar) and then don’t feed him anything else (no dry food, no treats, no stealing from other cats) for 2 weeks. If no improvement change to a different protein and do the same. If still no better keep him indoors on the same one source of protein for another week.

If feeding meat or fish batch cooking and freezing in mealsized portions makes feeding fresh meat much less of a hassle!

If needs be you can add a single source of carbohydrate such as cooked potato or white rice (in my experience cats not keen!).

If no better with the food restriction then investigate further if that is an option (poo samples, ultrasound scan, x-rays, blood test may all be needed so can get expensive!). As far as I know bloodtests for food allergies are a waste of time and especially money.

If you can’t afford investigating but can live with the issue AND the cat is otherwise perfectly happy live with it and he may ‘grow out of it’ over the next 6 months or so.

If he does respond to a restricted diet then it is trial and error to find a catfood with that particular protein he tolerates. If finance allows start with a hydrolized diet, if that is not an option try one flavour of one brand of the same type at a time.

If you have to keep him in using 2 or 3 trays and a fine-grained clumping litter (like Worlds Best) can reduce accidents. It may be worth keeping him in for a bit to start with anyway to check if he has diarrhoea all or only some of the time!

Make sure he has easy access to water at all times!

This can be a very frustrating problem to deal with, fingers crossed good luck!