Characteristics of feline diarrhea, likely cause and location

This, I believe, is a useful table if you are a cat caregiver who has full-time indoor cats and therefore have to manage a litter tray or trays. The experts say that it is wise for a cat owner to ensure that they have opportunity to observe their cat’s poop because it is a useful diagnostic tool. This is not going to be normally available to an owner who allows their cat to go outside because normally they will go to the toilet outside if there is access to a backyard where there is earth. There is a trend towards confining domestic cats to their homes for their safety and the safety of the animals upon which they prey, and which sometimes are precious and rare native species. This will allow owners to use this table.

I am very thankful for this information which comes from the Cat Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook (Third Edition) written by veterinarians: Eldredge, Carlson, Carlson and Giffin.There are other pages on this website on the rather uncomfortable topic of feline diarrhoea, some of which are listed below with illustrations. You might like to visit these pages to further investigate if your cat has diarrhoea, and if you would like some more background information before, when necessary, seeing a veterinarian. This is, of course, no substitute for seeing a good veterinarian to diagnose your cat’s health problems. This page is simply a guide and it is not a substitute for veterinary diagnosis.

Color	Likely cause	Likely location
Yellow or greenish	Rapid transit	Small bowel
Black, tarry	Upper GI bleeding	Stomach or small bowel
Red blood or clots	Lower GI bleeding	Colon
Pasty, light	Lack of bile	Liver
Large, gray, rancid	Inadequate digestion or absorption	Small bowel or pancreas

Consistency	Likely cause	Likely location
Watery	Rapid transit	Small-bowel
Foamy	Bacterial infection	Small-bowel
Greasy, often with oily hair around the anus	Malabsorption	Small-bowel, pancreas
Soft, bulky	Overfeeding, or poor-quality diet high in fibre	Small-bowel (rapid transit)
Glistening or jellylike	Contains mucus	Colon

Odour	Likely cause	Likely location
Food like, or smelling like sour milk	Rapid transit, inadequate digestion or absorption (suggests overfeeding, especially in kittens)	Small-bowel
Rancid or foul	Inadequate digestion with fermentation	Small-bowel, pancreas
Putrid	Intestinal infection, bleeding	Small-bowel

Frequency	Likely cause	Likely location
Several small stools in an hour with straining	Colitis	Colon
Three or four large stools a day	Malabsorption, inflammatory bowel disease	Small-bowel, pancreas
A week or longer	A chronic ailment such as colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, parasite infection, or malabsorption syndrome	Throughout the intestinal tract

Condition of the cat	Likely cause	Likely location
Weight loss	Inadequate digestion or absorption	Small-bowel, pancreas
No weight loss, normal appetite	Large bowel disorder	Colon
Vomiting	Enteritis	Small-bowel, rarely colon

Below are some more pages on feline diarrhea.