A good friend of mine has a kitten which the vet estimates is 6 weeks or so. Before anyone rants at the age, it was taken in on the belief harm (or very much worse) would become of her had they not taken her. She was fed milk however the vet also said to get her onto meat as soon as poss (which she now is and loves).

Anyhoo... basically she will poop in her litter tray and is placed in there if seen sniffing around but she often can or will either go where she is at the time or once in her tray make a bit of a mess of herself :(

There is another cat who doesn't bother her (a male) in this respect (he has a catflap so does his buisiness elsewhere)

Also her stools are pretty loose as far as I'm aware (hence the more mess!) though I do believe the change in diet may have caused this

Basically, any advice please.

Ta :)

All kittens make a mess of themselves when they're starting to use litter trays- the difference between orphans and kittens which are with their mums is that mummy cleans them up when they get in a state.

It's also normal for kitten poo to be much looser than adult poo, so don't worry about that unless it's uncontrolled- if she's going to the loo regularly but isn't leaking the rest of the time then she's fine. 6 week poo is really quite runny; it will firm up over the next few weeks until she's 10 or so weeks when it looks a lot more firm.

It would be really helpful if your friend could get her other cat to take her under his paw- has she tried shutting them in together to see if they will talk to each other? It's very rare an adult cat harming a kitten, but they can be really helpful in teaching them things like manners and how to wash themselves properly. Both of my neutered toms act as daddy cats to my foster kittens and when I've got an orphan their influence is amazing.

As far as making a mess of herself goes, she'll learn- and in the mean time a couple of quick dunks in the sink a day to keep her clean won't be too much hassle but can keep her skin in good condition (never underestimate the corrosive power of poo left in contact with the skin!). Half an inch of luke warm water in the bottom of the sink and some baby shampoo to shift any poo that won't come off with plain water, then just sit them on one hand and gently lower them to the water and wash them with your other hand.

One word of caution with this- kittens get very cold very quickly when they're wet, so spend 10 minutes afterwards with her snuggled up in a towel sharing body heat with her and she'll be fine. I wouldn't bother scaring her with a hairdryer- it usually terrifies them.

If she's on meat, get her onto Royal Canin Babycat biscuits. It's less expensive, it produces smaller poos which smell a bit less, it doesn't go all manky in the bowl, there's less in it for the little one to have a gut reaction to and it's good for her to learn to chew properly.

Start off with a little bit of meat and put some Babycat biscuits on top of the meat so she has to eat the biccies to get to the meat then gradually reduce and remove the meat and you've got a kitten who eats plenty of healthy biccies. You need to make sure that they have water out, but that should be a given anyway.

The single most helpful thing I can say to anyone with a small kitten is to use a nappy sack to clear the lumps out of the litter tray as often as possible because poo is like blood- a little of it goes an awful long way in both smell and mess terms!

All in all it sounds like your friend is doing really well with such a tiny little mite- keep it up and you'll have a healthy strong kitten in only a few weeks.

Thanks so much medusa. Just what I was looking for. I've passed the info on right now :)

On the topic of not always going in the litter tray - I found that 'Swiftie' by Sherleys (about £2.99 a bottle) is v v good - it attracts them to litter tray - and it works!! :thumbsup: