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.

Oh, the irony! I’m trying to upvote your comment, but keep getting an error.

I signed up here and Lemmy.world (same username), at roughly the same time, and have mostly used this account. Only in the past few days have I been leaning on lemmy.world, and giving some thoughts as to where my new backup might be. I really do appreciate the added benefits of 3rd party apps, but I’m definitely going to keep checking in here, and hoping I’ll be back to using this account (almost) exclusively again soon. I don’t even use the microblogging side of things here, but I’ve really enjoyed the vibes of Ernest and the local community.

I think I was about 23 when I started to have to stop and calculate my age whenever it came up.

I’m pretty sure microplastics have even been detected in rainwater.

I believe the logic is that dry food is better for their dental health, because the firm texture is better at scraping away plaque, although there’s definitely disagreement on that, and there are other ways to address dental health.
The argument for wet food is that it does a much better job at keeping them hydrated, which is important for a number of bodily functions, including urinary health. Studies say that while cats fed primarily dry food likely drink more water, their total fluid intake is still lower and they’re often still chronically dehydrated (which is also not good for dental health). Moistening kibble can help, but it’s still not as effective as wet food for ensuring your cats are well hydrated.

My oldest strongly prefers kibble, but after his urine test at his 1 year check up indicated early signs of urinary troubles, the vet said to either switch him to 100% wet or to a prescription kibble. It took some trial and error, but he’s on 100% wet now, and only gets crunchies as treats. His urine tests have been great, and the vet also said his teeth look good.

To add to your coments about calorie content of foods, in the realm of wet foods, pates tend to have the most calories per ounce, while “extra gravy” foods often have the fewest calories per ounce, since the “gravy” is mostly water.
I’m sure there’s some exceptions to this, but I’ve spent a lot of time creating a spreadsheet comparing foods on a variety of aspects in an effort to find the most affordable foods that work for both of my cats’ needs & preferences. If in doubt, the cans should list both kcal/ can and kcal by weight.

How many cats do you have? Are they overweight? Can you provide more details about your specific situation?

If you have cats vomiting due to eating too much too fast, maybe try slow feeders? There’s also microchip feeders available so that your slower eaters can come back on their own schedule, and it’s more difficult (but not impossible) for other cats to steal their food. And finally, there’s automatic feeders that will dispense food on a schedule. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything that combines even two of these into a single product.

In my case, I have 2 resident cats, and frequently foster. My Tabby is a slender grazer, and although he prefers kibble, the vet said he needs to either eat wet food or prescription kibble (urinary). My Void LOVES food and will devour almost anything, and would gladly be a total potato if he could.
I use a microchip feeder for Tabby, and feed him twice per day, leaving the food out for about 2 hours at a time, which seems to be enough time for him to eat enough to maintain his weight. Void currently eats from a basic/standard bowl. He also eats twice per day, and usually finishes his food in less than 5 minutes, but has only vomited when there was an urgent medical condition, so I haven’t actually tried a slow feeder for him yet.

Only the AI generated ones.

Probably not a very practical answer, but I moved to a city known for being full of tech bros, then went to a bunch of general interest meetups organized mostly by tech bros, where I made friends with tech bros, and one of them randomly offered me an invite.

TL;DR: Great to have if you’re looking for less popular content, high quality files, and/or are concerned about copyright notices, but the rules that keep the niche content alive make them less appealing for super popular content.
I randomly made friends IRL about a year ago and got an invite to BTN & PTP. I don’t watch/download a lot of movies, so my account at PTP has lapsed, but I’ve kept my account with BTN.
From my recent searches, BTN tends to have higher quality files and more seeders than public trackers, but since a) I have a seed box, which provides a line of defense against copyright notices, and is only strengthened my my *aars (gets me in & out of the swarm before the studios find it), b) I usually can’t tell the difference in quality from the devices I’m using (and my friends/family most definitely don’t notice/care), c) seed ratio or time doesn’t impact access to public trackers, and d) I prefer to keep public torrents alive, I usually lean towards public trackers, and only use the private trackers for things that are harder to find and/or things I want in high quality.
I still try to seed to a minimum ratio of 3.0 on popular files (public or private), and ∞ for more niche files, but sometimes demand is so low, and I need to move files off of my seed box. While a ratio below 1.0 makes me feel “stuck” no matter where I got the file from, private tracker rules definitely amplify that feeling.

Is that a belly button I see?

In the US and currently fully WFH, but if I need to go into the office for some reason, it’s a 10-15 minute walk.

Walkability is pretty important to me, so I moved to a city with decent public transportation and don’t currently own a car. I use ride sharing apps or traditional car rentals on the rare occasion that I need a car, and even though they feel expensive, my annual car expenses are still significantly less than what I’d pay for parking alone if I owned a car.

I almost exclusively browse by hot, so I very rarely see any spam (of course, that’s thanks to those of you who browse by new!), but I have another account on lemmy.world, so I got to spend some time yesterday scrolling there and blocking LOTS of communities from my feed. Mostly just stuff in languages I don’t know, but still, a different set of “junk” to work on filtering out.

I’m also still very much down with kbin.social, and I don’t even use the microblogging features at all. I figure, if I want something polished with minimal downtime, I could always go back to the old places, but I’d rather see/help something better grow.

Looks like Sonarr grabbed it for me from a private tracker about 5 hours ago. I’m sure it will hit public trackers later today, if it hasn’t already.

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. 🤷