My cat has crusty butt.

October 26, 2007 6:17 AM

My cat has crusty butt. Help.

Every three days or so I have to give my cat a bath and pick the crusts off his butt. Is there a solution to this problem or am I going to live the life of crust picking?

posted by Mark to Pets & Animals (9 answers total)

This could be one of a million things. Some cats are lazy and don't clean up back there. In that case you're screwed [rather than a full bath, use baby wipes]

Or it could be something that's diet related doing something to the stool.

Or it could be a sign of illness.

A vet would shed some light on the situation.
posted by birdherder at 6:20 AM on October 26, 2007

Is he a fat cat? My mom has a very fat cat that has a hard time reaching down there to clean herself properly, so baby wipes are deployed frequently. We try to get the cat as she's leaving the litterbox to clean her before it turns into willnots :p

Seconding that you take kitty in for a vet visit though, to rule out a health problem.
posted by zarah at 6:28 AM on October 26, 2007

Yes, he's a chub chub cat. We are now watching his food intake very closely, so I'm sure thats the biggest issue.
posted by Mark at 6:37 AM on October 26, 2007

If the cat has really long butt fur, you should consider getting it trimmed or trimming it yourself. And baby wipes are essential.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 6:48 AM on October 26, 2007

I am currently having the same issue with one of my cats. He's chubby, and never cleaned well, but this is a relatively new development. I am planning on transitioning them to a different hard food to see if that helps. If you are using a cheaper food that may contain a lot of filler, you might try a premium food to see if that firms things up.

I use unscented baby wipes about once a day to clean him up, at least to the point that he (or one of his buddies) will deal with the rest of it.

My cat does not seem distressed, hasn't experienced any weight gain or loss, and there is no visible irritation, so I haven't taken him to the vet, but it certainly wouldn't hurt for you to take yours in.

If you do take your cat in, it might be useful for you to collect a stool sample so the vet can check it for parasites etc.
posted by MsElaineous at 8:34 AM on October 26, 2007

Obesity killed off our favorite Siamese a couple of years ago (caused his heart to go kaboom). We've since learned and now keep our cats on what's the equivalent of the Atkins diet (Catkins). Very little carb intake and lots of protein.

This means feeding them wet food 85% of the time, and dry food the remainder. The dry food should be something that is also low in carbs. There are several brands out there now. Also limit feeding, despite protests, to only twice a day. And here's the hard part (as our vet said): only 1/4 cup of food at each feeding.

The butt problem is only the tip of the iceberg (weird reverse pun) related to being overweight. Get him slimmed down and as mentioned: keep trimmed that butt area should he be a long-hair.
posted by zenpop at 8:47 AM on October 26, 2007

Get another cat that likes to help cleaning.

Don't laugh. I had this work a few years ago.
posted by drstein at 9:37 AM on October 26, 2007

When my cat had a crusty but, we took him to the vet, and it turned out he had worms. The crusty stuff was a result of the worms. Bring a stool sample to the vet to make sure he doesn't need a deworming.
posted by dumbledore69 at 11:42 AM on October 26, 2007

I have a cat with some pretty bad skin problems. He is an anxiety-prone cat, when I adopted him from the shelter he had bald spots from stress. He gets scabby and crusty from time to time and part of the problem is what appears to be a severe allergy to flea bites. Keeping up on flea treatments is essential. Other than that, I have used cortisone cream on some of his scabs and he takes it well (doesn't eat it all off) and it seems to relief the itching.
posted by 45moore45 at 8:20 AM on October 28, 2007