4 wk old orphan kitten with diarrhea, no vet – advice please

Hi all, sorry I’m about to launch into a lot of detail about my kitten’s pooing habits – not sure what could be relevant and what not. Skip to last paragraph for pressing questions please.

I’ve been fostering a kitten for three weeks now. I think he’s coming up on 1 month (teeth are in, playing, wobbly walking). He was found in the engine of a car that had just driven several km! The car owners had heard meowing from the day before, so he’d probably been left unfed for at least 24 hours. After half a day on an emergency milk/egg/oil recipe, we started him on kitten formula, and he did his first poop after a day and a half. His poo stayed liquidy for the next few days, so I thinned out his formula a bit with extra water per the formula instructions. His poops soon became nice and firm. But then after a few more days they got drier and drier, and he was straining to get them out, so I went back to the regular formula proportions, thinking he maybe needed it a bit richer now that he was older. Big mistake. Within a day, his diarrhea was back. I went back to thinner formula after a day, but the diarrhea only got worse. He started farting and doing little poop splotches in his blankie. Meanwhile he started to look a bit scrawny and underfed. I (probably stupidly) thought a bit of solid mousse kitten food mixed into his formula would help solidify things, but it’s only made them worse – after 2 feedings with the formula+food his diarrhea looks like it has mucous in it. It’s not constant – more or less once after every feeding. But really stinky and bad looking and preceded by little kitten farts, and causing him a lot of distress while coming out.

His poor little bum’s become so red and sore he can’t bear for me to stimulate him (I’m treating it with olive oil), and though he can more or less pee on his own, he walks around after every meal kind of squatting and looking like he’s struggling to poo but with nothing coming out. Then awhile later it’ll just drip and splooch out of him uncontrollably while he screams. I’ve been keeping him as clean as I can with dampned tissues, but had to give him a warm bath yesterday and again today (with baby safe dish detergent).

He’s still walking, eating voraciously (too voraciously?) and playing, and besides not looking as plump as one might want (he currently weights 308g/just under 11 oz) seems healthy enough. But I keep reading horror stories about kittens who “faded fast” after getting diarrhea and that’s made me want to take a proactive approach.

Alas, my wonderful vet is out on maternity leave – she’ll hopefully be back within a week… hopefully. The only other vet in my area doesn’t know what to do with him. I’m in a not very animal friendly country without all the testing equipment your vets may have, and deworming will have to wait till my good vet gets back (I’m not 100% sure he’s a month yet anyway).

In the meantime, I thought I’d at least replace the water in the formula with pedialyte, as recommended elsewhere online, but turns out the local version comes in strawberry flavour only. I found another one that has the basic pedialyte ingredients BUT with the addition of rice flour. I’ve read here that rice flour could do him some good. But elsewhere I read that rice was bad for them, and I don’t want to further irritate his stomach! Alternatively, I found a recipe for homemade pedialyte on this forum from someone called jcat, containing sugar, salt and baking soda. But I’m terrified to follow any DIY advice without some assurance the source is reliable.

So, should I a) do nothing and pray he doesn’t start fading until my vet gets back; b) thin out his formula even more (I’ve dropped the solid food entirely); c) give him a bit of plain Greek yogurt with live culture (I read somewhere that’s good, but again, would it just make things worse for an unweaned kitten? How about Kefir, would that work? It has very little lactose in it); d) try the homemade pedialyte; or e) try the store-bought “pedialyte” which includes rice flour? Also, given he’s been otherwise healthy for almost 3 weeks, is there any chance he has feline panleukopenia? I didn’t think of it earlier and my other cats have had a good sniff at him and his pee-soaked tissues, and now I’m worried they might catch it if he does.

And (sorry, but) could you please give me some assurance you know what you’re talking about (from experience or qualifications) and aren’t just giving advice based on your common sense? Lastly, in case my vet doesn’t get back soon, can anyone definitively tell me what kind of dewormer I should be using on a month old kitten and in what dosage? I’ll try to find an equivalent here (though my vet often has to resort to prescribing human meds :/).

Thank you!!

– A worried cat mom.