I took in 4 abandoned newborn (no more than 3 days old) kittens and I've been feeding them lactose-free milk for 5 days now. They all seem healthy according to what Internet resources describe as normal: They become very active when hungry, they eat eagerly (from 7 to 15 milliliters depending on how hungry) every 3 to 4 hours, they urinate every time I stimulate them (the runt releases two or three drops, while the biggest one releases a violent squirt), they sleep soundly after feeding, and only make noise when hungry or being disturbed by their brothers. They're able to roll back when they fall on their backs, and they have the reflex that makes them turn their heads to my finger and suck it.
They seem very healthy, but their defecation habits have been abnormal in several ways since the begging. First, the biggest of the kittens didn't even require stimulation to defecate for the first time: I just fed him and he pushed out a small solid stool of about 2 cm long shortly after (this was just four hours after the first time I fed them). Second, they all make solid stools; I have never seen a watery one, like I keep reading they should be. Third, they don't defecate every single day; more like every 36-48 hours.
For the first two days nothing would come out when I stimulated them (using wet cotton), then two of them produced rather big stools (about 4 cm), and they all have been smaller since then. Lastly, it is common that when they're pushing a stool out it breaks halfway through (I can see the tip of the part that remains inside); when this happens, the stimulation usually won't make them push it out anymore, so after a minute I leave them alone and it goes back inside.
All of this differs greatly from what I read on the Internet (liquid stools, at least once every 24 hours), but at the same time, they are actually defecating and they look healthy in every other aspect. Is this kind of behavior a healthy variation from the norm or is it a health issue?
