Sorry for the topic.
 
We brought a little girl home that was having what we thought were poor
stools caused by stress or poor diet.  Four weeks later our two older
guys were having stools with the same characteristic.  We have treated
with various antibiotics the last of which was Biaxin/Amox/pred followed
by 10 days of Albon/pred followed by just pred.  The babies seem to have
responded to one of these two antibiotic as their stools stopped showing
frank blood and started looking "normal" (are at least closer to it),
that is - a very homogeneous substance of a paste like consistancy with
no apparent structure when visually inspected, and no structure is
reveiled when probing or smearing (light pressure) the sample.  The
exterior surface may be perfectly smooth or may have a "crinkly"
appearance but the latter is not a result of any underlying structure.
 
Now two of our guys may be back sliding, as evidenced by there stools
incresingly not meeting the above disrciption of normal.  Please bare
with me.
 
Could someone please explain to me what stools with the following
characteristic indicate is going on in the little ones tummies....
or if these are really a "normal" stool that we just had not had the
pleasure (?) to encounter before.
 
The stools seem to be formed by grains of some type (crushed kibble
maybe?).  These grains are about the size of sugar/salt/sand, and tend
to be light brown to tan in color.  The stools are well formed (see
exception below) but the granular nature of there construction is
visually apparent.  If light pressure is applied to the stool it can
be smeared and the grains become readily apparent.  These grains are
much smaller and much less smootly shaped then the "seeds" in what I
have been told is "bird seed" pooh.
 
Occasionally (this is the exception mention above) one of the creatures
evacuating their bowls results in an oblong puddle of clear liquid that
has a sprinkling of the grains of sand along the center of puddles
longitudinal axes.
 
Our original two never had stools like this until our new guy came along.
 
Again, I am simply trying to determine the following:
1) are these "normal" stools
2) if not, what do they indicate?
[Posted in FML issue 5315]