Queen Eva has a food allergy

Queen Eva has a food allergy to chicken. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find cat food without chicken. You have to read the ingredients because chicken is often added, even if it isn't in the flavor name on the label.

And it is even more difficult to find foods without chicken that Queen Eva will eat.

A few weeks ago, Queen Eva started having diarrhea. After ruling out parasites, I tried regulating her with probiotic. This seemed to help, for a few days, and then the diarrhea came back. I increased the probiotic, and again, her stool firmed up for a few days, but then it came back.

So I took her off all foods with chicken, which means I had to go out and buy some different foods. I have the Before Grain Beef and the BG Turkey already. But Queen Eva only likes those for one meal, in spite of my efforts to keep her from turning finicky, she will only eat any given flavor of food once in a 24 hour period.

It was very difficult to find any foods without chicken, that I haven't tried with her before. I finally ended up with California Natural Venison (which contains fish), which she has eaten with enjoyment before, and Wellness Beef and Salmon.

I don't like my cats eating fishy foods at all if I can avoid it, but I may have to break that rule with Queen Eva.

Anyway, so she has not had any food with chicken in it in three days, nor had she had any probiotic for those 3 days, and her poops are back to normal.

I have had to HAND FEED her the non chicken foods, because otherwise she will only take a lick or two and then run off.

Last night Tolly left his dish with some Soulistic Chicken in it ( Queen Eva and Tolly's favorite both) and Queen Eva DOVE into that dish with great joy, and when I snatched it away from her she gave me the saddest look.

So I have got to find other foods that don't contain chicken that she will enjoy eating. I may have to go to Fancy Feast, simply for variety, and cost. I hate to do it, because Fancy Feast has artificial additives. Not only that Queen Eva has been mostly grain free since she was 8 weeks old. I can avoid the FF flavors that have wheat gluten at least. But I need to find something this cat can eat!

Oh yeah, and I have to find a high quality kibble for her snacks too.

Thanks Violet. Yes, that is one of the things I like about GB, that they do not blend.

I do feed Before Grain in my food rotation, the Beef, the Chicken and the Turkey. Obviously I am not giving Queen Eva the chicken any more

The problem is, she won't eat BG, or any other food, with any consistency. The only food I have found that Queen Eva will eat regularly is Soulistic Chicken, and that seems to be the worst culprit of all in causing her diarrhea. However eliminating JUST the Soulistic didn't work, the other chicken foods (BG, castor and pollux, wellness, avoderm and weruva), continued to cause problems.

I've really got a challenge facing me here and I am not thrilled about it. She likes shredded foods best. Any suggestions on good quality shredded that do not contain chicken or too much fish? (I do not like to feed my cats fishy foods)

It appears to be chicken only. Probably an intolerance to chicken is a more appropriate phrase, rather than an allergy to chicken, but it amounts to the same thing. When she eats chicken cat foods she has diarrhea. When she doesn't, her stools are normal.

Taking her off all foods that contain chicken has completely eliminated the diarrhea.

My appreciative thanks to all of you who have taken the time to reply with your thoughts, suggestions, ideas, or just sympathy. I'm sorry I have not replied individually but this forum is still not working properly for me and it would take hours of constantly refreshing, and logging out and back in, or having to restart my computer completely, to make that many replies.

But I am taking it all in. Your posts are very helpful to me while I try to find a diet that is going to work for her, a diet she will eat which does not go against my own beliefs and principals. Finding foods that she will eat enough of to keep her from wasting away is now the challenge, as she is extremely finicky, and I am extremely picky about what I will allow my cats to eat.

I would like that very much, thank you.

Thanks for your support! I am trying to stay away from fish as much as possible but it is difficult, trying to find foods without chicken that are not fishy, even the fishy ones often ahve chicken. (I also have "rules" about wheat and wheat gluten and artificial things and dyes)

I dare not even give her a taste of any tuna foods, for fear she may reject anything else ever.

I did find a kibble for snacks that she likes, the Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Pea and Duck. It remains to be seen if it agrees with her digestive system, I only just started it yesterday. I use kibble only for snacks, she'll be getting about a tablespoon a day of it.

I did bring in a stool sample today, as I was going in to the vet anyway with Mazy (routine stuff) and Queen Eva was nice enough to give me one before I left.

However I would think if it was a parasite, by now the others would be having the same problems, and they are not.

Queen Eva is doing pretty well with the two canned foods I've managed to find that don't contain chicken, that she will eat: Before Grain Beef and California Natural Venison and Brown Rice.

But she's finicky and likes more variety than that. So when she balks by the third or fourth offering (she is fed multiple times a day, as she won't eat more than an ounce at a time) I garnish the next couple of servings with a very small bit of one of three Fancy Feast Classic fishy flavors. This helps her get the rest of it down, so I am getting about 6 oz a day of canned food into her.

However that still leaves me without a kibble for snacks. She is still trying to steal Mazy's c/d, and the last time she managed to eat almost a whole tablespoon of it (Mazy lets her barge in) she had very bad diarrhea about 12 hours later.

She has gotten a little thinner since not having any kibble snacks, and Queen Eva cannot afford to get thinner.

The Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Pea and Duck made her vomit. I don't know if it was the duck or the pea, that food is heavy on the pea. I considered the NB limited ingredient Pea and Salmon, but if it is the pea, or partly the pea, then I would be stuck in the same place.

So today when I brought the Natural Balance back, after many trips up and down the two aisles (there isn't much available here) and much wincing at the loud barking of dogs in the store, I finally reluctantly* decided to try the Evo Herring and Salmon grain free dry food. It also has pea, but much lower on the list. It is very high in protein (50%), and higher in fat (18%), both of which I think will benefit Queen Eva.

It also contains other things that cats don't need, such as carrots and apples and such, I know that stuff is put into these 'premium' foods for the humans, as they have no benefit to cats.

But the kibble is for snacks only, she craves a kibble, and I've got to keep her from stealing Mazy's c/d. The extra protein and fat will be very good for her, anyway.

*I say reluctantly because after P&G bought out Natura I wasn't planning on using their products any more. Whenever one of these quality foods are bought out by big business, eventually the quality suffers. I resent paying big bucks for sub par food, though I don't think it's happened to Natura yet, the buy out is only a year old. I have got to get this cat eating more! So I am taking my chances with the California Natural Venison canned and the Evo Ancestral Diet kibble, with all paws crossed!

Here are a couple of pics of Queen Eva giving me a peek of her Secret White Crescent, and one other with an expression that speaks volumes.

See...?


Look fast!


Do you mind?

Thanks everyone, <taking notes on the food suggestions> but there is something just not right here.

She is not having any diarrhea. She is eating between 6-8 oz of canned a day of the two brands/flavors mentioned earlier (with sometimes a small amount of the FF garnish). She is tolerating the Evo Herring and Salmon kibble well, getting about 2-3 oz of it a day (2/16 cup - 3/16 cup).

This seems like it should be almost too much for a seven pound, one year old cat, even as active as she is. Her coat is glossy and her energy is high, though she is very slender, still. She never gets any fatter, but she's not emaciated either, just very slender and petite.

But.....

She is pooping two large poops a day, sometimes even 3 times in 24 hours. This can't be normal. What the heck is going on? The stool is not diarrhea, though sometimes it is softer than I would like, but it is formed. But there's so much of it!

I've been in contact with my vet over this of course, but haven't brought her in yet, just the stool samples

She has had her stool tested repeatedly for parasites. Besides, if she had some kind of parasites, the other cats would have them by now too, wouldn't they?

Could she be harboring some kind of bacteria? Do you think she needs a course of flagyl? Why didn't it show up when she was a kitten, why did it start now?

She seems normal in every way, except for all this poop. I never saw a cat poop so often!

I wonder if the align would help with that? It seems her body is not..using...the food. Except, her coat is beautiful and her eyes are bright, if she was malnourished she'd certainly look it, wouldn't she?