Kitty with chicken allergies

Hello all
I need some help. My cat is allergic to chicken - I know this for sure - and I'm having a lot of trouble finding her something to eat as she is also, as luck would have it, a very picky creature I also have a very limited number of options for grain and chicken free food. Royal Canine hypoallergenic - the only one available in Serbia - has chicken fat, Hill's has hydrolyzed chicken liver as well as chicken liver aroma (I'm not sure if that will bother her) and Farmina's Vet Life seems awful and she refuses to eat it Her stool also becomes soft when eating Farmina Has anyone had any experience with The Taste of the Wild in this case? Also, any recipe for cooked food will be more than welcome, as well as any advice, as I'm slowly becoming desperate

Not being familiar with what food is available in Serbia, I'm not going to be much help to you, but I can certainly sympathize, as I have a picky chicken lover myself, and always have wondered what I'll do if he ever develops an allergy to it

I would say ANY food you can find that doesn't have chicken or grains in it, go for it.  (is he allergic to grains too, or are you just trying to keep those out of his food because he doesn't need them?)  If Taste of the Wild fills all the categories, then I would try it.  Remember that with food allergies, it takes several weeks to know if it's working or not.

As far as homecooked meals, here is the link to our Homecooked Thread:  If a recipe calls for Chicken, I don't see why you can't substitute Turkey. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264153/home-cooked-cat-food-resources

Thank you very much I'm still not sure about the grains, but I'm trying to exclude them from her diet just in case. The way things are, she seems allergic to everything (and the things she isn't allergic to, she doesn't like) It seems I will end up feeding her raw food for a while, so her immune system can get back to normal  

Adrianne259 said:

 
Hello all
I need some help. My cat is allergic to chicken - I know this for sure - and I'm having a lot of trouble finding her something to eat as she is also, as luck would have it, a very picky creature I also have a very limited number of options for grain and chicken free food. Royal Canine hypoallergenic - the only one available in Serbia - has chicken fat, Hill's has hydrolyzed chicken liver as well as chicken liver aroma (I'm not sure if that will bother her) and Farmina's Vet Life seems awful and she refuses to eat it Her stool also becomes soft when eating Farmina Has anyone had any experience with The Taste of the Wild in this case? Also, any recipe for cooked food will be more than welcome, as well as any advice, as I'm slowly becoming desperate

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How do you know for sure? Did you have allergy testing done? Have you put kitty on raw food to confirm it's chicken and not something else? I'm asking because a true chicken allergy is actually pretty rare. Typically what kitty is allergic to is actually something IN that food, not the protein itself. The best way to know this for sure is to try something like raw or homecooked, that way you know it's nothing something else. IMO hypoallergenic foods are garbage. 

If you can't go with raw try something like Merrick or NIV LID foods. Or even something like Stella and Chewy, Primal, or Rad Cat. 

missmimz said:

 
How do you know for sure? Did you have allergy testing done? Have you put kitty on raw food to confirm it's chicken and not something else? I'm asking because a true chicken allergy is actually pretty rare. Typically what kitty is allergic to is actually something IN that food, not the protein itself. The best way to know this for sure is to try something like raw or homecooked, that way you know it's nothing something else. IMO hypoallergenic foods are garbage. 

If you can't go with raw try something like Merrick or NIV LID foods. Or even something like Stella and Chewy, Primal, or Rad Cat. 

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A few months ago, I started feeding her Hill's d/d and the itching stopped after three or four weeks. After that, I fed her raw chicken and the itching came back, together with swollen anal glands. Since that time, she had strong reactions to all foods containing chicken. I haven't done any tests yet, so I'm not sure about grain or other ingredients. As I mentioned, I have a miserably bad choice of foods, most of them aren't high quality food - Hill's and Royal Canine being my best options. I'll try finding some of the brands you mentioned, but I'm definitely starting her on raw or cooked food.  As for hypoallergenic foods, I noticed they are crappy, but expensive Thank you very much for the advice, I appreciate it more than I can say

Adrianne259 said:

 
A few months ago, I started feeding her Hill's d/d and the itching stopped after three or four weeks. After that, I fed her raw chicken and the itching came back, together with swollen anal glands. Since that time, she had strong reactions to all foods containing chicken. I haven't done any tests yet, so I'm not sure about grain or other ingredients. As I mentioned, I have a miserably bad choice of foods, most of them aren't high quality food - Hill's and Royal Canine being my best options. I'll try finding some of the brands you mentioned, but I'm definitely starting her on raw or cooked food.  As for hypoallergenic foods, I noticed they are crappy, but expensive Thank you very much for the advice, I appreciate it more than I can say

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Good luck! It can be difficult when you have a cat with allergy issues or sensitivities. You might try some turkey and see if she reacts to that. Cats with chicken allergies usually do well on Turkey. Rad Cat is a raw food, but it's super high quality and loved by most cats. The others are just higher quality canned foods with limited ingredients. 

missmimz said:

 
Good luck! It can be difficult when you have a cat with allergy issues or sensitivities. You might try some turkey and see if she reacts to that. Cats with chicken allergies usually do well on Turkey. Rad Cat is a raw food, but it's super high quality and loved by most cats. The others are just higher quality canned foods with limited ingredients. 

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Thank you It seems that this will be more complicated than I thought. Hopefully, I'll eventually find something that works

We recently discovered our cat has chicken sensitivities as well (no official testing, just trial and error with different foods). He was experiencing soft stools and a persistent cough. After reading some suggestions on this forum, we tried Nature's Variety Instinct rabbit canned food. (we order it online from Petsmart, not sure if that is an option for you). It is a bit pricey, but it has been two weeks and all of his symptoms are gone. His mood has also improved. So it's well worth it for us!

Ann PW said:

 
We recently discovered our cat has chicken sensitivities as well (no official testing, just trial and error with different foods). He was experiencing soft stools and a persistent cough. After reading some suggestions on this forum, we tried Nature's Variety Instinct rabbit canned food. (we order it online from Petsmart, not sure if that is an option for you). It is a bit pricey, but it has been two weeks and all of his symptoms are gone. His mood has also improved. So it's well worth it for us!

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Thank you very much for you answer! At this point, I really do not care about the price, but unfortunately, I can't buy Nature's Variety as I live in Serbia and our market is quite limited - I guess not enough people need this kind of food for their pets so no one is really eager to start importing it. However, it is extremely helpful to hear what food worked for others, so I can get the next friend traveling abroad to try and get some for me

I'm really happy your kitty is doing better, chicken sensitivity is a really terrible thing  

I sympathize - our cat is allergic to chicken, too, plus all grains, so finding things he can eat can be difficult. I've found a couple of German brands - Vet-Concept and Wildcat - which haven't got chicken in some foods, but they're not sold elsewhere. A surprising number of cats at our animal shelter are also allergic to chicken, so many that we have allergy testing done at the first sign of trouble. Chicken is the main culprit.

Mogli couldn't tolerate the Hill's with hydrolyzed protein, but some cats can, so it might be worth a try. Have you had a look at the ingredient lists on the zooplus sites? Zooplus.de and zooplus.com don't deliver to Serbia; I don't know whether the Croatian site does because I don't understand the language, but perhaps you could check it out. At the very least you might find some brands to look for in Serbia.