Only pressure cooked chicken breast as food for cat!

I am from Australia, I don't know if you can get to Sydney but there are a few great vets there and a couple of nutritionists. They definitely need a supplement long term. I'm not sure if maybe there was a bit of confusion with the whole diet thing but I was given advice by my vet that on an elimination trial a cat can do fine without supplementation for 12 weeks maximum. After that they need a supplement or commercial diet with a supplement added. I've been trying to think of canned foods that contain only chicken but other than applaws which also contains rice and is unbalanced there isn't much. Coles sell one called Purr Chicken Breast in Gravy. I know you've said you've tried a lot of foods and you have my empathy, I too have a cat that gets severe diarrhea from all kinds of foods (i'm still trying to figure out which one's) and another who is allergic to chicken (I think, it makes his itchy problems worse).

I think Weruva do a chicken and turkey one that doesn't have much in it other than chicken and turkey and wellness do a chicken one in a small purple and green can, it does have additives but they're healthy one's. Anything you do trial though will need to be done super super slowly (like  1 teaspoon at a time).

If it's not an allergy to foods, it could be that they need something added to the food like a fibre supplement or some slipper elm to help bulk things up and move through more slowly.

We did Purr too! Nope- same issue even with Purr they got MORE vomiting and weakness!! We thought they were going to die.
Have no idea what their issue is and they are brothers (just reminding i know i did say it before ) so this is some kind of genetic issue - i really dont know what it may be.
Yea we are in Sydney
We go to Bondi Junction Veterinary Hospital and they do great for our cats.
We had a few emergencies with reactions to medicines- these are worse than just diarrhoea!
Our cats are not neutered, they also didnt have biopsies
Tabby did go under to take blood as he is a nervous cat and did ok with that anaesthetic.
We never found what was the cause of his collapse but it happed about 40 hrs after application of Advantage flea treatment
So yea lots of problems with these brothers
They found that time he had inflamed eosophargus and low grade fever
He couldnt walk from time to time and collapsed forward-- his head must have been heavy.
There were several times we thought we were going to lose them.
They are ok to medicines the first few times (usually) but after that they get sick. They said with some of these they could be allergic to whats in the liquid that spreads the active ingredient over the skin in flea treatment, so not the active ingredient itself
But capstar( flea treatment tablet) they are reacting to the active ingredient itself -they get very high blood pressure as the symptom
So we are no longer able to treat the fleas with medicines of any kind- external or internal and the vets dont recommend it

Our vets said LONG terms not only during elimination

We tried z/d Hills prescription dry biscuits - hydrolised protein - but reaction is same!
We tried so many things
We thought that CORN is one thing that doesnt go well but the rest we have no idea as they also react to things without corn.

I'm not much help but SASH is highly rated and I believe they have a nutritionist on staff. There is also one here: http://www.naturalvet.com.au/ they have a team of both regular and holistic vets. I haven't tried them myself however (I live a bit too far to take my kitty there). They might be able to help though. I'm sorry you're battling with this. You have my empathy. My 2 year old male cat gets itchy as I said, to the point where he'll chew and scratch his fur off and my 1 year old female gets bouts of diarrhea. I haven't managed to figure out what her problem is yet. Fish is one of them, chicken could be the other but trying to find fish free, chicken free cat food in Australia is pretty much impossible and the few things I've found they won't eat. I do hope you figure it out eventually, it's frustrating living with kitties with health issues that don't seem to respond to anything.

The hydrolysed food only hydrolyses the chicken liver, the rice is still intact. Mine are eating the Royal Canin hydrolysed food, but it contains both rice and soy and Royal Canin warned me that if my cat is allergic to soy he could still react to it. It's possible yours were reacting to the hydrolyzed protein or maybe the rice. They do need a balanced diet long term though, poor little guys.

Anni7 said:

We tried z/d Hills prescription dry biscuits - hydrolised protein - but reaction is same!
We tried so many things
We thought that CORN is one thing that doesnt go well but the rest we have no idea as they also react to things without corn.

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In regards to the hypoallergenic prescription diets...
I had the same exact issues with them. We tried Purina HA, Hills z/d and the Royal Canin Hydrolyzed diets. All caused diarrhea is every cat it was fed to (including cats that is NOT have food allergies.)

What type of fecal testing has been done on your cats? What parasites have been tested for?

I dont remember what fecal test i think general one to see what flora grows and if blood is there. I think only mucus was found.

Eating only chicken breast is as you suspected not healthy for your cats no matter what the vets said. You won't find anything in current scientific literature that supports this view. I'm guessing your vets are old and not up to date on the outcomes of recent research?

In fact, cats in the wild will NOT prefer the lean-meat parts of the animal (muscles) but rather the organ meat (liver, heart, lungs, bone marrow etc) which is much richer in nutrients. Meat alone is poor in nutrients and cannot support a balanced diet. All cats, from big cats of the savanna to our smaller feline friends have the same nutritional requirements in this regard and all eat the same way. Being an obligate carnivore, as cats are, does not mean they can survive eating only lean meat! Far from it.

I understand that your boyfriend trusts the advice of experts because he loves his cats but unbeknownst to him he's hurting them. Ask him to read the current scientific literature and see for himself.

If your cats can consume other parts of the chicken without issue I'd strongly recommend you start introducing chicken organ meat into their diets as soon as possible. Lack of taurine is especially worrying as it can cause severe deficiencies in cats with life-threatening consequences. I don't mean to frighten you but it is that serious.

Hi 

Thanks for all the replies

I can see that most people think similar and this is what I also have found on the sites, including one from a university.

I have written to Animal Welfare League NSW (Australia) on Tue  and am awaiting their reply.

yea my partner thinks that the vets are correct. Only one vet is in his 60s and has over 35 years experience as a vet surgeon. The other vet is only in his 30s so he is not old and he has about 10 years + of experience so his education is more contemporary.

I have a hard time persuading my partner to listen to me, multiple times I have tried to introduce additional stuff to our cats diets - including different meats, different brands of foods (which contain less ingredients and no corn), egg, pumpkin as we were actually told we can give them pumpkin but my fiance is really stubborn and because i can see the cats previously got sick so often when we did introduce eg veal raw and I think they refused to eat cooked, and other things - that is why he is stubborn as he is the one who has to clean up all their mess as I have a heart problem /condition that makes me easily tired. My fiance has his own health problems - i e spinal injury and even though he can walk without wheelchair, it is difficult to carry litter not to say dangerous. So we are stuck in a situation at the moment. I am trying my best to persuade him and find a specialist who would explain it. So far the two vets that we go to - and they ARE very good vets because we chose them to treat our cats from the hospital with many vets.. so we do trust them.

These cats have survived on this diet for about id say close to a year .

A few times we gave them organs and thighs, a several times they have stolen our food and the stray cats food (Whiskas). they stolen only a little and a few times whatever little they ate they got bad diarrhea and vomiting occasionally. So they rarely have extra foods

We were warned that the stomach upsets can lead to IBD - inflammatory bowel disease if not controlled from constant inflammation due to the likely allergic response they suffer to proteins in many foods (and also they have allergies to drugs and these nearly killed them), so this is another reason we are really worried.

have you tried royal canin? I have my cat on their urinary track food because the hills prescript s/d no longer was working. I think hills has changed their ingredients or something. But my cat is also picky and he wouldn't eat  it, however royal canin is his favorite! Just an idea. The friskies food gave him urinary crystals so I try to tell everyone not to feed any store brand foods like friskies, fancy fest, I have even seen blue buffalo food cause a problem.

Yes they had royal canin - same reaction
They dont have urinary issues but GI issues. Z/d causes upsets for them and someone in the above comments said it causes issues with ALL of their cats! Regardless if they need z/d and have allergies or they do not!
So i think hills prescription is too rich or something
I am not familiar with s/d - urinary health but i assume it could be also rich food? I got no idea.
We tried many brands to give them the best including royal canin without luck. We gave them many different brands of foods including fancy feast, friskies, whiskas etc ie cheap brands but also superior brands and prescription brands
They were never on dry only diet - i heard this can cause urinary problems as cats arent good drinkers and need to have moisture preferably in food- so we always fed them biscuit and wet or cooked. They have filtered water fountains at home as well.

Im also cautious about foods made in some countries. We really cant tell for sure what is in ANY commerical cat food and my suspicion is that these foods arent too good for some animals with GI or other health issues. We simply cant know what grade meat they have, what preservatives and additives are used. Also foods produced in some countries dont have the same quality control as in other countries- eg i had problems with some foods from China and Thailand. So did some people i know and it was written about in the news. I know there also are labelling problems sometimes. So i am worried to give my animals foods like eg Purr its a brand made in Thailand sold in coles supermarket in Australia. My cats got food poisoning or just bad reaction we dont know and neither did the vets once from their tuna meal in a pouch. Not only it aggravated their existing problem but cost us hundreds of dollars at the vets and medicines. Both cats got violently ill after eating ONLY their tuna food.
We gave the same before to them but that particular one had some spoilage or contamination.
And since then they gone so much downhill with their GI problem we simply cant give Purr or any other brand.
Overall Purr caused LESS problem however with their digestion just that one time and since then. Vets were not even sure why - it could have been they had a violent reaction and there was nothing wrong with Purr! The treatment was supportive so they were not given antibiotics from memory.

Hydrolyzed diets often cause diarrhea initially. Hills themselves will warn you if you speak to the nutritionist that the food is likely to do this. Something about the hydrolyzed food drawing water into the bowel. It should ease up after a month or so. Mine are doing okay on the Royal Canin Hydrolyzed Hypoallergenic, I haven't tried the Hills with them, I remember reading it's more likely to cause diarrhea than the Royal Canin.

I also feed Purr to my boy who is allergic to chicken. He does well with it. No GI issues at all.

My girl cat however has an allergy to fish and gets terrible diarrhea with anything fishy.

Have they ever had a course of metrogyl (flagyl)? Or trialed a course of prenisilone to see if it helps with the bowel issues?

Tuna is ok as an occasional meal im sure you know this just checking. What do you feed the cat allergic to chicken??
I will be taking my cats to the vets and intro other foods very soon ie just over a weeks time i need to save to go to the vet..
So they are going to eat different foods my partner finally agreed he just wants to run it past the vets

Anni7 said:

Tuna is ok as an occasional meal im sure you know this just checking. What do you feed the cat allergic to chicken??
I will be taking my cats to the vets and intro other foods very soon ie just over a weeks time i need to save to go to the vet..
So they are going to eat different foods my partner finally agreed he just wants to run it past the vets

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Oh, I know My vet said fish is okay as long as it's pet food fish approved by the AAFCO and not human food cans or fresh fish. She also said cans of cat food fish are tested for mercury so at the lack of anything else being available here that he will eat it will be fine. I've got a can of Gourmet Delite, one of Weruva and Wellness does 2 in fish called Signature select that I'll try. He's still itchy though so I'm not sure chicken is the problem

At the moment he is having Royal Canin hypoallergenic dry food and Purr wet although I discovered today that Purr does not appear to have the AAFCO stamp of approval so I'm trying to find something else he'll eat (so far not much luck). If you lived closer to me I would send you to my vet, she's wonderful. Do let us know what the vet says and how it goes! I totally understand the frustration.

Also we were told that oily fish like tuna can have something thats too much if fed all the time. So we were specifically told not to feed only tuna but add other meats. I think its to do with ocean fish but id rather read up more on this subject. My vets are really good and did help us a lot. How far do you live or you not in Sydney?
If things dont improve we will take them to a university vet hospital - it has more resources. So i will see how we can help.
Have you tried to feed chicken ie just home cooked?

"The condition is caused by feeding a diet high in unsaturated fatty acids and deficient in vitamin E. Oily fish, especially red tuna, but also sardines and white fish are the the most common cause of this condition."

http://www.naturesgift.com.au/project/organic-pure-chicken-indulgence-85g/
http://www.ultimatesindulge.com.au/product/tender-chicken-in-a-broth/

I'm in the UK but have done some Googling for you. The two brands linked above are both pure chicken complete cat foods. Worth investigating, if nothing else Try contacting the companies and asking about samples - some manufactures offer sample tins for free or postage cost alone, and others may send you a money off voucher. It never hurts to ask a cheeky question!