Chicken Allergy Symptoms?

[cheeser]

If your cat developed an allergy to chicken, what were the symptoms that made you think it was a possibility?

The vet doesn't think this is the case with Buddy. But I just have this nagging feeling that we may be dealing with more than just the usual FIV and/or FHV related issues.

I know that a lot of people try an elimination diet for awhile to see if the symptoms improve. But before it got to that point, what was it that made that little light bulb go off in your head and made you wonder if you cat might have become allergic to chicken?

 

[foxxycat]

usually vomiting or itchy scaly skin is what I have seen. Sometimes diarrhea.

my angel Floey was allergic to corn products. she got bad urinary crystals from corn meal in food.

 

[Kieka]

I don't have confirmation butI am fairly certain Fury is sensitive to chicken. He has always thrown up a few times a week. Usually right after eating but sometimes an hour or two later. One time the store was out of our regular food and we got a Turkey food instead. He vomited half as much. Then I tried a different wet food that was chicken based instead of their normal fish based. He threw up within an hour of eating the wet food each time.

So if he vomited after chicken based wet food and vomited half as much with a dry food containing less chicken? Decided to eliminate chicken from their dry food completely. On a 100% chicken free diet Fury has vomited once in a month and we are pretty sure that was eating too quickly because it was immediate.

So process of elimination was ours. I don't have 100% medical confirmation but if eliminating chicken has made him gain a little weight and stop vomiting nearly daily it works for me.

 

[LTS3]

Leroy recently developed an allergy to turkey. Not quite the same as chicken but it's still poultry. His only symptom was a scabby non-itchy bald spot on his head. It started off as thinning fur. I knew from experience that Leroy was allergic to something. I figured it had to be the food since I hadn't changed anything to Leroy's normal routine. The bags of NV raw had been opened for awhile so I eliminated that as the allergy source. That left the raw turkey with Alnutrin. I made up a new batch with goat and fed that to Leroy. The bald spot slowly regrew fur. He still has a strange looking spot on his head but the fur hasn't completely grown in yet.

Some cats may have pretty severe food allergy symptoms like raw oozing itchy skin.

 

[cheeser]

Thanks bunches, y'all, for helping me to sort this out in my warped little noggin.

Buddy has recently started to develop lots of yeast infections in his ears, and I read somewhere awhile back that allergies can change the environment in the ears so they're more susceptible to yeast or bacterial infections. Since Buddy gets some really wicked localized swelling from flea bites and dust mites, and nasal inflammation from airborne allergens, I wondered if he could also have a food allergy. And since every thing he eats has chicken in it, that seemed like a logical place to start an elimination diet.

But vet said he's just going to be prone to these sorts of things because his immune system is wonky and is going to react differently to normal stuff on his skin than it would in a healthy cat, and because we live in a ridiculously hot and humid climate.

On the one hand, I want to be reassured by the vet's response. On the other hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of just assuming that everything that goes wrong is related to Buddy's FIV status.

 

[debrajmac]

usually vomiting or itchy scaly skin is what I have seen. Sometimes diarrhea.

my angel Floey was allergic to corn products. she got bad urinary crystals from corn meal in food.

All grains, (corn, wheat, rice, wheat gluten, barley) including corn, are very unhealthy for ALL cats. They are obligate carnivores and thrive on animal protein and animal fat as they would consume from their prey if in the wild. The closer to mimic that in your ingredients, the better. Wet food should be at least 10% in crude protein and for dry food, minimum 40% crude protein. Corn, in particular, is the leading cause of feline diabetes because it converts into sugar. Starches, including potato, tapioca also convert to sugar. Therefore, only feed your cat GRAIN-FREE food.

 

[denice]

Patches developed the yeast infection in his ears. I eliminated chicken and no more issues. He is on pred for IBD which may be why he didn't show any digestive symptoms but the yeast infection was the only symptom that he had.

 

[huxleysmom]

Huxley is allergic to a lot of things including poultry (chicken and turkey for sure, as well as eggs).When he eats them, he has really bad black build up in one of his ears that I have to clean everyday with Q-tips, nasty chin acne, he vomits right after eating and is very nauseous all the time, sneezes a lot, becomes wheezy and chews on his paws. The vet thinks that he may also have environmental allergies because of the wheezing and sneezing.That wouldn’t surprise me as this stops if I put the air purifier on at least during the day when I am at work. However, he continues to chew at his paws even if he just eats cooked pork now (with nothing else in it besides vitamins and taurine) so it could be the carpet or dust in the carpet... who knows. Allergies are so hard to figure out. He also had his teeth removed because of Stomatitis so the vet says his immune system could be all out of whack. The bottom line is, if he does better without chicken in his diet, then cut it out completely, which will be hard as chicken, turkey or egg tends to be everywhere in cat food (especially in liver if the source is not specified).

Thanks bunches, y'all, for helping me to sort this out in my warped little noggin.

Buddy has recently started to develop lots of yeast infections in his ears, and I read somewhere awhile back that allergies can change the environment in the ears so they're more susceptible to yeast or bacterial infections. Since Buddy gets some really wicked localized swelling from flea bites and dust mites, and nasal inflammation from airborne allergens, I wondered if he could also have a food allergy. And since every thing he eats has chicken in it, that seemed like a logical place to start an elimination diet.

But vet said he's just going to be prone to these sorts of things because his immune system is wonky and is going to react differently to normal stuff on his skin than it would in a healthy cat, and because we live in a ridiculously hot and humid climate.

On the one hand, I want to be reassured by the vet's response. On the other hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of just assuming that everything that goes wrong is related to Buddy's FIV status.

 

[cocobutterfly]

Itchy ears which looked like recurring ear infection. Our cat would scratch them violently. We took her to a cat-only vet and she suspected food allergy, not ear infection. We did the elimination diet, and it worked.

She only eats novel proteins - mostly Nature's Variety Instinct rabbit wet food, some RadCat raw venison and wild caught Alaskan salmon that I grill or poach for her. I prepare about a 3/4 pound for her and put it in an airtight glass container and store it in the fridge. Lasts a whole week, and it's her absolute favorite. I don't feed her any other fish as it could contain high amounts of mercury.

 

[Etarre]

I think my cat might be allergic to chicken...she scratches a LOT and at first I thought it was just that our apartment is dry because the heater is always cranked way too high (we don't control it). She started to scratch a spot above her eye and just under her ear and developed a little rash there, and a couple of times her eye has visibly swelled up. She also has a hairless spot on her tail. She was spayed back on November before we got her, and at first I thought it was just related to that, but I've caught her biting it a ton, and the hair on her belly is much further along in growing back and her bald tail spot just seems to be getting bigger. So....I suspect that it's a reaction to allergic itchy skin.

I think it might be the chicken because her dry food is 40% chicken meal, and when we ran out of the turkey baby food we'd been giving her as an occasional treat, I bought a jar of chicken, and she seemed to get itchy eyes right after dinner and it started right when that bottle showed up. I stopped giving her the baby food chicken, but screwed up the other day and gave her a little tiny piece of lunchmeat, thinking it was turkey, and when her eye swelled up again, sure enough it turned out hubs had bought chicken instead of our usual turkey. I felt pretty bad about that one.

So we're going to switch out her cat food for a seafood-based food and see if it helps her rash and itch problems go away. Crossing fingers that this works....

Does anyone know if turkey and chicken allergies tend to cluster?

 

[duckpond]

I dont know, but i would say it is likely that if allergic to chicken maybe turkey too, or duck. Changing to a food that has all Beef, Fish, Lamb, or another protein and no Fowl should tell you if it is an allergy. You might also want to have the Vet give her a check?
this is the Fish fav at my house right now
Earthborn Holistic Catalina Catch Grain-Free Natural Canned Cat & Kitten Food no Bird of any type

or
Nulo Freestyle Minced Beef & Mackerel in Gravy Grain-Free Canned Cat Food, 3-oz, case of 24 but it does have chicken fat, i dont know if the fat would cause a reaction, or if its just the proteins?

 

[cheeser]

Does anyone know if turkey and chicken allergies tend to cluster?

Well, now that we've had quite a range of experiences since I first posted this thread...

In Buddy's case, he only seemed to be allergic to chicken, which made sense because that's pretty much all he had been eating for the past couple of years. Once we eliminated chicken from his diet, his yeasty ears and toenail fungus began to show dramatic improvement. Then I noticed that when I fed him anything with turkey, he'd puke soon after he had eaten. Then he couldn't tolerate duck anymore, or guineafowl. So we figured we might as well eliminate any kind of poultry/fowl from his diet, just to be on the safe side.

The funny thing is that supposedly a cat can be allergic to chicken, but not to eggs. So we figured we were in the clear re: his egg yolk lecithin that we give him for hairball control. This morning we've finally come to the conclusion that he's allergic to that, too.

 

[Etarre]

Thanks, Cheeser and Duckpond, for sharing your experiences. We'll try eliminating chicken and see what happens....thanks also for the food rec!

 

[duckpond]

Thanks, Cheeser and Duckpond, for sharing your experiences. We'll try eliminating chicken and see what happens....thanks also for the food rec!

i also found dry without chicken, or chicken fat
Taste of the Wild Canyon River Grain-Free Dry Cat Food
Blue Buffalo Basics Limited Ingredient Grain-Free Formula Fish & Potato Indoor Adult Dry Cat Food
Appalachian Ranch |
https://www.orijen.ca/foods/cat-food/dry-cat-food/regional-red/

 

[duckpond]

Thanks, Cheeser and Duckpond, for sharing your experiences. We'll try eliminating chicken and see what happens....thanks also for the food rec!

i also found dry without chicken, or chicken fat
Taste of the Wild Canyon River Grain-Free Dry Cat Food
Blue Buffalo Basics Limited Ingredient Grain-Free Formula Fish & Potato Indoor Adult Dry Cat Food
Appalachian Ranch |
https://www.orijen.ca/foods/cat-food/dry-cat-food/regional-red/

 

[cocobutterfly]

First, I would have the vet assess her condition to rule out any medical conditions. It could be food allergies, it could be a fungal infection, it could something else.

To answer your question, yes, chicken and turkey are both poultry, so our one cat who's allergic doesn't get any chicken, turkey, duck. She's on a diet of novel proteins - rabbit and venison (raw). Although we give her some wild-caught Alaskan salmon that we steam ourselves, I would not put her on a commercial seafood diet. They are made of cheap farmed fish and bottom feeders that's loaded with mercury and/or antibiotics. Although bad for us, an adult human weighing above 100 pounds can handle that mercury content to some extent, but a 10 pound cat would not be able to metabolize a daily dose of mercury and other additives the same way.

The problem with much of the pet food industry is that the meat and fish are not labeled like they are for human grade ones. I honestly believe that it's not really the meat that is causing these horrible allergic symptoms in pets (and humans), but rather all the other junk (hormones, GMO, antibiotics, insecticides, other farming conditions and additives) that are causing the bodies to react. That's why we have to be very careful about doing our own research.

 

[Etarre]

She's been eating another variety of the Taste of the Wild food, and likes it, so it's good to know that there's a chicken-free variety out there.

Interesting point, cocobutterfly, about mercury and the potential dangers of a commercial seafood diet. I'll look into it more. And yes, it seems like whatever is causing humans to be allergic to more is also harming our pets. That's depressing! There was an interesting NY Times piece about how cats never had thyroid issues until the 1970s that pretty definitively suggests that it's environmental toxins that contributed to the start of the epidemic. My previous cat had thyroid issues, so that was a sobering read for me.

The Mystery of the Wasting House-Cats

 

[Chrissy66]

Hi guys have been about ready to pull my hair out with our otherwise healthy 11 month old kitten other than his years. When he was a little terror and trust me he was, he had ear mites extremely bad. Our vet gave him some medicine which cleared them up, or so we thought. I was feeding All Provide and he was okay with it. He then and boy is he even worse now the most finikiest eater. He ate the chicken for I would say a few meals, along with the beef and turkey. It wasn't a week later and we refused to eat the Chicken which left us with Beef and Turkey. To give him another protein we would feed him 2 ounces of boiled chicken that this child loves. We seemed to do okay, then nope don't want the Turkey mom. That of course left Beef and boiled chicken. This lasted a couple months to where he got to where he just forced himself to eat just enough to stay satisfied. My mom then had me try some Duck from Hare Today. Needless to say he loved it. I then ordered him some Duck, Beef, and Turkey. For his Supplements we used the Alnutrin it wasn't long I started noticing him shaking his head more and more. We took him to the vet and she said he had a yeast infection. I was given an ear was with a steroid in it to use every other day. I then learned any chicken product can cause ear problems. We did away with that for a month using RX Vitamins only to see his ears get worse caked up with earwax. We got one ear cleared up but the other wasn't. His doctor told us not only did he have earwax, an ear infection, and some ear mite eggs. She told us to feed him only Rabbit and we are putting ear mite medicine and an ear wash with steroids in it. I am now confused as to if this is an allergy to Chicken. Sorry such a long oost, but thought if I explained where we started and where we are now maybe someone could help. Oh BTW most remember me when I had Candi but sadly we lost her in April.