How To Switch Foods To Find Allergies?

backyardzoo

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I'm currently feeding my girl a rabbit diet after the her food trial failed on the vets Hypoallergenic duck food. This trial is going much better than her last trial as she never did stop scratching her chin raw on that one and currently she's almost 100% healed/scab free except for one spot on the side of her head. I have a little bit to go before I can say rabbit is good for her, but I am more hopeful this time around.

If the rabbit does work out, how do I go about trying different proteins to see what else she can eat? The vet never really said anything about that part, though he did mention I might end up making her food and possibly might need to consider steroids.

What else would be considered a low risk allergy protein? I'm 100% sure I need to avoid chicken, duck, fish(her worse reaction was on Acana Fish) and having been feed Acana of all types her protein exposure is huge, rabbit was almost the only option I had for a new protein for her.
 

daftcat75

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The easiest way to test for a sensitivitly is to try different proteins within the same brand and line to minimize the variability in the other ingredients like grains, starches, fruits, vegetables, or gums. This only works if she's stable on one of them to begin with. Otherwise, you'll never know what's causing a reaction. It also helps if the foods are single protein.

For an example, if you were feeding her Rawz Rabbit, you could easily test for Chicken, Beef, Turkey, Duck, and Salmon sensitivities as these are all single protein foods they make with more or less the same recipe except the proteins.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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There aren't that many proteins out there, but if she's already allergic to chicken and duck, I'd probably try something like Venison next and steer clear of birds. Since you are in Canada you may have access to different things than we have here in the U.S., things like Kangaroo? (but I doubt it's available up there) Seems like the most UNallergenic foods are rabbit and venison.
 

daftcat75

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I’ve heard pork is another good novel option. A lot of cats who are allergic to chicken aren’t allergic to turkey so that may be one to try. But a lot of turkey foods have chicken in them. A lot of cats don’t like red meat so it’s maybe 50/50 that yours would even go for venison. And that’s the trouble with novel proteins. Proteins that are novel to all cats are also not very popular with all cats. When looking for a novel protein, it only has to be novel to your cat. So turkey may be novel enough if she hasn’t had it before.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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True, my cats do not like Venison at all, however, they do like their beef :lol: (not that I'd recommend beef for an allergic cat)
 
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backyardzoo

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She's on Koha rabbit and Nature's Instinct rabbit LID for canned and Primal Freeze Dried nuggets(I tried frozen raw and she was not interested in that unfortunately).

I think beef, venison and kangaroo are all options for Koha. Primal I think I saw a venison and a pork verison. So I will have some options that I can get easily, I do wish Rawz was easier to get where I am as I either had to take a case of 24 or pay a lot for shipping from the only online store that offers in Canada. I'll probably stick with the Koha at first and see about other brands after as I believe I can get Hound & Gatos from the one online store in single cans.

For proteins she has been exposed to (thanks to Acana/Orijen having mixes of everything in their kibble):gaah:
lamb
duck
turkey
chicken
beef
pork & boar
bison
Many, many different species of fish

So venison might be safe try first I'm thinking as it and kangaroo are new.

After introducing a new protein how long will it take to show if it agrees with her? Only bright spot is that I'm lucky in some ways to have the garbage can of a youngster that can and will eat anything(trying to limit him some though so heaven forbid I run into allergy issues with him I will still have something he can eat), so between him and the dog nothing is being wasted.
 
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backyardzoo

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Has anyone ever fed llama to their cats? I saw llama frozen raw as an option in my one store, I would think that is fairly unique. I would like to switch her one day to frozen and canned from freeze dried and canned so maybe an option if I can convince her fresh/frozen raw is good
 
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