Picky cat with food allergies

[macaroonie]

Hi! First time on the site so I hope I'm posting in the right thread. My 2y/o cat has always been extremely picky ever since I adopted her and recently the vet has diagnosed her with a chicken and fish allergy. She's been put on Blue alligator dry food but went on a hunger strike yesterday because she no longer wanted her Blue alligator kibble. She has never been a big fan of wet food so when I got her to eat a decent amount of Rawz rabbit pate, I was very excited. Still, with her track history, I'm not sure how long this will last. I've been using nutritional yeast as a topper, but I'm wondering if there are more toppers or foods out there I can give her to make meal time more exciting?
I've tried:
- bonito flakes (out of desperation, she didn't want)
- fortiflora (only seem to entice her to eat when it's on her kibble, but not as successful these days)
- freeze dried rabbit morsels by Stella & Chewy's (she didn't like it)
- Instinct LID rabbit dry food (made her poop blood)
Also, is it okay if she skips meals sometimes? Her vet told me to not worry too much about it since she's at a decent weight right now but I'd love to hear everyone's opinions as well...
Thank you!

 

[cejhome]

Try Lotus Just Juicy Venison or Pork. They do not have chicken or fish in them. Tiki Cats After Dark Venison with Beef Liver does not have chicken, and I THINK it still does not have fish. They changed that formula to have lots of thickeners in it, and it is very gummy now. Feline Natural Lamb didn't have any fish when I tried it. Buddy liked it, but he has constipation issues and didn't work for him. The Lotus is very $$$ but he loves it. Buddy is very allergic to chicken, and I suspect he may be sensitive to fish.

I am starting to slowly transition him to homemade (cooked) as one of the foods I had in rotation decided to "new and improve" their formula and started adding chicken to it. Last straw for me. Poor Buddy started scratching his ears and got a sick tummy. The Lotus will remain as a small part of his diet, just in case we have an emergency - that way if someone has to come in and feed Buddy with little notice, or we have to evacuate because of a bad hurricane, I still have food to feed him.

I did try Rawz Rabbit pate for Buddy, he would eat it in the morning when he was really hungry, but would refuse it later on - he didn't like it enough to eat it any more.

Lotus Just Juicy is available from Chewy and Amazon if you can't source it locally or from a small retailer (I have to order it). Amazon - I had issues with damaged cans. They did give me partial refunds on the case for the damaged cans with no issue. Chewy - I have never had an issue with the shipments.

 

[macaroonie]

Try Lotus Just Juicy Venison or Pork. They do not have chicken or fish in them. Tiki Cats After Dark Venison with Beef Liver does not have chicken, and I THINK it still does not have fish. They changed that formula to have lots of thickeners in it, and it is very gummy now. Feline Natural Lamb didn't have any fish when I tried it. Buddy liked it, but he has constipation issues and didn't work for him. The Lotus is very $$$ but he loves it. Buddy is very allergic to chicken, and I suspect he may be sensitive to fish.

I am starting to slowly transition him to homemade (cooked) as one of the foods I had in rotation decided to "new and improve" their formula and started adding chicken to it. Last straw for me. Poor Buddy started scratching his ears and got a sick tummy. The Lotus will remain as a small part of his diet, just in case we have an emergency - that way if someone has to come in and feed Buddy with little notice, or we have to evacuate because of a bad hurricane, I still have food to feed him.

I did try Rawz Rabbit pate for Buddy, he would eat it in the morning when he was really hungry, but would refuse it later on - he didn't like it enough to eat it any more.

Lotus Just Juicy is available from Chewy and Amazon if you can't source it locally or from a small retailer (I have to order it). Amazon - I had issues with damaged cans. They did give me partial refunds on the case for the damaged cans with no issue. Chewy - I have never had an issue with the shipments.

Try Lotus Just Juicy Venison or Pork. They do not have chicken or fish in them. Tiki Cats After Dark Venison with Beef Liver does not have chicken, and I THINK it still does not have fish. They changed that formula to have lots of thickeners in it, and it is very gummy now. Feline Natural Lamb didn't have any fish when I tried it. Buddy liked it, but he has constipation issues and didn't work for him. The Lotus is very $$$ but he loves it. Buddy is very allergic to chicken, and I suspect he may be sensitive to fish.

I am starting to slowly transition him to homemade (cooked) as one of the foods I had in rotation decided to "new and improve" their formula and started adding chicken to it. Last straw for me. Poor Buddy started scratching his ears and got a sick tummy. The Lotus will remain as a small part of his diet, just in case we have an emergency - that way if someone has to come in and feed Buddy with little notice, or we have to evacuate because of a bad hurricane, I still have food to feed him.

I did try Rawz Rabbit pate for Buddy, he would eat it in the morning when he was really hungry, but would refuse it later on - he didn't like it enough to eat it any more.

Lotus Just Juicy is available from Chewy and Amazon if you can't source it locally or from a small retailer (I have to order it). Amazon - I had issues with damaged cans. They did give me partial refunds on the case for the damaged cans with no issue. Chewy - I have never had an issue with the shipments.

Thank you for your suggestions! My girl only eats pate cause she's more of a licker than a biter so I'm not sure how she'll react to Lotus Just Juicy but I'll give it a try anyway!! I also have a can of Lotus rabbit pate that I'll try tonight. Fingers crossed that she'll like it. I did try the Feline Natural and Tiki After Dark line and she didn't want anything to do with them haha...
I'll most likely have to go down the homemade food route at one point, so any advice on how to get started on that would be great!! Thank you again

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

We do have a sub-forum for raw and homemade food here: Raw & Home-Cooked Cat Food. Many people use a supplement like EZ Complete to add to their homemade foods (either raw or cooked) to make them 100% nutritionally complete, while others add in all the vitamins, calcium, eggs, and organ meats individually.

Koha makes a pate using kangaroo, which should work for your purposes (if she likes it)

Can she eat lamb? How about turkey? Many cats who are allergic to chicken can still eat other fowl like turkey and quail and pheasant and duck. If she can, that should open up many more doors for you.

 

[LadyLondonderry]

Can she eat lamb? How about turkey? Many cats who are allergic to chicken can still eat other fowl like turkey and quail and pheasant and duck. If she can, that should open up many more doors for you.

+1!
My Sylvie cannot tolerate chicken, but she can eat other fowl. Her current rotation includes Rawz turkey as well as rabbit, and Tiny Tiger beef. She has also eaten lamb with no issues, but lamb cat foods are few and far between!

 

[cejhome]

EZ Complete has chicken liver in it. I have just started homemade - so far so good. Will post on the Raw/Homemade when I know it will work for Buddy. So far so good... Using Superior Feline food mix, but am going to investigate Alnutrin and TC Feline as well.

 

[macaroonie]

We do have a sub-forum for raw and homemade food here: Raw & Home-Cooked Cat Food. Many people use a supplement like EZ Complete to add to their homemade foods (either raw or cooked) to make them 100% nutritionally complete, while others add in all the vitamins, calcium, eggs, and organ meats individually.

Koha makes a pate using kangaroo, which should work for your purposes (if she likes it)

Can she eat lamb? How about turkey? Many cats who are allergic to chicken can still eat other fowl like turkey and quail and pheasant and duck. If she can, that should open up many more doors for you.

Thank you for the link!! I'll look into it. I first have to focus on getting her use to the texture of wet food though.
It looks like Koha's kangaroo pate has been discontinued? Unless I'm not looking in the right place.
She doesn't really care about lamb, but maybe she will once she starts to eat wet food consistently. Haven't tested other fowls yet and I'm scared to because her last ear infection was very painful for her...I'll talk about it with her vet at her appointment tomorrow and see what they think!

 

[macaroonie]

+1!
My Sylvie cannot tolerate chicken, but she can eat other fowl. Her current rotation includes Rawz turkey as well as rabbit, and Tiny Tiger beef. She has also eaten lamb with no issues, but lamb cat foods are few and far between!

Tiny Tiger beef! That's a brand I haven't heard of so thank you so much!! I'll look into that one

 

[cejhome]

Read any can ingredient list very closely. A lot of them have fish and/or chicken in them regardless of the description or name. I looked a a ton of them that gave no indication of chicken or fish anywhere except for the tiny mice sized font they use for the ingredients list. Some foods have "natural flavors" - you would have to contact the manufacturer to make sure that the "natural flavors" aren't chicken or fish related.

I just remembered a while back - there was a pork canned cat food I tried. Buddy was okay with it, but didn't love it. Then they did the dreaded "new and improved". I read the ingredients on-line - they had started adding chicken to it. They still described it as limited ingredient pork and didn't mention the addition of chicken on the can labels.

Don't trust the can labels - go to their website and look up the food and read the ingredients there - even that is no guarantee that you are reading current information.

Same as you, I don't want poor Buddy to scratch his ears up and get a sick tummy and feel awful from hidden chicken/fish in his food. That's why I am switching to homemade.

 

[macaroonie]

Read any can ingredient list very closely. A lot of them have fish and/or chicken in them regardless of the description or name. I looked a a ton of them that gave no indication of chicken or fish anywhere except for the tiny mice sized font they use for the ingredients list. Some foods have "natural flavors" - you would have to contact the manufacturer to make sure that the "natural flavors" aren't chicken or fish related.

I just remembered a while back - there was a pork canned cat food I tried. Buddy was okay with it, but didn't love it. Then they did the dreaded "new and improved". I read the ingredients on-line - they had started adding chicken to it. They still described it as limited ingredient pork and didn't mention the addition of chicken on the can labels.

Don't trust the can labels - go to their website and look up the food and read the ingredients there - even that is no guarantee that you are reading current information.

Same as you, I don't want poor Buddy to scratch his ears up and get a sick tummy and feel awful from hidden chicken/fish in his food. That's why I am switching to homemade.

I definitely see the benefits in homemade and would for sure do that one of these days! 100%. It's just I want her to get used to eating wet food first. I swear she thinks wet food is her arch nemesis