Cat Allergies - Food Recommendation?

[Bettyboo234]

Hi all,

long story short my 2 year old cat has started itching quite obviously at night time and sometimes during the day. I got some advice from the vet and they suggested it was maybe a food allergy so to use a vet branded food and allow things to calm down before reintroducing anything.

I went with Hills (perfect digestion in chicken for wet food and sensitive stomach & skin dry food which was also chicken). The itching seemed to decrease however the poos are foul! They stink up the entire house and doesn’t seem super healthy to me. I decided to reintroduce a supermarket dry food which was Purina sensitive but this was in Turkey flavour. Straight away I noticed an increase in the itching and the poos back to normal.

I decided to do an online allergy test (sent some of his fur to get tested). I know this isn’t the most scientific however I thought it would give me a good starting point for maybe understand what I should cut out. It came back that he’s sensitive to beef heart, turkey liver and duck gizzard as well as a few other vitamins etc. going off all this, I’m trying to work out a good food plan - that will hopefully avoid his allergies but also have normal poos!!!

can anyone recommend what they use? I’m hoping really for a supermarket brand but happy to pay slightly more if it’s good quality. I am going with the idea to just stick to chicken only and work from there. I’m unsure whether to go back to Purina (but get a chicken only one) or I have heard Scrumbles might be good? With the wet food, I used to give my cats Untamed so again, thinking if I should go back to that hut make sure to avoid the beef/turkey or duck ones. Thanks for any advice!

Could you feed a more fish-based diet? E.g. Lilys Kitchen do fish biscuits (not sure what else is in there, check the ingredients), Applaws do 100% fish tins.
Or, as you say, chicken would OK.
Apparently it is more common for cats to be allergic to red meat than to grains, so it good that you know to avoid the red meat.
If you want a specific hypoallergenic food, then Royal Canin also do one.

ps you might get other people with more experiences to share if you ask for this to be moved to the specific cats' 'Litter tray' section.

There are no reliable allergy tests for food.
I always recommend a hydrolysed diet ( this is different to hypoallergenic) is used for 10 to 12 weeks to see if helps.

Have you looked on zooplus. They do all sorts of brands. Some are quite reasonable priced and for the common ones cheaper than the supermarket.