Dry food for sphynx with poultry/fish allergy?

[mikironicheese]

Hi guys

I'm in the process of an elimination diet with my Dougie who has recently been suffering from diarrhea and rashes. At the moment I'm almost certain it's an allergy to chicken, and I have a feeling fish might be a problem too.

Anyway, I would like to eventually give him some dry food in the future once we discover exactly what the problem protein is, so I would like to ask everyone what they feed their Sphynx who are allergic to poultry AND fish? I ask this because most of the dry food out there have a base of poultry or fish. Even the hypoallergenic ones. I haven't seen any using other meats yet.

I live in the UK by the way

Thanks !!

 

[Sheldon13]

He probably isn’t allergic to all poultry. You could try duck or turkey. But a favorite among a huge chunk of cats (there have been studies done) is rabbit. There’s also venison, lamb. All these you can find in canned and kibble versions. Beef is an option too but most of the cats I’ve offered it to did not care for it.

If you go raw...there are even more options:
Cavy
Mice
Rats
Hamster
Gerbil
Beaver
Kangaroo
Buffalo
Alpaca
Elk
Moose
Llama
Alligator
Quail
Pheasant
Goose

Probably more I’m not thinking of too



Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need

 

[Sheldon13]

We have a brand in the USA called Instinct, that offers single protein foods. Maybe there is something like that at pet stores in the UK? I doubt you’d find it at the grocery store though.

Raw is the best way to completely control the protein choice.


Love and Sphynx ~ It’s all you need

 

[Condo commando]

You're not going to want to hear this but your best bet is to make the food at home yourself. The reality of mass market pet foods is that even when it's supposed to have just one thing, like rabbit, their food is not tested so when there is some contamination at the factory nobody finds out. And unfortunately it doesn't necessarily take much of something to trigger the allergic response.

I would say to look into hydrolyzed protein diets. These diets are sold for pets with food allergies and they come in dry and wet forms. Sometimes even if the pet is allergic to the protein like chicken, once it's hydrolyzed the pet might be able to tolerate it. But, I would still opt for a novel protein myself.

Here are a few hydrolyzed diets from Royal Canin.
Selected Protein PV Dry Cat Food - Royal Canin
Selected Protein PR Dry Cat Food - Royal Canin
Selected Protein PD Dry Cat Food - Royal Canin

I would wait until the diarrhea is gone to start testing these. When that time comes, you have to feed just one thing for 2 months. No snacks or anything else. If he starts with the diarrhea again, take whatever the food is off the list. If he's still fine after 2 months, the food passes the test and is a long term option.

 

[Condo commando]

By the way I wouldn't feed just dry food. For wet food, you can try a limited ingredient diet like what @Sheldon13 is recommending. Stick to novel proteins for this too.

 

[Condo commando]

This is a pretty good summary.

How to Heal Your Pet's Food Allergy

Can novel protein diets eliminate pet food allergy in dogs and cats?

healthypets.mercola.com

 

[mikironicheese]

You guys are the best. I've heard so much about raw diet but am really not too sure about switching over, but if his intolerances don't get better I know where to look

Great to know about hydrolyzed proteins!!!

 

[Condo commando]

You guys are the best. I've heard so much about raw diet but am really not too sure about switching over, but if his intolerances don't get better I know where to look

Great to know about hydrolyzed proteins!!!

I started out feeding raw but I'm slowly transitioning to a cooked diet. For me it was always about the quality of the ingredients. This is what I think is the problem with commercial foods. There are people that say raw food is better than cooked food, but I'm not one of them.

There is an advantage to raw in that it takes very little effort, like making a simple salad. However, when you feed raw you have to be very careful about the meat you use. When the temperature of meat gets to about 4 degrees celsius, bacteria starts to grow. When you buy meat at the grocery store, you don't know how long the meat has been sitting there and consequently how much bacteria it is carrying. Grocery stores expect that whoever buys this is going to cook it, so any bacteria will be killed. I always say if you're going to feed the meat raw, buy frozen meat only. But if you are willing to cook it, you don't have to worry about that. And you can save money if you cook because if something is on sale because it's nearing the end of it's shelf life, you can cook it and your cats won't know the difference.

Commercial pet foods also have a problem beyond the ingredients which is that they are highly processed. I don't think anyone in their right mind would advocate a diet of all highly-processed foods for a human; why would it be OK for an animal? It just defies common sense. The ONLY thing commercial foods have going for them is that they are nutritionally balanced. That is because they add the vitamins and minerals after the food is cooked. It's like if you or I ate cheetos and ice cream and said it was nutritious because we took a multivitamin with it. Again, it just defies common sense. But I'm not saying don't do it, just to be aware "what is what" and if there is a problem don't rely on the pet food industry to have the solution.

I just want to say for the record that it is better to feed commercial food than to feed an unbalanced diet. I don't want anyone to read this and think that homemade is always better than store bought. It is not. Home made is only better if it is a balanced recipe.

 

[mikironicheese]

Oh I see...if I were to make my own food for them though I would have to add all the nutrients and vitamins, right?

I've never been thought of it that way, commercially made food is essentially the human equivalent of a ready-meal

 

[mikironicheese]

Would you have any suggested recipes, or links, or direction to another thread? I'm quite interested in homemade cooked complete cat food now that you mentioned it...

 

[Condo commando]

Would you have any suggested recipes, or links, or direction to another thread? I'm quite interested in homemade cooked complete cat food now that you mentioned it...

I went thru www.petdiets.com to obtain recipes. The people behind this website are veterinarians with a nutrition specialty so they can be trusted. In my case, I had them create customized recipes because one of my cats has an issue. For Dougie you would be better off getting regular recipes. They only charge a modest fee - $25 for the first recipe and $12 for each additional. Here is the link:

Homemade Diets for Healthy Pets | PetDiets

All their recipes use boneless meats. Be prepared for the recipe to require a supplement which will include calcium and some other vitamins and minerals. The supplement isn't optional; it's required in order to balance out your recipe. My recipes all use BalanceIT Feline as the supplement.

If you don't want to pay, you can create 100% free recipes on the BalanceIT web site. One thing I noticed is the recipes they provide for free use a different supplement - BalanceIT Carnivore Blend - as opposed to BalanceIT Feline. I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. The man that started the BalanceIT company is also a veterinary nutritionist.

BalanceIT.com

BalanceIT supplements ship globally so this is great.

Whatever recipe you end up going with, it's very important to follow the recipe exactly. If it says to use ground beef that's 90% lean and 10% fat, then get that exact thing. That's the only way to ensure that your recipe stays balanced. Hope this all makes sense.

 

[Condo commando]

I'll give you one more....

RecipeBasicmetric.xls

This is a different brand of supplement and it was the first supplement I ever used. I think it's very good, but this one isn't guaranteed to be hypoallergenic. That's the one negative. I'm pretty sure this one would ship to the UK also.

 

[mikironicheese]

I spent hours yesterday researching homemade raw and cooked diets, commercially bought raw diets, etc. I found something called Felini Complete so am considering that on top of some plain meat too.

He seems to be doing better on Mjamjam Horsemeat meal, well he hasn't gone to the toilet since yesterday morning so I'm hoping that means the diarrhea is going away. Anyway I will look into the websites you sent so we can give him some stuff other than horsemeat, and maybe completely transition to homemade.

Thanks

 

[Condo commando]

Yep I believe it, you can go down a rabbit hole when it comes to homemade pet food and not surface for hours

If he's doing well with the horsemeat, I would stick with it for a bit longer. It takes time for inflammation to fully resolve.

So here is rule #1 for homemade cat food - you want the meat to provide most of the nutrition. The supplement merely rounds it out. Theoretically, if you eat as healthy as possible, you would not need to supplement your diet at all. Of course a perfectly rounded diet is not realistic, but the less supplement you need the better your recipe is.

There is a big exception to the above however - calcium. When I started making cat food I used meat that included bones because I thought natural calcium (from bones) would be better than synthetic calcium (from supplements). But what the nutrition vet explained to me is that they can't make recipes with bones because the nutritional content of bones is not readily available. This is because humans don't eat bones. When you buy chicken in the grocery store, it will tell you how much protein, fat, etc. is in the EDIBLE part of the chicken. You will never see how much calcium there is in the bones because it is assumed the bones will be disposed. Therefore, all the veterinarian prescribed diets use a supplement that includes calcium. The positive of this is that the amount of calcium will be exactly accurate.

A word on liver. Liver is very nutritious and is a great source of vitamins A and D. Liver is also pretty easy to source, and it brings down the cost of food because it tends to cost less than muscle meat. That said, some supplements include enough vitamin A and D that you don't need liver. I think this is done to make it easy because then all a person has to do is buy one thing - muscle meat - and the supplement. Out of curiousity, I googled Felini Complete and it includes vitamin A and D. I'm not going to tell you what to use; I'm just letting you know what is what. Ideally real liver is better, but it is also more work to have to buy the liver, cook it, mince it, etc. For what it's worth, I think a homemade recipe beats commercial cat food every day of the week even if you don't use real liver. Whatever you decide, Dougie will be better off either way.