Question about common food allergies

[Dragonfly229]

Linus has an ear infection that has worsened recently, and the vet thinks it may be due to a food allergy. It has come and go for a while, so I'm certain it's not something specific to the new canned food he's been eating. I'm going to compare ingredients with his old dry food and try to find common denominators. What are the most common allergens? So far, grains and beef have been mentioned - I'm just looking for a place to start to eliminate things one at a time.

I'm currently feeding a wide selection of Merrick, with 3 varieties of Sophisticat. He likes the Turducken and the Southern Delight, and of course both have grain, and I just bought a case of each to get a discount at the pet store. At this point, I've just been experimenting to find low carb canned foods that he likes and will eat consistently. He's been a dry food cat his whole life up until now.

I'm actually hoping that the infection is left over from the dry food days, and once it's cleared up it will stay gone, but I need to have a plan in case that doesn't work. Has anyone else dealt with this?

 

[MommaOfMuse]

I have 3 civies with food allergies, unfortunately, not to the same things which makes feeding 13 cats a bit tricky. :roll: Onyx though is the one with the ear infections caused by his food allergies, which in his case is two fold, he is allergic to both grains (wheat & corn, fine on rice or soy). Then I have one guy that is allergic to tuna, and another that is allergic to chicken, but in their cases they just do their best imitation of an erupting volcano if they get into foods that they are allergic to. However, when we were trying to figure out exactly what they were allergic too the things that the vet told us to watch out for with cats, was eggs, milk, beef, fish, grains and chicken. So for awhile we went over to foods with a novel protein source both vension and duck where the proteins of choice here, but that was just because I happened to have friends that were hunters and supplied the meat for their limited ingredient raw diets..

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang

 

[Julia & Bandit (GA)]

The most common allergen is grain, then fish, then beef. If you want to try an elimination diet to see if it improves, here's a great link that tells you how: http://www.harpsie.com/food_allergies.htm#elimination_diet

Bandit had a gunky ear problem (lots of dark brown wax) that got better once his diabetes was under control. His ears seem to produce more wax and his coat get's dull and oily when he has high numbers.

Also, Merrick's Turducken is grain free (Southern Delight is not), so if it is an allergy that one is fine. Cowboy Cookout, Grammy's Pot Pie and Surf-n-Turf are grain free as well.

Dick van Patten's Venison and Pea and Nature's Variety Instinct Rabbit or Lamb are some canned foods I've used before as novel protein source when trying to determine an allergy.