Toots, our Burmese cross, has just finished a course of ciclosporin to treat a skin allergy. We only feed her dry food because her previous owner, who used to breed Burmese, told us that she got diarrhoea if she was fed wet food.
She's not fussy, and we've been feeding her Lidl's own brand of dry food for years, but we want to try changing her diet to see if it helps her skin. The vet recommended James Wellbeloved. I wondered if anyone else had tried this or found success with another dry food?
Best Dry Food for skin allergy?
-
LiveMusicLady
- New Cat Chatter
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:20 pm
-
meriad
- VIP Cat Chatter!
- Posts: 1313
- Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 1:14 pm
- No. of cats in household: 6
- Location: Surrey
Re: Best Dry Food for skin allergy?
It depends on what the allergy is to... One of mine has a cereal intolerance and I now feed them all Arden Grange. Have a look at the list of ingredients on the Lidl dry and see what it says - chances are (and really no offence meant at all) it's not the best and will contain fairly little meat content and bulked up with cereals / wheat? But I'm not sure and stand open to correction.
James Wellbeloved uses rice vs wheat / maize and Arden Grange uses potato - they all will use some form of bulking agent.
Applaws is a really high meat content dry food but is a bit more expensive to buy - but cheaper in the long run as it's healthier (less vet bills) and you'd need to give you cat less.
But saying all that, and going on and on about cereals - chances are your cat could also be struggling with the protein in the food you're feeding, ie fish or chicken which is what most dry foods are. Again in this case James Wellbeloved will be turkey or lamb - so a new protein.
Good luck!
James Wellbeloved uses rice vs wheat / maize and Arden Grange uses potato - they all will use some form of bulking agent.
Applaws is a really high meat content dry food but is a bit more expensive to buy - but cheaper in the long run as it's healthier (less vet bills) and you'd need to give you cat less.
But saying all that, and going on and on about cereals - chances are your cat could also be struggling with the protein in the food you're feeding, ie fish or chicken which is what most dry foods are. Again in this case James Wellbeloved will be turkey or lamb - so a new protein.
Good luck!
-
LiveMusicLady
- New Cat Chatter
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:20 pm
Re: Best Dry Food for skin allergy?
Thanks for that, and no offence taken! If it is a food allergy (the other possibility is dust), then it could well be the protein. Because we hate battery farming, we only ever buy fish or beef varieties of dry food, even when we occasionally buy other brands. Whatever the variety - even the beef - they have a high fish content. Toots's breath always smells fishy! So for her health, we'll ignore the source of the ingredients and buy a better quality food with a different protein like turkey, etc.