Food Allergy In Cats: Symptoms, Treatments And Diagnosis
Not only humans’ even animals are affected by food allergy. It mainly affects cars and is rated among the main causes of atopy, flea bite allergies. Cats usually develop allergies from constantly fed kind of foods.
Often cats are sensitive to a certain type of food ingredient. So, an antibody in their intestinal tracts responds, leading to food allergy. Among all other type of allergies, with a 10% ratio allergies caused by food are more prone to cats.
Food allergies affect male, neutered cats and also female ones. It is also a misconception connecting specific breed of cats to allergies caused by food. This condition can initially create symptoms for cats from four months young to eleven years old. But majority of food allergy cases occur between 3- 6 years in cats. These cats are also in connection with inhalant allergies.
Many studies reveal that few ingredients of food are the main causes of allergies when compared to the rest. The main common causes in cats are dairy products, fish and beef. Many pet owners would have observed that the following ones are the main ingredients found in foods that are consumed by the cat.
The symptoms of this allergy in cats are most likely the same to most kinds of allergies. But the major ones are excessive scratching, hair loss, military dermatitis and itchy skin. A typical instance is potato and venison or potato and duck. These foods are commercially available in the market or could be homemade. Young and growing cats have special nutritional needs. Diets made at home containing a carbohydrate and a protein eliminating multivitamins and fatty acids could be fed for 12 weeks. Food trials for kitten are carried out by giving a commercially balanced diet. After few weeks, feed the cat with previous food that they once have consumed. Incase the symptoms are shown then it’s surely food allergy. Others perform blood testing which is not accurate when compared to trials (food).
Feed the cats with commercial diets from hill or Purina or homemade diets which makes treatment of allergy simple and easy.
June 11 2010 09:51 am | health
July 9th, 2010 at 9:28 am
I didn’t know that animals are also allergic to certain foods. This is really news to me. I never had pets, so how would I know.
July 10th, 2010 at 9:14 am
My cat also had some allergies sometime back and we weren’t able to focus on the factor. Now I just feed her healthy commercial preparations.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Like me, my cat too is allergic to some food. These days she seems to have developed a dislike to dairy products. Strange, isn’t it?