allergic to plastic autofeeder?

Mocha has always ate out of stainless steel bowls up until a couple of months ago when we bought her an autofeeder that is made out of plastic. Well just recently, within the last week or so, we have found about 20 small scabs, probably the size of pin heads, just clumped together in different spots, that she has itched to the point of bleeding and scabbing over. Now these are 98% all in her neck area, and kinda going up the outer edges of her neck, and maybe one or two tiny spots a bit lower on her chest. Well when mocha eats, she hunches right over her autofeeder, where her neck and upper chest would lay. Is it possible that she has an allergic reaction to this plastic? I feel incredibly bad for her itchy spots but I don't know what to do. We cannot afford to take her to the vet so that is not an option. We have trimmed up her rear claws, the ones she uses to scratch and we try to scratch for her when we catch her. We also tried the other night taking a warm washcloth to her scabs and just trying to soak them long enough so we could clean up these areas but that hasn't helped. I don't know what they could be as she has never had this problem before and I don't know what to do about them?

 

Yes, I have heard that some kitties are sensitive to plastic. Someone mentioned recently that they found glass bowls that fit perfectly into the slots on the automatic feeder and used those. Problem solved!

 

well I'll be ... I guess I have to start looking for some glass bowls!

 

Another idea.

Go to a hardware store and ask for some metal duct tape...aluminum I think.

Tape this over any areas that kitty might come in contact with .
Avoid interfering with the mechanism.

Not pretty, but perhaps effective.

 

karen, thank you for that idea .. I had asked peter if he could possibly dremel out the front area, where her chest would hit, but he said something about it last night, about being hard to do for some reason, but to be honest I was 95% asleep so I'm not quite sure what he said, but the tape idea is brilliant!

 

While not from the same cause, our Onyx (civie) had a very bad food allergies that cause him to scratch his face bloodly, then once he started to heal we hit a vicious cycle, of starting to heal, then the scabs got itchy so back to scratching, then back to healing and itching etc.

Here is what we found helped Onyx, we put a small amount of vitamin E oil on the scabs to help soften them and get rid of the itch from their healing. Within just a few days Onyx started losing the scabs and had nice healthy skin underneath and no more scratching at the face. Might help Mocha as well with at least the scabs she already has, but it sounds like you have already hit on the source of the allergic reaction. But I thought this might help to keep her from scratching at what is already broken out.

Mel & Muse (GA)

 

momma, that is a good idea .. thats why we tried the warm washcloth, to get the scabs off cause I thought they might be itchy on her when they are drying up. Where do you get the Vitamin E oil? Do you just rub it on the scabs?

 

I had thought that Ronnie/Luna mentioned plastic causing chin problems.
I don't put foods directly in the 5 sections of Shadoe's feeder; I put 5 small glass bowls in each section.
It makes for easier cleanup too.

 

The vitamin E oil came from Walmart and is super cheap. The stuff I had was in gel caps so I just punctured one and squeezed the oil onto my fingers and rubbed it into Onyx's cheeks. It even smells good, so not only did I have an itch free kitty I had one that smelled good too. =)

Mel & Muse (GA)

 

these scabs are not on mochas chin, but more on her neck area and her outer neck area too .. is vitamin e oil safe in case mocha licks it up before it could dry into her skin? Gayle, do you remember where you bought your glass containers?

 

Vitamin E oil is not only safe for her to lick it is actually good for her (in small doses).

A deficiency of vitamin E can lead to :
* Poor reproductive performance
* Muscle disease (dystrophy) and weakness
* Progressive retinal atrophy
* Inflammation of body fat (called pansteatitis) in cats
* Brown pigmentation of body fat (called lipofuscinosis)

although too much can lead to loss of appetite. So easy does it. Onyx loved the stuff and still will follow me into the bathroom wanting his "fix".

There are both natural sources and man-made vitamin E oil on the market, I tend to error on the side of caution and only used 100% natural source oil. When in doubt check the color. Natural source oil will be amber to reddish-brown, while man-made is usually pale yellow to almost colorless.

Mel & Muse (GA)

 

great thanks for all the info momma! How often did you use it on onyx and did you use a whole gel cap each time?

 

I would put it on him about 3 time a day or when I noticed that he was starting to act itchy. I did use a whole gel cap but most of it ended up on me at first...lol But then again he was a mess, almost no fur left on the right side of his face, neck and chest and he is a large cat, so we had a lot of ground to cover. Whatever was left in the gel cap I just rubbed into my own skin, it is wonderful for dry skin for us beans as well. It was just too messy to try to reuse the same gel cap.

Mel & Muse (GA)

 

ok thank you .. we went out and bought some tonight at wal mart. I'm not quite sure if we got the "natural" stuff, it does say Natural E 1000 I.U. where the other ones available just said E .. it came with 60 softgel caps ... we plan on using one tonight .. I hope it helps her!

 

Sounds like you got the same thing we used...keeping fingers and paws crossed that it will help Mocha as much as it did Onyx.

Mel & Muse (GA)

 

thanks again for all your help!