First up, vaccines. Many vaccines are cultivated using chicken embryos. If your dog received a vaccine grown in a chicken embryo, this could influence sensitivities. Fertilised chicken eggs or chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cell cultures are commonly used to grow and multiply viruses for vaccines. (We’ll dive deeper into this in another email.)
Secondly, dietary exposure. Feeding the same protein—most commonly chicken—over and over increases the risk of allergic reactions in dogs.
Thirdly, the chicken itself. The quality of the chicken your dog eats depends entirely on how it was raised and what it was fed. That’s where things get really interesting.
Most commercial chickens in Australia are raised on feed like this:
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Carbs: wheat, maize, sorghum, bran, pollard → quick energy, stored as fat.
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Protein meals: soy, canola, cottonseed, sunflower, blood, meat meal → lower-quality plant proteins often less digestible. Cottonseed can leave behind toxic residues.
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Vegetable oils: soy, sunflower, canola → build omega-6 dominant, inflammatory fat into the chicken’s body.
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Additives: mould inhibitors, synthetic amino acids, carotenoids → designed to keep feed stable and chickens looking “healthy.”
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Minerals: limestone, salt, sodium bicarb → balance bones and eggshells but rarely optimise health.
What ends up in the chicken meat and bones:
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Fatty acid profile mirrors the oils → high omega-6, low omega-3, pro-inflammatory.
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Micronutrients like vitamin E and antioxidants are much lower than in pasture-raised birds.
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Additives and traces from cottonseed and other fillers can remain in tissues.
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Carotenoids literally change the colour of skin, fat, and yolks.
Sounds more like factory science than food, right?
And don’t forget: factory farmed chickens live stressful, cramped lives and often need medication to survive — which ultimately passes down to your pet.
Here’s what happens when your dog eats it:
Inflammatory fats – Omega-6 dominant meat fuels skin irritation, itching, inflammation, and joint issues.
Lower nutrients – Less vitamin E, antioxidants, and carotenoids = weaker immune support.
Residues & fillers – Cottonseed toxins, additives, and synthetic colourings stress your dog’s liver, kidneys, and immune system.
More reactions – Many “chicken allergies” aren’t from chicken itself but from what the chicken was fed.
At RogueRaw, we do things differently.
We source naturally raised, whole-prey proteins that give your dog what nature intended: nutrient-dense meat, organs, and bones — free from grain-heavy feed, fillers, and unnecessary meds.
Your dog’s health doesn’t just start with the food you give them.
It starts with the food that food was raised on.
Keepin’ it REAL,
The RogueRaw Team
