For the past six years Teddy has had the strange habit of eating fur.
This is called pica, where cats eat non food items. There are a number of causes, from an underlying illness, vitamin deficiency to stress. In Teddy’s case it’s stress.
I can trace it back to 2013, when I brought a stray cat into the house. It took awhile for Teddy to get used to Joey. You can see them in this photo. They would spend time together, but later I would find Teddy pulling and eating his own fur. He would also search the floor for any loose fur. The next day I would find a furball.
Eating non food items can be serious and cause blockage in the intestines. If you notice your cat with this behavior, have the vet check to see what the cause could be.
The use of pheromone spray, keeping the floors free from fur and distracting him with toys has helped. Joey passed away last year and there are times I still find Teddy with fur in his mouth. He doesn’t eat as much, but will come to me to have it removed.
I don’t know if pica runs in families, but Teddy’s brother Sammy loved wool. I was told that this can occur if the kitten is weaned from the mother too early. We couldn’t leave a wool blanket or sweater lying around.
Does your cat have a taste for anything strange?
My two Persian kitty brothers are notoriously interested in cellophane or and crinkly material. I have to be very careful about disposition of these material so the kitties can’t get to it. I don’t need a $2000 surgical bill to remove this stuff from their gut! I discovered this behavior when I had to pull a large piece from Andy’s mouth. He’df chewed on it and was gagging trying to swallow it! I noticed Dougy shopwing lots of interest in a candy wrapper around the same time, and realized I needed to be very vigiulant with both kitties.
So glad you saw Andy in time, that’s scary thinking of him swallowing it.
Exactly. He hasn’t learned a thing from that incident either. Just today he tried to take some crinkle material out of my hand to chew.
My calico loved to chew on carpet strings, probably because they were grasslike. She’d eat all kinds of leaves and such if we tracked them in, too. So I started giving her Romaine lettuce and cilantro, after checking to make sure they aren’t poisonous to cats. She loved it and would chew on the other stuff less. I started to understand to give her lettuce when she went after those strings, or my hair!
That’s a great idea.
Teddy looks so much like my boy he also eats his fur due to stress.x????
Sorry to hear you’re cat is a fur eater too. The cats do it because of stress, but it also stresses us out trying to figure them out.
Poor kitty, sorry he gets stressed.
Zeke likes to chew up cardboard boxes but he really does not eat the cardboard. Otherwise nothing unusual that I know of.
That’s great you don’t have to worry about them eating things.
Not my cat now, but my late boy Jelly Bean used to lick the heating vent. He’d lick it like a lollipop, we never could figure out why. He’d do it whether the heat was on or not!
That’s strange. I wonder if it had a taste or if he just liked the feel of it on his tongue.