Does Foxy Have Pica??

[destinyz12]

My cat Foxy, who we've had since she was 10 weeks old, is now a year and a half old, but lately she's been eating certain things that she clearly shouldn't be- particularly plastic, cardboard, and most recently- found a balloon string and swallowed a big chunk of it! We try hard to keep stuff like this away from her but she always manages to find something innappropriate to chew on, but she also swallows pieces a good amount of the time which has me really worried-especially with the string since that can get lodged. I know she's not doing it out of hunger, since she went and ate the string a few minutes after eating her cat food and still even had food left in the bowl. She gets plenty of attention from the 4 people that live in the house, and we also have another cat that keeps her entertained as well so I would hope that it's not out of boredom, although she is very demanding of attention at times. What would cause this?

 

[destinyz12]

Thankfully she passed the string this time around...but still very concerned about her behavior

 

[prairiepanda]

Wow, she's a gorgeous cat!!

I've met a few cats who appear to have pica. Strings, plastic, and litter are very common targets. Sometimes there is an underlying health condition that drives them to try inappropriate things in hopes of acquiring some deficient nutrient or the like, so it wouldn't hurt to have the vet run some tests. Other times it can be a behavioral response to stress, especially if it's a new behavior that started out of the blue, in which case all you need to do is look at what has changed in the home recently and think about how it might be affecting her.

But this often turns out to be a life-long personal quirk. My previous cat ate plastic bags and brooms obsessively throughout her life, and didn't appear to have any triggers, so we just kept the bags and brooms out of her reach at all times.

 

[destinyz12]

Thanks. The only stress that she's endured that I can think of is when we got the newer cat 6 months ago, but she seemed to adapt pretty well to him shortly after we got him- she was territorial at first with her food and would eat too fast sometimes and then throw up, but she hasn't done that in a really long time. The eating of inappropriate items sort of gradually happened over time but we've been noticing it a little more lately, maybe because she's gotten sick more recently after doing so

 

[Summercats]

I read about pica in cats as I suspect my cat may have it. Boredom can be another cause, so maybe alternating toys if you don't already do so and keeping her busy as much as you can.

 

[writingislove]

My cat eats certain non-food items consistently and always has for his 7 years so far. He's fond of scratching bits of carpet off the cat tree JUST so he can eat them, so I'm shopping for a carpet-less tree right now. To build on what prairiepanda said, if you can identify specific things she's eating and try to eliminate her access to them, that will help.