2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21
How to understand why a cat eats the earth? Perverted eating behavior can have several causes. It is necessary to observe the animal and analyze its actions. The situation could have arisen due to a psychological or medical problem. What measures should the owner take to eliminate non-standard behavior of the pet?
Exploring the world around us
Both children and kittens actively learn about the environment. The desire to taste inedible objects, including plants and earth, can lead to negative consequences for the pet. Toxic finishing materials, poisonous flowers often lead to poisoning and death of the animal.
If a cat's increased attention to dangerous objects has been noticed, then it should be interested in new toys or plants specially grown for chewing. You can germinate wheat, oats, lawn grass in a pot. Edible toys will occupy the kitten for a long time and dangerous sabotage will not become a habit for him.
Use a pot of earth the animal can also start as a toilet. scatteredearth and a damaged plant will bring little joy to any owner. Therefore, if it is impossible to distract the pet from the container with soil, then it is better to move the flowerpot to an inaccessible place.
Attention Deficit
Cats are provocateurs. There is no other animal in nature capable of taking revenge or doing it in spite of its owner. Therefore, if a cat is given little attention, it is able to find something to its liking. Not a single person will stand and watch an animal dig or eat earth from a flower pot. The cat quickly remembers the reaction of the owner and subsequently attracts attention in this way.
Boredom and monotony enhance the animal's exploratory instincts. Scattered dry food, unusual places to sleep and joint games diversify the life of a pet and satisfy curiosity.
Mental disorders
Picacism is a disease similar in severity to anorexia and bulimia. Expressed in the desire to eat inedible objects. Appears as a result of a mental disorder, nervous shock and can lead to death.
Research by scientists on animal behavior has shown that pets, like people, are prone to depression and fear. Picacism in science is divided into two types:
- General disorder - eating paper, stones, earth.
- Coprophagia - eating feces.
Cats are susceptible to both forms of the disease. In order to determine why a cat eats earth from a psychological point of view, it is necessary to analyze all the facts from the life of a pet.
The problem could have started in childhood, especially with animals picked up from the street at an early age. Starvation leads to death in 3-4 days. Even if during this period the kitten was rescued and provided with the required care, the consequences of the injury may appear even after a few years. The animal will suffer from overeating more often throughout its life and often this leads to the second type of eating disorder - coprophagia.
Hunger is more difficult for a domestic cat, which, due to circumstances, ended up on the street and was forced to be left without food. Having found a secluded shelter, the pet hides and the feeling of fear blocks the need for food. A pet is fettered by fear and prevents it from moving. If the owners manage to find the animal and save it, then recent impressions haunt the shocked one for a long time. Here is another psychological reason why a cat eats potted soil.
Stoma cleansing
Representatives of the cat family tend to cleanse the intestines and stomach from parasites and accumulated hair. In the wild, animals use sand as a sorbent. It irritates the mucous membrane and leads to vomiting along with hair clots, and also destroys parasites in the colon. Therefore, the explanation for why a cat eats earth may lie in the body's natural cleansing process.
Earth or sand may be present in the feces, and the animal will eat the earth with such a problem with greed. Laboratory analysis will help determine the presence of a worm. So you can confirmthe relationship of eating the earth and the presence of parasites.
At the same time, preventive measures do not give a 100% guarantee of protection against worms and pests, since their range of action is limited.
Beriberi symptoms
Insufficient amounts of nutrients as a result of an unbalanced diet can lead to eating and licking unsuitable objects at first glance. It can be cardboard, tray filler, your own biological waste.
Why does a cat eat soil from a flower pot? If the substrate for planting was purchased in a specialized store, you can safely assume a lack of trace elements. After all, fertilizers contain many minerals, such as sodium, potassium, phosphorus, calcium.
You can determine vitamin deficiency by dull coat or uneven appetite - some animals become gluttons, while others begin to starve. The veterinarian will help determine if there is a deficiency of minerals and vitamins with the help of tests, and will prescribe the required treatment.
Premium food contains all the necessary vitamin and mineral complex, selected depending on the age and preferences of the pet. Therefore, veterinarians recommend using special food for the cat family. It is important to choose a quality product - this is guaranteed to eliminate nutritional deficiencies.
Manifestation of disease
Besides mineral deficiency, perverted eating is the result of disease. Why does the cat eat earth in the garden orpotted? An unhe althy desire to eat soil can be a consequence of:
- leukemia;
- diabetes;
- anemia;
- problems of the digestive system;
- tumor affecting the nervous system.
With anemia, the animal is more inclined to lick the surface of the earth, plaster, stones and metal objects. You can determine the disease by a clinical blood test, and the first signs are a slow pulse, pale gums, cool extremities and a metal smell when breathing.
How to wean a pet from harmful activities?
In principle, there is nothing wrong with cleansing the body with earth from indoor pots for a cat. It is important that there are no harmful elements in the earth. And since the urban soil contains toxins, impurities of gasoline and other chemical compounds, that is, the earth on the street and in the garden is not safe for the cat. It is extremely difficult to find environmentally friendly soil in the conditions of modern life.
Instead of good, the consequences of consuming such soil can be very deplorable. Therefore, special pastes that dissolve wool or green grass will replace earthen sorbent.
Proper cat care, good nutrition, play, walks and regular check-ups at the veterinarian will help keep your pet he althy.
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