Cat with pica - any advice?!

[WetBandits]

One of my cats (rescue, 4 months old when I took her on as a foster and is now 2.5 years old) has pica; she will steal and take plastic cat food trays and hide with it until I can wrestle it from her, by which time she’s eaten most of the packaging. She munches houseplants indiscriminately, so I’ve moved all plants out of her reach, yesterday morning I found her nibbling a bath bomb so have now moved those out of reach.

I’ve got childlocks on the cupboards and bins so she can’t get into them but didn’t think she would try and eat bath bombs so they weren’t in the cupboard (they’ve been in a basket beside the bath all the time I’ve had her, she might have been nibbling them all along but it’s the first time I’ve caught her), she doesn’t vomit or have diarrhoea but there’s usually something in her poo that indicates she’s eaten something weird.

Otherwise she’s a great little cat, loves our other two, we play with her every day, she gets plenty of real food to eat and is a normal weight, flead and wormed every month. The vet thinks she’s possibly a Siamese mix (mum was a tabby stray who gave birth in shelter) and apparently pica is more common in Siamese cats. Anyone got any experience of pica in cats and how to stop her eating mad stuff?! She is a house cat for purely this reason, I worry that she will eat something outside the house that will kill her! I don’t think she is stressed as she seems perfectly happy and is sociable with people, our other two cats and our dog and this is something she’s always done (probably why they needed a bloody foster!)

What food is she fed?

Not experienced this but first thing I'd try is get her eating rhe highest quality cat foods I could afford

They are all raw-fed, we use Bella and Duke, so probably already the best quality food she could be on 😫

All I know about it in cats is a long line of expensive operations to remove shit blocking / wrapped around internal organs.

Just make sure she's well insured ready for it.

She’s insured up to the eyeballs! We are super careful not to leave any hairbands etc. lying around because we know what she’s like. I was just at the bath bomb because what must it have tasted like?!?

If I had to guess, it sounds like she could have worms, which is causing her to be hungry and wanting to eat everything! I had this situation before with one of my cats. Take her to the vet and give her some de worming tablets, it should help her appetite.

She’s flead and wormed monthly as stated. This problem has been ongoing for 2 years!

Oriental cats do this. Our Persians eat plastic.

Lunatics!

I forgot to pay the cat tax…is it too late to put her back up for adoption 😂

There was a cat who did this on Jackson Galaxy's show. He had a few blockages over the years as he liked to eat wool and flip flops

One of his recommendations is to follow the "hunt, catch, eat" model of feeding - the idea being that it's the most natural way for them to eat and is more satisfying than just being fed out of a bowl without the "hunt".

I don't know if it solved the problem but he recommends it a lot and seems to work quite well in helping cats with behavioural issues so might be worth a go?

PICA is nothing to do with being hungry , it may be due to lack of nutrients but more likely anxiety or simply behavioural. As a pp said it’s extremely common with Siamese and orientals . One of our Siamese will eat soft plastic so clothing covers , carrier bags , packaging - we just make sure it’s all removed before he gets the chance .

Ask the vet if she might settle if you got a playmate for her.

Sorry I just read the post again and missed you have two others x

I thought I’d identified all the stuff she munches on and kept it out her way, then she goes and helps herself to soap! It was right after breakfast too 😟

It can often be behavioural or a texture "thing".

Cats are hunters, they're not designed to just be free fed or given food in a bowl - definitely have a read up of the "hunt, catch, kill/eat" philosophy - it fulfils their hunting instincts and can help with quite a few behavioural issues.

@WetBandits they are always one step ahead , we are fortunate that ours seems to only like plastic .

I have one that will try to eat the plastic bread bags. She was the runt of the litter.
The most successful thing has been to use one of those balls which you fill with treats, and they are dispensed when the cat plays with the ball dislodging the treat from inside. Ours has a spiral inside, so it takes quite a long time for just a few treats to be rolled/bashed back outside. Do you have plenty of toys/cat trees etc for them to use? Maybe a catio for some safe outside time? Could it be boredom looking for something different?

One is allowed out to roam because he’s smart and keeps himself safe, one is just growing out a lion cut (had to be shaved because she had something sticky matted into her fur like concrete that got worse when she was bathed!) so hasn’t been out for a while as it was too cold but she’s back to full coat now so is venturing back outdoors. We do have a ‘cat proof’ fence up but boy cat knows how to get out of it and pica cat tried to copy him but ripped her paw pad off in the process 😓 working on a solution for that. None of them will use the cat flap so pica cat would have to be escorted out to use a catio.

They have toys everywhere, a couple of cat trees, Feliway plug-in, several catnip licks, igloo beds, scratching posts/boxes, and we play with dangling toys every night. The best thing about pica cat is that I haven’t seen a single spider in the two years we’ve had her because she catches every single one and eats it

Our Burmese does this, so more evidence that it's an Oriental thing. His favourites are chewy things like rubber toys, and wires - which has proven very expensive when he ruined DHs computer! It helps if he's fully stimulated. He spends a lot of time outdoors so he's nice and tired when he comes in. Then it's just about prevention - trying to limit the rooms he goes in unsupervised and making sure that they don't contain tempting items. It's a shame as it really limits his freedom in the house but it just seems to be a feature of the breed.

@WetBandits oh good yes! No spiders or cobwebs is one good side effect of pica cats.. ours loves a good earthworm as well, if they are daft enough to venture into the catio. The other four just look at any creepy crawlies as if to say “thats yours Arfur”, and of she goes…not super if I like the one spider leg out the mouth look.

sorry to hear of the cat fence failure. Hope everything heals ok.

Has she had blood tests? Pica is usually due to a deficiency of something. (In humans anyway) I had a cat who would eat plastic sweet wrappers. But nothing else. She'd even knock the bin over to fish them out. I was amazed that she had the intelligence to do that!