Why is my cat eating so much plant leaves and young stems from the garden?
I know that some cats eat plant leaves and then vomit it to clean their digestive track.
But in case of my cat she is behaving almost as if she is a goat. I often see her eating young leaves and stems of flowering plants in garden. It is to such an extent that some herbs are without leaves in their lower portions.
To my astonishment, if I tear a young stem with young leaves and hold it in front of her, she ends up eating it fully. This behavior is almost akin to a goat.
Also she never vomits anything. She is in fine health. And in her litter box I never find any plant material.
I normally don't stay with my cat and she stays with my mom. She has been shifted to this new house 7 months back. Here she has access to the garden where there are lots of flowering plants with young leaves and stems. And my mom says that this behaviour of her is going on for the past 7 months.
So what exactly is happening? How can an obligate carnivore end up eating plants?
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You're right that cats are obligate carnivores. Cats must eat meat, it is an absolute biological necessity. However, that does not mean that they can only eat meat. It means that they can't sustain themselves on only a vegetarian diet.
Cats are perfectly capable of eating things other than meat, as long as they receive the needed nutrition.
I know that some cats eat plant leaves and then vomits it to clean their digestive track.
Interesting to note here is that the instinct to eat grass is not (consciously) connected to the need to vomit. Cats simply have an instinct to eat grass, which is a trait they've received (evolutionarily) to help them deal with digestion.
Therefore, even a cat who doesn't need to vomit is liable to eat grass because their instinct tells them to.
Secondly, some cats have learned to eat many things. One of our cats was rescued from the streets as a young and severely underfed kitten. Unsurprisingly, he is the exact opposite of a picky eater: he tries everything at least once, and unless he really doesn't like it, he will always eat it when presented with it.
Whenever he sees me eat something, he knows that it is food, and therefore will ask to have some or at least try it when offered. This applies to medication too, which sort of proves the point that he's open to anything that he thinks must be edible.
I obviously don't offer my medication to the cat, but have actually tricked him into having his own medication by pretending to eat some of it myself.
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