My cat eats grass....why?

Gah not sure if this belongs in Health & Nutrition or Behavior.....but whatever. My cats get fed regular people tuna from cans (which I recently heard is bad), they wont eat regular cat food, but they also eat dry cat food. One of my cats sometimes gets loose outside and starts eating grass for some reason....then comes in the house and hacks it all up. Does this happen with anyone else?

Btw my other cat doesnt do this.

No one can say for sure but it is thought they do it either for more roughage in the diet or if they feel poorly and need to empty their stomach, say a fur ball.
Big cats like leopards do it too and it`s perfectly normal.

Really? ohhhhhhhhhhh. My mom said its because lack of this vitamin or SOMETHING that cats crave....but my other cat doesnt crave it I suppose, it was just her explaination lol.

Generally, it's to clean out their digestive systems. Maybe they ate something that made them feel poor, and sometimes it's just an instinctive habit to clean it out. It's normal, nothing to really worry about.

Thats good to know, I was worried and thought she was really lacking something, specially because of the food we buy them.

What kind of food do you buy if you were worried so much about that? But no, it's okay. Dogs and cats both do it, more of an instinct thing than a quirk. After your cat eats grass, just watch her and let her hack it up outside instead of in your house where you have to clean it up.

Well like I said, they wont eat regular cat food. So we buy them regular canned tuna like Chicken of the Sea, or Bumblebee....and they have dry cat food available all the time that they eat.

Too much tuna is not good for cats. It can be a problem with their urinary tract. My cats come running when I open a can of tuna, but will barely eat a smidgen of it, thank goodness.

Originally Posted by Roimata

Well like I said, they wont eat regular cat food. So we buy them regular canned tuna like Chicken of the Sea, or Bumblebee....and they have dry cat food available all the time that they eat.

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If they won't eat regular wet cat food, I would just feed the dry food then. Even humans are warned against eating tuna more than once per week due to the mercury levels. You could be doing some harm to your kitty by giving them that much tuna and it would be just better to only give it once in awhile as a treat.

You may want to try different cat food as well. I know our cats won't eat any pate style food whereas others here have cats that only like the pate style. You may have to experiment with different types to find one your cats like.

Sharky is our resident guru on foods and nutrition so if you do a search on this forum you will find lots of info from her on good foods.

They've been eating it forever and so far they are in perfect health (their old cats btw)....atleast perfect on the outside, no idea whats goin on inside, But yeah I agree its not good, its just the only food we know for certain they will eat, plus its cheap. I'll have to talk to my mom about that.

Grass has cholrafil( sp?) ... it is also a fiber and it would make up about 5% of a reg wild diet

OLD cats I would try tuna flavored cat food ...