Behavior or health issue?

I don't know if this is a serious problem & I forgot to ask the vet when I was there this past Saturday, but Levi has taken to eating the cardboard box from around their turbo scratcher. At first he would just chew on it & spit the pieces out (not a lot of fun to clean but not really anything to worry about). However, the other night I noticed he was eating some of the pieces. I tried to stop him, but he kept going back. He is fed Royal Canin & my vet told at their visit I was feeding the boys too much (a cup a day for 8 lb cats), so I had to cut back, but he was doing this last week before I cut back their food. I have two questions, why would he be doing this? and Is there any health risk to this? (He's 7 months if that makes a difference)

Pretty common for cats to eat cardboard and paper. You can try getting him a rawhide flip to see if he wants to chew on that instead.

My cats love to chew on cardboard boxes - they chew thru the ones I put out for them to play in so they can poke at others walking by. I don't always find the cardboard pieces so assume they are getting a little extra fiber.

Originally posted by Momofmany
I don't always find the cardboard pieces so assume they are getting a little extra fiber.

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What about glue? One of my cats loves to chew/lick tape on boxes. He will actively seek out tape too, and when he finds it, sometimes he hoardes it under the bed! Is this odd, or common too?

Pretty odd until you consider that animal renderings go to make glue, thus that is probably the attraction. I would be tucking away any tape or glued items just in case though.

try bitter apple spray. or lemon on the edges (diluted or just a small amount) if you dont want them to chew. I tried lemon once, but that didnt really work. so I diluted some hot sauce and applied and that worked!

Hissy, what exactly is a rawhide flip? Levi loves to chew & I think it would be good if he had something to chew on (other than my fingers that is). Also, any chance that having something for him to chew would stop him from over eating? I'm afraid that he is going to have a weight problem. I can't free feed because he eats everything in his bowl & then starts in on Jordans food. He's about 7 - 8 months & weighs 8.5#'s which wouldn't be bad if he had a larger frame, but one week he put on 1/2 a # & then two weeks later he had put on another 1/2 #.