How Do You Deal With Feline Pica?

Angel is my seven year old Turkish Angora female. For some reason known only to her, she likes to lick the porcelain around the bathtub drain. After I take a bath I have to stop her from jumping in the bathtub before I clean the tub. I'm very careful not to use strong chemicals in the house. (I think the medical term for this is "pica".)She eats wire, string, plastic handles from grocery bags, paper towels, you name it. For the last year I have been giving her vegetables (spinach, cabbage, even pumpkin) in her canned food. She'll eat it, and then turn right back around and try to eat wire and string. When I stop her, she fusses and complains--a lot.

Unfortunately, my youngest cat, Rocky, has picked up on that habit---he goes after packing tape like it's some exotic delicacy. He'll snatch up a piece, and then run and hide under the table and try to eat it. In the meantime sensible Ruby sits and stares at these two like they have lost their ever loving minds. Ruby eats FOOD. That's it, that's all. Is there some kind of nutritional supplement I can give these crazy little furballs to get their minds off eating inedible objects?

Has she been to a vet recently and had blood work drawn?

Licking the porcelain can mean she is anemic. Her fascination with wire and string, is actually pretty common and it means you must be diligent on keeping these away from her. They can really cause some internal blockage over time and that can get rather dangerous quite quickly.

The plastic bags, again a common thing, most plastic manufacturers use either fish parts or animal renderings in their processing of their products and this can be a huge attractant to cats. The biggest culprits are the plastic shopping bags you get at grocery stores. Buy a bag caddy and keep those up and out of reach for your cat.

Also give her toys, buy in bulk if you can, and place the new toys in a plastic bag and spritz them with catnip spray. Stick the toy in the freezer or the fridge to keep it fresh and give her a few toys every week. Pick up the old toys, spritz them with the spray, stick them in a bag, put the bag in the fridge and let it just sit, then take it out and give it to her.

If she allows you to, open her mouth and examine her gums. Are they happy pink, or blotched pale and white? When you press on them with your finger, does the color fade right away and then pink back up? If she has blotchy or pale gums, or you don't see any change in coloring in the gum area that you lightly touch, get her to the vet for blood work.

From a medical ( Human ) stand-point Pica is eating anything that isnt food , I learned about this first hand my daughter had issues with Pica , I found this link that might be helpful to you

http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/pica.htm

she just might like how the porcelain feels on her tongue

I am dealing with a pica cat also. Rocket (an abyssinian) has this weird urge to eat bags from fast food, stores, anything. he will also just plop down if you're writing and start to eat your paper.
It is the strangest thing. We've been to the vets over this and nothing bad came of it, basically a "keep these things away from your kitty" talk, and that's about all. He still wants to drink out of the sink but that is not unusual, he is just picky and doesn't want to share his water with the other cats for some reason. so that's ok with me,we just turn the sink faucet on for a few minutes at a time and he is fine with it. he also tries to eat the strings off our shoes,my hair and other weird things like that.But he is perfectly healthy, just a little "odd"! LOL! We've learned to keep things he will eat away from his reach and it's worked so far for us.

I didn't want to post a reply until after I went home and checked out Angel's gums. She finally let me look at them, after she fussed for about five minutes. They're pink, but they do seem to be a bit on the pale side. And come to think of it, she's never had any blood work done. That's something to think about the next time we go to the vet...I want to thank everyone for their posts and suggestions...
After I plied her mouth open and got a good look at her gums, Angel jumped down and stalked off; she was very offended. Five minutes later she came back, sat down in front of me, and gave this very big yawn, as if to say, "Here, you wanted to see my mouth, so here it is! I've got big teeth, too!" Then she very daintly got up and sashayed off. I guess she told me!

My Levi is forever eating card board. I guess I didn't think much of it. He was teething when I first got him so I thought he'd grow out of it, but he hasn't. Jordan also chews on card board, but dosen't actually eat it like levi does. Anyone know of a reason eating card board would harm them?

Just a guess--intestinal blockage, if he eats enough of it?

I know this is an old thread, but my cat Tiger will also eat paper any chance he gets. It's weird! All he has to do is look at paper, or hear any krinkly paper noise, and he will attack the paper and try and devour it. This is the only unusual thing he will try and eat. I have bloodwork done on his regularly (he's 12) and everything's ok, so I just try and keep all paper away from him. (I'm afraid he may ingest too much and have internal problems.) However, no matter how much I try and keep paper and stuff away from him, I still have a few books with a few pages that have been "autographed" by Tiger.

Yes, this does seem to be an old thread, but I wanted to share that my cat Little Sir loves to eat things he shouldn't, in particular, plastic bags from the grocery store.  thanks to this thread, i learned that the bags use fish renderings, because i truly had no idea why Little Sir would do this.  he also loves to eat tape, anything that's on the rug, like fluff or fuzz, balls of his own hair after brushing, and he incessantly licks me if i allow it, to the point my skin starts to hurt.

funnily (but not in a good way), Little Sir TOTALLY REFUSES to eat wet cat food or anything resembling it (tuna, chicken, fish) and will only eat kibble.  therefore, he's very overweight.  it's so odd that a cat will have pica about stuff he's not supposed to eat, but despises the things that would be best for him.