cat likes to eat clay

"sandi" wrote in news:AC4Ab.94$ snipped-for-privacy@news2.news.adelphia.net:

There is a little story that I have been told but I am unable to vouch for the truth of it.

Onr of the big potteries in the 1800 at Stoke on Trent had a little dog as a mascot and friend to the workers.

The dog had the run of the workshops, glaze and kiln areas and had been there for about 10 years.

Well one day it went missing and couldn't be found. What had happenned was that it had crawled through one of the firing holes in one of the kilns and had gone to sleep behind a stack of saggars.

Later on one of the workers fired the kiln up not knowing that the dog was inside.

The question is how did they know that the dog had died in the kiln?

Easy. When the fired kiln was unlaoded, behind the stack of saggars, they found a set of perfectly formed and fired ceramic lungs and stomach.

This is a condition that some humans also have, i.e. the frequent need to eat clay. I don't know what the formal name for this condition is, but I listened to a discussion about it on the radio once. It's not unhealthy as far as I know but there are better ways to address it than eating actual clay. Maybe you could call a vet...

Incidentally any human can also eat plain dirt and get some benefit from it, because most dirt has minerals in it that are good for you. Next time you're lost in the wilderness and starving to death, just remember: dirt is good for you. Just don't chew it much, you'll ruin your teeth.

I would also talk to a vet about it. I don't think it will hurt your cat to eat clay, but it might be a sign for something missing in it's diet, some mineral or so. Animals know what they need and where to find it. (Kids do too, i ate little pieces of whitewash off the walls in WW II, for lack of calcium)

Monika

-- Monika Schleidt snipped-for-privacy@schleidt.org

Hi Sandi,

We had a cat that used to love to drink the clay slip/water on the wheels and lived to the age of 17 years, and no, we didn't fire her in the kiln :-) though we had another cat which used to sleep in the gas kiln.

We also has a horse which used to drink the clothes washing water, but that's too clean a story to tell here!

I agree, it's all to do with mineral and salts in the water.

Dave

One of my 2 cats will eat all kinds of wierd things. She likes toothpaste, coffee, tape, photographs, paper & cardboard, and yes, cat food (but she's fussier about that). She even ate a capsule of prescription medicine I had set out on the counter for my son once, too, with pretty strange results. The very next day, she actually went out of her way to try to do it again. Her favorite things to play with are strings. Maybe the combination of the ribbon of clay curling off your pot (and looking like a great toy) combined with a cat's urge to eat unusual things is too great for your cat to resist.

My cat has never been harmed by any of these things she gets into, even the medicine (although that warranted a trip to the vet). I doubt the clay will hurt more than the pot he chews on. Some people have success with a spray bottle of water to spray the cat when it's doing something it shouldn't be doing, like chewing on your drying pots, and a spritz or two of water wouldn't hurt the cat or your pots.

Deb R.

I think you will find there is nothing in clay which is toxic if ingested (swallowed) but there is most certainly plenty of effects on the lungs from inhaling clay dust. However, you wouldn't think so from the number of potters I have seen dry sweeping their workshops!!

Most potters in the 1800s died of lead poisoning and silicosis of the lungs.

Dave

I have nothing to add, but I want to call dibs on 'Sagar Bottom Knockers' as a band name.

-Steve

The medical term when people and I suppose cats too eat strange things is called pica. In people, it usually means they are anemic or lack something in the diet. Usually it is starch that people eat, if I remember correctly from my nursing school time. It seems like I remember about people eating dirt---so clay is tha for sure. My cats don't eat the clay they just pee anywhere the clay has been. If I happen to leave the canvas on the slab roller, they will pee on it. Not good.

Some clay bodies contain barium to prevent bloating. And evidently barium in ceramics is carbonate, which is toxic, unlike the stuff you swallow for certain medical tests. I can't imagine it would be a lot of barium but it was/is in some clay bodies.

Elaine