Surely you have seen how street cats enjoy eating grass on flowerbeds and lawns. Pets that are unable to walk on the street periodically encroach on indoor plants. Inexperienced owners think this is just a game for their pet. In fact, eating greens is very important in the functioning of the animal’s body.
Why do cats eat grass?
Everyone knows that cats by their physiology are difficult to attribute to vegetarians. These are predators who need meat. It is necessary to transfer the cat to plant foods, even enriched with proteins, and your pet may lose their eyesight. The thing is that cats synthesize amino acids vital for their body only from animal proteins that feed the retina and provide excellent vision.
Despite this, they still need grass. It is an additional source of nutrients and vitamins. Grass replenishes the need for fiber roughage in the diet and improves digestion. Some lovers of these animals believe that their pets eat grass for one purpose - to clear the stomach of accumulated lumps of wool, causing vomiting. Once in the stomach, the stems of the grass really help cleanse it. Together with grass and vomit, undigested food debris (for example, a plastic film that cats like to play with) and wool that has accumulated after licking come out.
There is nothing wrong with such an organism reaction, and the owner should not worry. This is necessary to maintain the normal health of the animal. If the cat only bites the stems, chews them, and then spits them out, it means that her body lacks vitamins. Of course, the diet can be adjusted, but still it is worth providing access to fresh grass. To protect indoor plants from a pet, and a pet from them, since not all of them are useful, is quite simple. To do this, you need to know how to grow grass for the cat, which they prefer. This will be described in detail in this article.
Herbs useful to cats
The favorite vegetable delicacy of our purring friends is mint and valerian. They experience true pleasure, burrowing into their leaves with a muzzle. However, in these herbs for cats, only the smell is important. It should be understood that cats do not eat any plants, but mainly cereals, in which a spikelet is formed during seed maturation - sedge, for example. Ideal for them - green wheat, oats, barley and rye. During the first few days, germinating seeds give all their strength for the early formation of the root, fixing in the soil and pasture of the first shoots.
Germinated seeds give the animal a lot of energy. With germination, the amount of trace elements, antioxidant vitamins increases tenfold. In this short period, when droplets of juice form at the tips of the seedlings, cats eat grass with great pleasure. Literally after 2-3 days, only roots remain from such a clearing.
Useful properties of grass
Many herbs provide cats with essential macro- and microelements, vitamins, which are part of a balanced diet. These include:
- fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E;
- B vitamins (biotin, choline);
- phosphorus, silicon, calcium and potassium, sulfur, magnesium, selenium, manganese, zinc, iodine, copper, bromine, chromium, cobalt, fluorine;
- folic acid.
What is better to grow?
The most affordable and easiest way is to purchase a bag of seeds at the pet store that says “Cat Grass”. How to grow it is described in detail in the instructions that are on each package. The composition of this seed mixture includes various herbs - lemongrass, bluegrass, etc. If you want to grow green dressing for your pet, you can use:
Having bought two or three glasses of grains in any market, you will provide the cat with a full-fledged vitamin top dressing for a long time.
How to grow grass for a cat?
There are two ways to grow healthy herbs. In the first case, a substrate is needed, a universal primer for flowers. But often animal lovers use more original methods. We wrote about them further.
First way
Take any plastic tray with a side height of not more than 5 cm. For this, you can use food containers, an unused cat litter box, etc. You can do this in ordinary flower pots, but it’s likely that you eat greens the pot will just be dropped to the floor. Therefore, growing grass for cats in a tray or other container with a wide base is preferable.
Several layers of stiff toilet paper or thick tissue paper are laid on the bottom of the container. From above, about two centimeters of granular wood filler for cat litter is covered with a minimum amount of flavorings. Fill the filler with water and leave to swell for two to three hours. During this time, your substrate will turn into slurry.
Sow the seeds on its surface and sprinkle with a thin layer (no more than 2 cm) of soaked filler or universal soil. Moisten the seedbed and cover the container with plastic wrap to speed up germination. Place the tray on the windowsill. When the first shoots appear, the film is removed and regularly watered, preventing the soil from drying out.
Second way
This method is not very high yielding, but it can be used even when there is neither a suitable tray, nor soil at hand. How to grow grass for cats without soil? To do this, you need to take two disposable plates - one more, the other less. In a smaller plate, several dozen holes are made, with a diameter of about one millimeter - they are necessary for the outflow of water.
Then, on the bottom you need to lay cosmetic cotton pads or a thin layer of cotton wool, which should be well moistened. Place a smaller plate in a larger plate. Sow grass seeds onto the surface of the discs. Cover the container with gauze.
Grass grown in this way will not be too tall, but the cat is enough. Wrap both plates in polyethylene and place them on the windowsill. After the seeds have sprouted, the film should be removed and watered greens twice a day with a small amount of water.
We looked at how to grow grass for a cat. Both methods are extremely simple, they can be used even in a small apartment. Therefore, if you want to provide your darling with fresh herbs throughout the year, take note of this technique.