Vegetarian Kitty?

Cats benefit from some vegetable matter in their diet. When devouring prey, the intestines, along with anything in them, will also be eaten. Many owners grow some grass for their cats to munch on, both for a healthy diet, and to distract them from other household plants!

In general, seeds that are OK to grow and give to your cats (but do not use treated seeds, identifiable by a dyed red, blue or awful green color):

• oats (cheap, easy, big)
• wheat (not wheatgrass)
• Japanese barnyard millet,
• bluegrass
• fescue
• rye (but beware of ergot, which is a fungal infection and produces LSD-like chemicals),
• ryegrass (annual ryegrass is cheap and easy to grow, but small),
• alfalfa sprouts or bean sprouts in SMALL amounts (these have anti- protein compounds that reduce the protein value of other things fed to the animal -- or human!)

Seeds that are NOT okay: sorghum or sudangrass, which have cyanogenic glycosides, and can cause cyanide poisoning. These are commonly found in bird seed and look like smallish white, yellow, orangish, or reddish BB's, or the shiny black, yellow or straw colored glumes may be intact.