She’ll fight you for corn on the cob. We have to lock her in the garage when we have it. I can’t leave husks or silks in the trash or they will be all over the floor in the morning. Corn bread crumbs get scoofed up like a vacuum cleaner. She’ll even take large kernels as treats. Otherwise normal cat.
Anyone else have a cat with a corn fetish?
Can cats even digest all that cellulose?
Not sure. We don’t indulge her habit.
We used to have a cat who absolutely loved cantaloupe. Give her a rind with a bit of the orange part left on it and she’d happily munch away.
The thing I always thought was weird was, the primary selling point for fruit to humans is that it’s sweet. But cats’ taste buds cannot detect sweetness, or so I’ve heard. So I wondered what the attraction was, or what it even tasted like absent the sweetness.
Neither of ours show any interest in corn. But one gets very excited if we open an avocado.
We don’t actually give him any though: apparently some cats are allergic to them.
My parents had an orange cat named Tater Head who loved both corn and cantaloupe.
One time my mother dropped an ear of corn as she was taking it out of the boiling water. Toby2 immediately leaped upon it – then backed away, hissing in fury. I think he interpreted the pain from the heat as his ‘prey’ fighting back.
He then proceeded to whack the corn across the floor. After every couple of blows he’d try biting it again – Did I kill it that time? – but no, it was still boiling hot, so back to full on whacking a few more times. This went on for a couple of minutes while we all laughed, before we finally deprived him of his prey before he could get seriously burned.
Later when the corn had cooled we gave it back, and he proceeded to eat all the kernels and a good amount of the cob.
Yes, I had a cat that loved corn. When I had corn on the cob, my main job was feeding her fast enough to avoid getting (gently) smacked by her. If I managed to actually eat any corn, it was a bonus.
Not corn, but Taffy liked cantaloupe flesh and canned beans (like kidney beans).
We generally didn’t indulge her because “obligate carnivore” surely means something.
Cats in the wild do eat plants sometimes. Being an obligate carnivore doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t or shouldn’t eat vegetable matter, just that they can’t live without eating meat. That said, they probably should eat little or no human food.
Never had a cat that liked corn or cantaloupe, but we did have one that loved lettuce. Loved it. He could smell lettuce from the next room and would come running. We never could figure it out. Why lettuce? Neither of our current cats have any interest in leafy vegetables. The younger one has a bread fetish, however. Bread, bagels, English muffins, anything like that. He’ll steal a bagel right off your plate. If you don’t secure a loaf of bread he’ll tear the package open to get to it.
Cats and their antics! That’s why we love them so much.
Yeah, I’ve read that too, but my big boy will lick the jam right off the muffin.
I’ve never had a corn eating cat. But I’ve known one who loved asparagus; I currently have one who loves cooked winter squash (butternut, anyway; I haven’t tried him on all the others); – and I used to have one who absolutely loved coffee beans. Not just to chase around; he chewed them and ate them.
They all got a bit from time to time. I checked the coffee beans with a vet before giving that cat any deliberately (I’d found out about it when I spilled some, and he got a couple before I got them cleaned up). The vet said ‘I’ll have to research that, I’ve never run into that one before’ and got back to me several days later to say that she hadn’t been able to find out much on the subject but one or two once in a while shouldn’t hurt him.
I think this comes under my theory that every cat has to do something that’s not thought of by humans as catlike. Many of them fulfill this requirement by eating something unexpected (or unexpected until their human figures out that food’s that particular cat’s thing, anyway.)
I use ghee (a type of clarified butter) to grease my sauce pan.
My cat, Lucy, loves the stuff.
(Her son, Ricky, may his memory be a blessing, loved cottage cheese)
My old business partner had a purring lettuce-head. He had to be confined to the pantry when it came time to compose a salad; this big boy would fight the chef for a lettuce leaf.
Robin, David…are you there?
Dan
Not the kernels, but the inner husk. Our last cat went crazy for it and we’d have to put corn in a cabinet while we were unpacking the rest of the groceries until we could put it away in the fridge. The vet said it was fine to give him a small square of it, so we would, then put him out in the catio until he threw up.
I had a cat that loved corn, and the one I have now loves peaches and nectarines. She will try to bat them out of my hand, and I always give her the pit when it’s done from my perspective. She will lick it clean.
My cat Benny is a bona fide cornaholic. He devours anything from corn chips and corn muffins to the corniest of jokes—but fresh corn on the cob is his true obsession.
Recently, I bought a dozen ears of corn and left them on the kitchen counter. When I came back, every single ear had partially peeled husks with tiny bite marks in the kernels. That’s just how Benny rolls.
I had a cat many years ago who looooved pizza. Like the OP, he would fight for it. Not violently (no biting or scratching me) but he would not be deterred at all. I’d push him away. Shove him away. Toss him away (lightly…not hard and a totally easy landing for him). It didn’t matter. He’d laserbolt back to the pizza as fast as possible to get a bite of some.
It was funny for a bit but after a few times of this he got locked in a room on pizza night. He was so persistent about it that it became less funny and more annoying pretty fast.
I wouldn’t have minded giving him a nibble as a treat but he just would not give up. No other food got him that way.
My cat occasionally comes by to check out what I’m eating, or have been eating. Earlier today after I had finished off some chicken nuggets he jumped up on the table and started licking at the container of honey mustard sauce I had been dipping them in. I have no idea what about honey mustard would have appealed to him.