Benefits of Growing Cat Grass

Pancake is not an outdoor cat and instead lives inside our house. He is a coward, afraid of the outside world, so he doesn’t really walk into the backyard and if the door is open, he’d much rather stay inside and look out. With that said, out front, he does walk out onto the path to our door and meows at the birds or eats at the grass out there, before running inside if he can’t see a human. Pancake doesn’t love being outside, but sometimes does spend 2 or 3 minutes, supervised, before coming back in. As he seemed to mainly want to eat grass, we figured we’d grow some cat grass for him!

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We spent some time researching exactly what cat grass is – unlike the grass outside, cat grass is free of pesticides, helps cat’s digestive system and is generally a mix of oats, rye, wheat or barley – all very good for cats. We’ve been getting more houseplants, so having a specific plant that the cat can chew on, instead of other plants around the house, was another big benefit to planting cat grass.

Picking up a 4 pack, grow your own cat grass kit from Cat Furnature, we were excited to get growing. Since the lockdown, we have been having fun growing plants and cat grass seemed like a great way to get our cat involved. This kit was very simple – you just grab one of the containers and follow the very quick instructions. The container contains loose dirt, a bag of dirt and a bag of seeds. You are instructed to pat down the loose dirt, add the seeds and then add the bag of dirt on top. Once your seeds are planted, you need to add two shot-glasses full of water and let it grow. Our cat grass was shooting up within a few days and was tall enough to eat very soon after. We then placed the grass by Pancake’s food dish and let him start chewing on it! Though it doesn’t look like he eats much of it, he does like chewing on it often!

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Some cats, who have more hair then Pancake, apparently start to vomit up cat hair after eating cat grass, as it’s good for cats to get rid of all the extra hair they swallow when they clean themselves. Pancake hasn’t done this, but he also doesn’t lick much of his hair off and doesn’t have hair ball cough-ups at all. We brush him often, which probably contributes to this.

This is one kit out of the 4 grow packs, so once this grass dies, we can totally plant a new one. As Pancake does like this, we purchased a long pot and will be getting a refill pack next time, so that we can plant them in our own container. Cat grass has been a lovely little project and grew so fast – very satisfying. You can read about the benefits of Cat Grass on Shed Happens!

You can check out more of our reviews and recipes to do with our cat, Pancake, in his category.