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Animals can and do eat clay all the time. it's a natural part of their ability to self-medicate. read the book, Wild Health, by Cindy Engel. In that book, she documents hundreds of clay-eating habits of monkeys, elephants, birds of all kinds, and many other animals. Elephants dig clay "licks" in Africa that are the size of small airports, just to ingest the minerals. Birds obviously have gizzards that not only allow them to eat dirt and clay, but they must do it. The famous Parrots of the Amazon are tourist attractions at the places where they eat clay. There's even a word for it: geophagy.

Research has determined that eating clay is natural because it is healthful, and animals know this somehow. They can remove toxins and intestinal parasites with small amounts of certain clays, and the clay often adds needed minerals to their diets.

Bentonite and Montmorillonite clays are commmonly added to animals feeds across the world.

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13y ago

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