why would my cat insist on licki..

Brief：
my cat is an 11 yrs old,female. i had a bag of lime on my porch and i kept catching her licking it, and in the house she keeps getting into the ashtra.. 

my cat is an 11 yrs old,female. i had a bag of lime on my porch and i kept catching her licking it, and in the house she keeps getting into the ashtrays and eating and licking the ashes. could she be lacking a vitamin or mineral that makes her do this?

Quite possibly, especially since she is an older cat. There are multivitamins for cats - I give my cat one. However, how the individual cats like the multivitamins varies dramatically - my cat loves it, but other cats hate it. If your cat doesn't like the multivitamin, you can grind it up and mix it into wet food. Also, make sure you are feeding your cat a food which has some kind of meat as the first ingredient, or in the top ingredients. Alot of the cat foods aren't all that nutrious, I heard this from my vet. I feed Iams, the vet approved that brand. If giving the vitamin seems to stop the issue, then you have fixed the problem - if it continues, you may want to see a vet. Good luck! i can't believe that she is still alive. this is all poison for her minerals and possibly sodium.

bring in some grass from outside (make sure it hasn't been sprayed with chemicals and see if she starts chewing on it.

cats do things instinctually and can sense what they need in other things.

p.s. get a good indoor cat formula cat food. mine love meow mix indoor. but they still like to chew on grass sometimes too. she's just getting senile! i always heard that to be true.. ask a vet over the phone he will help you more.btw lol my cats likes ashhes also and i was going to call my vet as well Call the vet. Sounds like potassium and calcium shortage in her diet to me.. When I used to smoke menthol cigarettes, my cat would go crazy over the menthol smell of them. Like a cat usually like Catnip, she loves anything menthol.. But there is no way she would go near any smoked cigarette butts, as she hated the smell of cigarette smoke, so I would be very worried about her habit. I have read about children who have been hospitalised, with mystery conditions, until it was worked out that they had been chewing on used butts.