Question
My 3 year old neutered female cat has gone mental on playing with silicone earplugs. They are small, chewy, yellow things you put in your ears to block out noise.
My cat thinks they are THE BEST THING EVER.
If I have one in my hand, she meows, jumps and slaps it out of my hand. When I give her one, she plays for hours and hours until collapsing of exhaust. There are probably a thousand of them under the bed and various places she slaps them into then attempting to grab them, pushes them deeper. Cats, go figure.
The problem is that she won't play with any of her other toys. She ignores catnip and catnip toys. I got her one of those ball in tunnel with holes to poke around, but in vain - she is absolutely not interested.
If she doesn't get an earplug, she will meow, act depressed and sometimes get anxious and be aggressive.
I don't want my little darling to get depressed, but I fear she may swallow and choke or eat and get an intestinal blockage or something of the sorts.
Answer
James Jenkins' answer is very near what I would have suggested, but I see from your comment that you've tried alternative toys with little success.
Before I go on, I want to repeat what James said about the existing headphones: get rid of them. All of them. Keeping your cat entertained isn't worth the risk of an intestinal blockage.
Since new toys haven't worked for you, try creating safer versions of the preferred toy. Find something made out of safer material that is of a size and shape similar to the earplug. In fact, a cat treat or piece of dry cat food tied to a string may work, and could conceivably be even more attractive to the cat than the earplug.
If food doesn't work, try other small objects of a safe material. If you can entice your cat to play with something different, even briefly, you will eventually be able to get your cat to forget the earplugs altogether.
Just be sure to not leave the string itself unattended where the cat could possibly get to it; an ingested string can be very dangerous if it becomes tangled in the intestines (we had a cat that the vet suspected of doing that, and we wound up having extensive surgery to address the concern).
Answered By - Beofett