Plants toxic to cats

gettingready

I knew about lilies but this list????

OMG

http://www.cpnewcastle.co.uk/plantstoxictocats.htm

Addiscomber

Perhaps not really surprising as cats are not supposed to be plant eaters?

trollopscarletwoman

I was going to the garden centre with the credit card primed.

But I've already got some of those plants and neighbouring cats don't eat them!!

lostinrates

gettingready wrote: »

I knew about lilies but this list????

OMG

http://www.cpnewcastle.co.uk/plantstoxictocats.htm

Tbf, some things are on the list more than once.


We have a few things on the list in our garden. E.g. A yew hedge. We planted new yew much to the borrow of some people locally who pointed out how toxic it was, and I pointed out the very, very old yew tree that's been here through generations of cats and dogs before we came here.

If my cats started chewing yew, or hunting a lot below the yew I'd probably be more concerned.


Yew hedges , oak tress, plenty of other things, have coexisted with animals they re poisonous too for a long time.

gettingready

Addiscomber wrote: »

Perhaps not really surprising as cats are not supposed to be plant eaters?

They do not have to eat some of those, lillies are very bad for cats just to get any of them on their fur, remember this story from a while ago...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289569/The-Valentine-bouquet-killed-cats-Mothers-Day-warning-lethal-lilies.html

meritaten

Onions are toxic to cats so plants in the onion family are not grown in my garden.
I may have posted this before - if so bear with me for the sake of newbies.
I was in Adsa and an assistant was putting out a 'new variety' of their cat food, which was 'beef and onion'. I was horrified. luckily I spotted some obvious 'suits' and asked if they were with Adsa, they were, so I asked why they were trying to poison cats. explained that onion was toxic to cats yet their brand cat food contained onion. they looked concerned and sent one off to check - next thing, the shelf was cleared of the food and I haven't seen that variety since.

Since then, I haven't taken it for granted that cat food is completely safe, I always read the label! I found it hard to fathom why this food was developed and marketed - its hardly a secret that onions are bad for cats!

paddypaws101

I think part of the problem with lillies is the ease with which a cat can accidentally get pollen on it's fur and then lick it off. That said, I had pots and pots of lillies in my garden for years and routinely bought them as cut flowers too although I did always cut off the stamens from the inside flowers.
Nowadays I rarely have any flowers or plants inside....but did bring home an aloe vera plant yesterday which promptly got attacked and has had to be quarantined to the car!

pukkamum

I knew about lillies having lost a cat to lilly pollen poisoning, I didn't even realise it until after he died.
He had got covered in pollen after I had some lillies and obviously groomed.
I told a friend who realised this is what had happened to several of her mums cats, her mum always had lillies in the house, and had lost several cats with the same symptoms.
I should think most cats would stay away from poisonous plants in the garden.

morg_monster

The thing that I find frustrating about these lists is they don't tell you how toxic they are. EG will it just make them puke and then they'll be fine? Or will it be like lilies and very possibly they will be too far gone to save before you even notice they are sick? A lot of plants in our gardens are probably toxic to us humans too but there aren't many that we don't grow for that reason, even if we have little kids around.

I don't have lilies in the house or garden but I do have aloe vera which is on that HUMUNGOUS list. Plus plenty of the flowers in my garden including daffodils, crocus, poppies, hellebore etc. How do they know they are all toxic?! Presumably it's just reports of 'My cat chewed on X and then Y happened'. Or maybe they contain molecules known to be toxic in large doses. Cats eat normal lawn grass to make themselves sick after all but that shouldn't be on the list.

The thing with lilies is that cats can be poisoned without them even needing to go that near the plant. Other plants I am more laid back about and haven't removed anything from my garden. However if my cat liked to chew plants I would probably be more cautious. (One plant I'm pleased to see NOT on the list is spider plants as one of my cats loves to sit and chew on that I've recently realised - but she's not interested in any other of my house plants).

Just wanted to edit and add - gettingready - I realised my first line might make it sound like a pop at you! Didn't mean it to sound like that. Think it's definitely vital to highlight this stuff especially regarding lilies as so many people don't know. I just wonder whether the websites that print these lists think about the harm they could do making people worry about every last plant, both to biodiversity and to pet owners' mental health!

Limey

Will any of those plants keep the little b******* out of my garden without being terminal?

gettingready

yeah - a cat proof fence, you can "grow your own"