Danger of Easter Lilies

Thanks for the reminder Stephanie!

Thanks for bringing this up!

OMG! Thats aweful!
I`ve been given lillies a few times and it says on the wrapper to 'Keep Away From Cats'. I never understood why and thought it was a bit bizarre until I recently got a cat book saying they are poisonous.
Kitty doesn`t jump up anywhere that I put them but from what Rosiemac just said, I`m going to make sure I dont have any at home anymore.

A couple of years ago, I took this information to every florist in my hometown of approximately 40,000. Sadly to say, not one single florist shop was interested in posting this information, or including it with cut flowers that they delivered. I think I will write up this information again this year and try it again. I am also going to try to contact my local newspaper to see if they will run a short article on this subject.

Renal failure in cats is my own personal agenda. Cleo was diagnosed with renal failure at the age of 6 months, when my vet did pre-op blood work for her spay surgery. Cleo will be 7 years old on May 27th. She is positively thriving with treatment.

I hope that everyone here will consider taking this information to their local florists or their local newspapers to get the infomation out to other cat owners!

Pookie & the girls

Pookie-poo, I applaud your effort to spread the word about the danger of these flowers. What a shame that none of the florists thought it was important.

I too have a CRF kitty who had a bad experience with lilies (detailed in one of the first posts in this thread). I've taken printed info from the ASPCA to my animal hospital where they were happy to post it. I think every vet and animal hospital should take the initiative to do this on their own, but since many of them don't, it's easy enough for each of us to drop the info off at our vet.

Writing a letter to the op/ed section of your local newspaper is a great idea -just make sure to do it at least 7-10 days in advance of the holiday so they'll be able to print it before then.

So glad to hear your baby Cleo is doing well!

I am an avid daylily lover and grow around 20 different cultivars of them in my yard. As much as I'd like to cut a few of the flowers off & bring them in to enjoy for a day.........I don't because of my cats. I've made do with putting beds within easy view of my windows so my cats stay safe.

I'm so paranoid that the shoes I wear when I walk around the daylily beds don't ever come in the house--I take them off before I come in so I don't accidentally bring in leaf clippings, or spent flowers on my shoes.

I tried to post this warning on a daylily forum that I visit and was amazed at the lack of interest and/or blatant refusal (by other cat owners!) to believe this is a problem .

Okay out of some stupidity ... ALL lillies are posionous to cats???

Yes....every single part of every single lily in the Family: Liliaceae/Genus: Lilium, (which are true lilies), and Family: Hemerocallidaceae/Genus: Hemerocallis (day lilies), is poisonous to cats. There are other plants similar to Lilaceae and Hemerocallidaceae that are also nephro-toxic to cats.

It's a shame that so few cat owners, and florists are unaware of this fact.

Lilies, especially Stargazer lilies, are my most favorite flower. I have two lily gardens in my yard. When I work in the gardens, I also am like Angie, and take my shoes and clothes off in the garage, so I don't accidently expose my cats to any part of the lily plant.

I'm glad this is posted. 2 years ago my best friends cat chewed on an easter lilly, before either of us really knew how poisonous they were. When I went over to her house and saw the chewed up leaves and she told me that he vomited twice that day I went home and immediately checked online about easter lillys and totally freaked out after I read how poisonous they were. So, off to emergency vet we went. They gave him some kind of charchol flush and subq fluids. He is fine but it was very scary!

Originally Posted by Pookie-poo

Yes....every single part of every single lily in the Family: Liliaceae and Genus: Lilium, is poisonous to cats. There are other Family/Genus similar to Lilaceae that are also nephro-toxic to cats.

It's a shame that so few cat owners, and florists are unaware of this fact.

Click to expand...

Thank you .... I dont leave plants in the house but I do have many stargazer and casablanca lillies outside I will spray a deterent around them

I'm so glad we're all still learning every year!

Thought I'd give this a bump even though it's a little old. I wish I'd read this more carefully the first time I saw it; I just brought Honey Pie home from an overnight vet stay because he bit the leaf of an Easter lily that I thought was in a safe place. The only reason I had it was because my landlady had grown it in her garden and gave it to me, and I didn't want to throw out such a lovely and thoughtful gift. Sadly, two days later it only took a few minutes for him to sneak into the room where I had put it (he went in through a window I didn't even know was open). Thank goodness he didn't actually ingest any part of it, but I did find one leaf with tiny bite marks on it. I took him to the vet just to be safe, and as long as I have cats I'll never again allow any type of lily in my home. It's just not worth risking a cat's life.