Lily Flowers and cats

IlmoNT4

Hi, I've just come back from the Vets with my two cats. I received a bouquet of flowers on Tuesday that had Lily flowers in it. One of my cats was covered in the Lily pollen on Wednesday.I cleaned it off her but it stained her fur. Both cats have spent the past 5 days jumping up to the flowers and eating them. On Wednesday one of the cats threw up, the sick was mostly flowers (I didnt think much off it, because anyone who has cats know that they throw up from time to time, and they had been eating the flowers).

Over the past few days I've noticed that both cats were a little off. They were eating and drinking, but hardly moving from their beds. They didn't want to play. They weren't running around as normal. This morning I noticed one of the cats had a huge rash under her chin.

Anyways it turns of that Lily flowers are very toxic to cats. They can cause renal failure and fatality. The vet said they see a few cats every year in the clinic die because they were exposed to these flowers.

They ran blood tests on both my cats and everything came back ok. Vet said they got lucky. The rash is a reaction to the flower.

I had no idea that these flowers could kill my cats. It was a very stressful day and I felt very upset thinking that my cats could die because of a bunch of flowers. I'm writing this because there should be a warning on these flowers that they can kill pets and to anyone who has a cat, to know that these flowers can be lethal to your pet.

boomerang

Glad they are ok.

Remember folks, ALL parts of the lily plant are seriously toxic to cats, not just the pollen.

tk123

5 years ago I was on sick leave and work sent me flowers - there was one liily on them. My cat was dead a week later having been pts with kidney failure

boomerang

Oh my god TK

CBFi

I got lilies once and there was a warning on the packaging that they are toxic to cats so some retailers are considerate. Glad everything worked out!

I have a peace lily which isn't toxic to cats but my guy loves chewing it. It can make their mouths sore (he seems immune!) but not dangerous.

rannerap

I read about them being toxic when I first got my cats and was doing research. I had a scare last year when one of them got some pollen from a lily on her fur. Brought her to the Vet and he had never even heard of them being toxic to cats. I switched Vets because of it. When my other cat got sick last week and I brought her to the Vets the first thing he did was ask did we have any lily's in the house!

Irish Stones

Firstly glad to read that OP's cats are alright, and sad to read the story of TK...

I have a large number of lilies in my garden.
My cats don't get outside unless on a lead and harness.
One evening, after having left one of the two cats outside for about an hour, I saw that this cat, which is mostly white, came inside with her fur partly coloured in yellow by the pollen of those flowers.
I didn't worry about it because I was pretty sure that it was harmless. My cat loves to lick herself a lot and in a few time she had cleaned herself totally, but nothing happened and it seems she's still alright after a week.

I've been having those lilies for years and I'm sure that my cats got contaminated more than once, nothing ever happened, I should consider myself lucky!

Thanks for this precious info!!!

IlmoNT4

TK I'm so sorry that happened to your cat. Its just terrible.

I'm still a little shocked by it and spent last night getting up and down to check on them. The vet said to watch out for excessive drinking and urinating. But if there show none of these symptoms by day 7 then they'll be totally in the clear. The vet felt that if it was going to happen, it would have happened within 72 hours of exposure...my cats are on day 5.

tk123

Apologies it turns out I was wrong - being drugged up at the time made me think it was sooner(!). It was actually more like 3 weeks later. One of his kidneys was huge compared to the other when they examined him. Looking back he'd been very quiet and sleeping alot then started to get sick but we thought it was hairballs until he stopped eating. Took him in on Thursday or Friday, collected him Saturday and he was pts on the Monday.

taytobreath

My God, I am just back from checking my garden for lillies, I never heard of this before, thanks for the info and it might give comfort to know that posting up information like this will inform people and may save the lives of cats

zef

Thanks for your post OP and I'm so glad for you your cats made it.
Tk sorry you lost yours.
Thought I knew a fair bit about cat safety and toxicity of items, but had never heard of this.

IlmoNT4

Just an update, after we came home from the vets, I threw all the flowers out, along with hoovered and cleaned the sitting room and all the floors. I aired the house and by Monday evening both cats were back on their feet and acting normal. They are house cats. Today they were back up playing, eating and being the little scamps they normally are. My personal feeling is that even the smell of the flowers was making them a little sick. The rash is looking much better also. They've both stopped scratching all of the time. I would never have these flowers in my home again, even if it was in a place the cats couldnt get to.

I emailed the DSPCA and asked them to put a notification up on their web site about this, which they said they would.

misslt

I'm so glad they're okay.

This really freaked me out when I found out about it (I was researching before I got my cat), I loved lilies and would have always had them. But I love my cat more!

chamaid

I came across the link below and thought it was relevant given what has been said here.
There is a section on JustCats.ie in the blog page. I cant seem to post the link here but there is good info on it about lily poisoning in cats. Really freaky that this can happen.

IlmoNT4

Its big time scary....My kitties fur has just about grown back. They had to shave both of them under their chin to draw blood for the tests. I've banned all flowers from my house, I couldnt go through that again.

Pumpkinseeds

Wouldn't it be fantastic if florists/supermarkets had a warning sticker on flowers/plants that are toxic to pets, or even a sticker on pet friendly flowers/plants.

Alun

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Wouldn't it be fantastic if florists/supermarkets had a warning sticker on flowers/plants that are toxic to pets, or even a sticker on pet friendly flowers/plants.

I agree, it's stupid there aren't any. I've mentioned it to people at the checkouts in Lidl and one or two of them did have cats. Maybe I'll write to Lidl customer service and see if they'd consider it.

EDIT: I've fired off an email to their customer service, so I'll let you know what reply I receive.

Pumpkinseeds

Alun wrote: »

I agree, it's stupid there aren't any. I've mentioned it to people at the checkouts in Lidl and one or two of them did have cats. Maybe I'll write to Lidl customer service and see if they'd consider it.

EDIT: I've fired off an email to their customer service, so I'll let you know what reply I receive.

Lidl customer service can be very good. I emailed them last month about decorative bark chips we put down. Sweet Jesus it smelled atrocious and we'd put 2 bags down, so far too heavy to put in our bin. I explained how bad it was and that we'd had complaints from a neighbour, also our cats wouldn't go near it. I said that I didn't think they should be stocking it and the next time I was in the local store it was gone. It'd been there for months so presumably they pulled it as there were loads of bags.

We just thought the smell was from the bags and that it would go, it mostly has now with all the rain.

Alun

Yes, I know, they're very good, also their suppliers seem to be very good as well. I've had a couple of problems with a telescope and a hedge trimmer, and got replacement parts sent to me free of charge on both occasions without any quibbles.

Let's see if they can exert some influence on their flower suppliers, although I'm surprised that the (predominantly Dutch) flower suppliers don't add these warnings as standard on their flowers.

I speak some Dutch, so I may try and see if there's some kind of organisation that covers the flower growers / auction houses and ask them what their stance is.

Sent an email off to FloraHolland which appears to be such an organisation. Let's see ...

EDIT: "Nothing to do with us, it's up to the individual dealers"

Tiriel

loulou2009 wrote: »

Just an update, after we came home from the vets, I threw all the flowers out, along with hoovered and cleaned the sitting room and all the floors. I aired the house and by Monday evening both cats were back on their feet and acting normal. They are house cats. Today they were back up playing, eating and being the little scamps they normally are. My personal feeling is that even the smell of the flowers was making them a little sick. The rash is looking much better also. They've both stopped scratching all of the time. I would never have these flowers in my home again, even if it was in a place the cats couldnt get to.

I emailed the DSPCA and asked them to put a notification up on their web site about this, which they said they would.

It looks like they listened - and thank you - they put a post on FB last week and it is in the newsletter email too this month.

Rips

Glad your cat is ok.

For those that didn't know, and like Lilies, it might be helpful to know that Phalaenopsis Orchids are safe for cats.
These are the only plants I have because they are potted in dry bark and the cat leaves them alone.

I always prefer to buy these than cut flowers for friends anyway (especially friends who own cats!)

The Nal

Just a reminder on Valentines Day!