Peace lilies are a lovely green plant with lush green leaves. One of the more popular traits is their adaptability to be grown indoors in nearly any growing condition.
Lighting conditions can vary, yet these plants are hardy enough to cope with all of them.
A peace lily, also known as Mauna Loa, is also well known for another reason, and that is that many individuals say that the plants dangerous to cats.
In this guide, you can find, are peace lily plants toxic to cats, or is it a myth?
Is a Peace Lily Toxic to Pets?
While a peace lily can affect your pets, they are not toxic in the real sense of the word. They do, however, contain compounds, which are bothersome to pets. You can also see it can cause vomiting in adults and particularly children, if the leaves are placed anywhere near the mouth.
Besides this, the pollen from the plant (spadix) leads to oral irritation when licked from the paws or the pet’s fur and gets into their mouth. The compound that has a more harmful effect is the calcium oxalate crystals.
Will a Peace Lily Kill My Cat
If you wonder, are peace lily plants poisonous to cats, you may be relieved to see that in many cases, it won’t kill them. However, they may have some severe symptoms.
If you see symptoms in your cats, make sure they are not suffering from kidney failure, as this can require you to contact a veterinarian or the poison control center.
Here are some of the symptoms described; your pet may show after exposure to calcium oxalate crystals from the Mauna Loa plant.
- Severe burning and oral irritation in their mouth
- Irritation on the cat’s lips and tongue
- Difficulty swallowing
- Lily cat poison can cause vomiting in your cat
- Your pet may have excessive drooling or salivation
How Much Lily is Toxic to Cats?
It doesn’t take too much from your peace lilies to begin affecting your cat. Once they have a couple of leaves in their mouth, this can be more than enough and may cause them to start showing symptoms.
Some lilies, however, are worse than others are, though you do need to know the signs and symptoms if your cats play and chew on your peace lilies.
Each part of the plant may be poisonous such as the leaf, stem, flowers, and pollen. The worst-case scenario of failure in kidneys can take as little as 24 – 72 hours from cats having parts of the plant in their mouth.
You will see signs in 6- 12 hours, and the very first your cat may exhibit are difficulty swallowing, vomiting, drooling, excessive thirst or not drinking. If they are on their way toward failure in the kidney, cats may appear drunk as they walk, have disorientation, tremors, or they can suffer from seizures.
Peace lilies luckily don’t have the same effect as other lilies do, although it does show how careful you need to be when growing these plants in your home.
You will find there is no antidote for lily poisoning, though your vet can run through specific procedures to try to combat the effects of a Peace Lily.
How Do I Keep My Cat Way from Peace Lily?
If you are worried about your cats getting too close to your plants, you can do the following to help keep them away.
- Place orange peel on the soil – cats don’t like citrus
- Place gravel in your pots to stop your cats digging
- Spray the leaves of your Mauna Loa lily plant with a blend of water, Tabasco, and cayenne pepper
- Fasten balloons to your plant pots. If these burst, it scares cats away
- Grow plants cats don’t like nearby, such as lavender, rosemary, and mint.
A Peace Lily isn’t toxic to the extent that it will kill your cat unless there is overexposure, and other pets tend to suffer even less, such as dogs.
You can be safe knowing the answer to the ‘are peace lilies toxic to cats?’ is no. However, it can make them feel a bit sick, so keep your plants out of reach of your pets.
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