Anyone have any experience or comments? Read the following.
http://www.noliliesforcats.com...

In all my years of lily growing, I never had a problem.

Oh noes! Let me goes out nao un' uprootz all mai bebbies! Lets me pickets teh florist!! Burn all teh lilliez! *waves burning pitch fork*

I really want to say it just sounds like more fear-of-life-and-living propaganda! In the site's absence of any referencing of scientific or legitimate sources of information, and with no personal experience of such effects, I find it hard to give it any credence.

However searching online for 'lily poisoning of cats' turns up all sorts of vet's warnings. Who knows how these 'facts' get started, but maybe there's enough volume of observation to cause concern to some. I've never experienced it though and I certainly won't be tossing all my lilies if I ever get another cat. A person's capacity for accurate risk perception can be easily warped with fear campaigns - and we live in spoon-fed cultures that hardly encourage us to live realistically and comfortably with risk! Common sense out the window; over-reactive panic is the norm.

That's my political soapbox for the day

And I love cats.

These forced Longiflorum-Asiatic Trebbianos were (same day a photo) chewed and mutilated beyond recognition by a batch of frolicking little kittens back in 2009. The kittens appeared unaffected and continued a normal healthy life.

The writer appears to have lifted verbatum off the ASPCA site ( http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/... ) or vice versa. Daylilies, too. I've heard about cats and lilies, but didn't know poisoning was so acute. A google scholar search verifies:
http://scholar.google.com/scho...

Still, I'm with Della on this one. Not to downgrade the facts, but each person will individually need to assess the importance. Cats do not seek out lilies to eat, and I'll wager we have more chance of getting killed in a car accident than a cat getting killed through lily poisoning.
And I'm a cat lover, too.

Aha, now I'm much happier with the source of facts.

Still not scared though. I imagine Lorn's kittens are more the norm than post lily-frolic dead ones.

Oh, and I found that they're discussing this over on the daylily forum: The thread "Cats and Daylilies - survey results" in Daylilies forum

Well, all this was kind of news to me, too. I first came across this topic when I answered a question about it on the Garden Web, lilies forum site, which was followed by someone else posting the article. My dad grew lots of lilies and he always had four or five cats around for rodent control. He never had a problem as such. Most of the time, when a cat got sick, it would be in the fall or winter by eating a mouse which had already ingested poison bait. But, even then, they didn't die. Like the old saying goes, 'cats have nine lives'. Here's a photo of a mixed lily bed I started in 1989. Since it's in the front yard, by ordinance rule I can't fence it. And, over the years I've rotated hundreds and hundreds of cultivars in an out of there. Every cat in the neighborhood hunts in there a couple times a day during the growing season. There have been no known problems over the years.

25 years of beloved cats, 10 years of lily blooms.. My cats always had a smorgasbord diner , why would they be interested in my lilies [ one cat was Lily].Lets pass this comment off - but there is always the cat /kitten mentality to 'SHRED' .. Possums even usually take 1 nibble, 'Pet galahs the same'!

dellac said:Oh noes! Let me goes out nao un' uprootz all mai bebbies! Lets me pickets teh florist!! Burn all teh lilliez!

Della, you do that entirely too well.

Lilies poison to cats? Thats just crazy talk. Cats for 30 years for me ,never saw any lily chewing going on.
Della is right.
I would also add many people have pets they know nothing about and should be given an exam to determine if they are competent to own an animal.These overly cautious admonishments are for those who have no clue.

ge1836 said:Lilies poison to cats? Thats just crazy talk. Cats for 30 years for me ,never saw any lily chewing going on.
Della is right.

It is likely that cats inherently just "know" not to eat lilies. Similar to poisonous caterpillars with certain vivid markings: somehow the predators just "know" not to eat them. The empirical facts are there that document a poison in lilies (listed in my first post). But no need to get uppity about it. Gosh, if we tried to keep all poisonous things away from pets, it would be more than a full time job!

At our local emergency vet clinic, they say they have more cats die around Easter due to Easter Lily poisoning than any other time of year. They have a big sign up warning feline owners of the danger. My sister had a cat a couple of years ago that munched on some plants on her deck and died from pancreatitis. So it can happen.

Some cats also are not attracted to plant material. They've apparently done studies on this, read about it a couple years ago. Here I have plant munchers. One of my cats bit into a lily leaf, but did not take any material out. I was thankful, but maybe Lefty's theory prevails here. He knows it tastes like death and took off without ingesting any.

The cats need to be trained at an early age.. All of my cats died from cancer/diabetes or heart/lung problems+ 20 yo Bubby died from age

lol

couldn't help it Jo Ann

Funny!

I have an inside cat that will sample each and every plant I bring into the house. This is the only time he breaks training. He's even gone after plants on top of the refrigerator. After sampling the plant, poisonous or not, he promptly throws up all over the carpet.

He never climbs on the kitchen counters or the top of the dining room table because he knows life will be miserable, if he breaks those rules. No, I don't hit him, but I do get my point across with very diluted vinegar water. He not only hates being sprayed by water, he hates cleaning off the slight taste of the vinegar water from his fur.

I think he goes after the plants more out of boredom because I am outside so much than anything else. I am not worried about him getting sick or dying, but I hate cleaning up the carpet. So, I've decided as long as he lives here, I can give up house plants and just play with plants outside.

I agree with @Leftwood ... "It is likely that cats inherently just "know" not to eat lilies." I think all animals avoid plant foods that are poisonous to them instinctively. Of course, some animals are smarter than others, but that's the same with humans.

Smiles,
Lyn

I have always had cats and lilies. My cats would get covered in lily pollen following me around the fields during bloom (bloom used to be late may to early aug). I threw anthers all over the place not just for hybridizing, we also cut many stems to sell. Pollen got everywhere, all over the ground where they walked. Never had a problem - never had a cat eat any part of a lily. That doesn't mean they didn't damage them on occasion. Imagine -1 chipmunk, 2 cats and a 7 foot Scheherazade stem........
But indoor cats are mentally disturbed (wouldn't you be locked up all the time?) so there could be something to it.
One of my cats "El Destructio Kitty) would actually remove buds from plants just to watch them fall when she was bored. I don't think she ever did that to the lilies but many other plants were targeted. The buds just stuck out there plump and ready to pick. She carefully spat them out, a very picky eater. And we grew many poisonous plants.

>>> But indoor cats are mentally disturbed (wouldn't you be locked up all the time?) so there could be something to it.
Never thought of it that way, but I definitely agree!

El Destructio Kitty brings to mind a fond memory of my Granddad when I was about seven years old. One summer day, my Granddad, my Dad, my older brother and myself were walking in the north woods of Minnesota, near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area where our cabin is. We came upon a huge boulder, perhaps 7-8ft high, perched atop a rock outcrop. Granddad looked at the boulder, and then at my Dad and brother. I was clueless. Without saying a word they seemed to have melded minds as the almost instinctively began to lever the boulder off its position and send it rolling down the hill. I have to say, it was quite a spectacle, and not just for a seven year old!

The moral ~ just because it was there?