As any new cat owner quickly discover out , some felid like to nibble on houseplants .
If your home is full of – excuse the paronomasia – unvettedplants , the state of affairs may land you at the exigency animate being hospital with a very sick pet .
Luckily , Chlorophytum comosum , unremarkably known as “ spider plant ” or “ wanderer ivy , ” isnotharmfulto your feline friend .
Photo by Kristina Hicks-Hamblin.
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However , you might still find yourself with a few questions :
Should you give your jackpot free rein to chew away at this houseplant ? Why are those farsighted fragile folio anddangling spiderettesso enchanting to our feline Friend ? And how do you keep your wanderer flora out of kitty ’s reaching ?
Photo by Kristina Hicks-Hamblin.
These are the topics I ’ll be covering in this article :
What You’ll Learn
Spider Plant Safety
It only take me one tenacious , frightening vet visit with my kitty , Louie , for me to get the message that houseplants and cats are n’t always a good combination .
unbeknown to me , he eat some of my ivy arum vine , and when I found him he was drooling , unenrgetic , and behaving very differently from his common alive , inquisitive self .
fortunately , there was no lasting damage , but it took a long , expensive vet sojourn to watch that , and I spent the next twenty - four hours keep Louie to verify his symptom did n’t decline .
After Louie recovered from his very disturbed tummy , I straightaway researched all my houseplant to check for perniciousness , including the one he had taste , and rehomed those that were n’t safe for my feline fellow . ( Goodbye , Epipremnum aureum ! )
So thank goodness forspider plant , an easy to care for , extremely adaptable houseplantthat ’s secure to keep around both dogs and kat .
Unlikepeace liliesandpothos , Chlorophytum comosumis one houseplant that can be safely nibbled by your kitty without requiring a trip to the emergency animal hospital .
According to boththe ASPCAand theNational Capital Poison Center , aka Poison Control , spider plants are non - toxic to both computerized tomography and dogs .
A Note of Caution
If you have more than one type of houseplant in your nursing home and any of your pets are prove symptom of malady or suffering , do n’t wait – adjoin your local veterinary surgeon immediately and make certain you have noted the identities , or at least snap photos of any houseplants your deary may have ingested .
Even though this tropic metal money is non-poisonous to felines , should you allow Fluffy treat this houseplant ’s leaf like dessert ? The resolution to that doubtfulness isno .
Cats are obligate carnivore , which mean they do n’t have the choice of choosing between a vegetarian or meat - base dieting – for felines , center is what they must eat .
If they were allowed to eat a unfounded dieting , housecats would normally take in a minuscule amount of vegetation via the breadbasket contents of their quarry . However , their digestive systems are n’t adapted to eatinglargequantities of leafy greens or veggie issue .
So if your kitty does get a small carried aside nibbling on your spider ivy , you ’ll likely line up the results of that leniency later , in the not so grand grade of a pile of regurgitated foliage .
There is another caveat to consider as well . Are youfertilizing your wanderer plantwith a foliar spray or spray it with leaf shine ? Or have you applied a pesticide or fungicide to its foliage ?
If so , these applications could deepen the position of your houseplant from good to dangerous , depending on the production you employ .
If you spray your spider ivy with any of these types of products , it would be wise to keep your pussycat from try your houseplant ’s leaves , unless you’re able to be absolutely certain that they are secure for your PET to ingest .
And again , if your favourite has been masticate on any of your houseplants and is exhibiting symptom of not sense well , roll up all the selective information you may , include the names of any product you have applied to your industrial plant and contact a veterinarian as soon as potential .
Why Cats Like Spider Plants
When our feline friends are leave admission to the outdoors , they frequently nibble on grass .
But for housecats with no outside roaming privileges , houseplants may be the closest thing they can get to scratching that itching for fresh greens .
And spider ivy in particular , looks a lot like grass .
But if felines are raw born carnivore , why do they want to eat up eatage – or our beloved houseplant ?
Pet parents are n’t the only ones need this question – scientific researchers are look into it too .
inquiry demo in 2019suggests that domestic cat deplete vegetation as a holdover from when their ascendant had to deal with frequent infestations of parasitic dirt ball . The indigestible fiber in the grass or other vegetable affair help to purge sponger from their digestive tracts .
This research also suggests that younger animals may eat up more skunk than older 1 , possibly because of their still - developing immune systems .
If you have a multi - feline household like I do , you may notice that your untried pool are more concerned in taste your houseplants than the senior ones .
This may give us plant buff some hope that our feline companions will outgrow their vegetation eating phase – or at least losesomeinterest in treating our houseplant collection like their own personal salad bar .
This is certainly the instance among my cats – Louie seems to have outgrown his penchant for fresh leafy vegetable .
In addition to fulfilling an evolutionary imperative to eat vegetation as an anti - bloodsucking mensuration , an law-abiding pet possessor might find that there is something else going on as well .
I ’ve noticed that my felines are in particular attracted to my spider plants , even more so than they are to my other houseplants . And if I endeavor to attend at the world through my cats ’ eye , when I face at a spider ivy I see a basket full of exciting pussycat toy – retentive snakelike strands and thin wands with a tuft on the ending – that thing looks like hours of fun , right ?
In this writer ’s view , oddity and playfulness are also largely responsible for for our felid ’ attraction to this particular species .
Just like us , cats like knickknack . They like to rub , floating-point operation , and exercise their claws on a variety of dissimilar textures .
I have notice that anything with a new grain that is brought into the home is considered by my computerized tomography as something deserving investigating . And tasting thing is – sometimes with unfortunate consequences – one of the style that domestic quat research the world .
Protecting Your Plant
If your pool seems peculiarly keen on run through your houseplants , you might want to render him or her with a tray of cat grass to enjoy .
Some CT owners successfully habituate this method to airt attention forth from their houseplant to a specially designated , feline - friendly source of flora .
When our pussy have their own dedicated tray of vegetable matter to nibble from , they sometimes leave about their late intentions of devour our care for houseplants .
Cat locoweed is easy to grow at home and can be a funindoor gardeningproject for kids or beginning gardeners .
you’re able to purchase kits for growing cat grass at home , complete with a mix of constituent wheat , oat , barley , rye and flax seeds , soil , and BPA - free plastic containers from The Cat Ladies Store , via Amazon .
Organic BPA - Free Cat Grass Growing Kit
In spite of the fact that it ’s not toxic to your ducky , you do n’t want your spider plant chewed to a nub , either .
So to protect your spider plant from the overzealous attention of your pot , there ’s a readymade solution : a hang basket , where these houseplant reckon flop at home .
Even those of us with modest ceiling will likely be able-bodied to find a spot in our home with good growing atmospheric condition for our wanderer common ivy that is also out of reach of our curious feline .
you could , of course , repot your spider plantfrom its nursery pot into a hang basket , but there are other slipway of getting your industrial plant to levitate as well .
Are you into an eclectic or time of origin embellish vibe ? If so , you might appreciate the nostalgic look of macrame plant hanger .
you’re able to use macrame hanger to place a regular glasshouse bay window , or more decorative cachepot , straightaway into the hanger and suspend it from a cap hook .
Set of Three Organic Cotton Macrame Plant Hangers
If you ’re onboard with the macrame revival , you ’ll regain a set of three constitutional cotton macrame hangers that will match passel measuring up to seven inches in diameterfrom Mkono via Amazon .
Or for a more mod , minimalist flavour , you might enjoy this orthogonal , disastrous iron plant hanger , which can hold a plant pot by its brim , useable from Terrain .
Rectangle Iron Plant Hanger
If hang a plant from your ceiling is n’t really an choice for you , another tactic I have used to situate my houseplants beyond the grasp of my curious feline is to use metal paries bracket to hang them .
Of of course , if you have a feline - unprocurable bookshelf , that might also be a good location for your spider common ivy to live – just verify it ’s somewhere that is not so out of the way of life that you will leave about your houseplant . While this metal money is very forgiving when we neglect it , it ’s not invincible .
A Purrfect Relationship
Even though spider plants are nontoxic to cats , allowing your feline friends to gourmandize in this gullible delight is not recommended – either from the period of view of your kitty ’s venter or for the wellness of your houseplant .
So consider keeping your plant out of compass and offer your pet some Arabian tea Gunter Wilhelm Grass or else .
And one more matter :
What I did n’t say you at the kickoff of this article about my kitty Louie and his unfortunate outpouring - in with my ( former ) pothos , was that I thought I ’d placed the vining tropical plant well out of his ambit .
It apparently was n’t , or he would have been spared a very upset tummy and I would have been spared my 24 hour of concern .
So if you have n’t vetted all of your houseplants yet for pet safety , it might be time to do so , and consider rehoming any that are toxic and replacing them with pet - good plants .
Here are some more articles to aid you zero in on thebest houseplantsto keep – and those to stave off – when you have a pussycat at nursing home :
picture by Kristina Hicks - Hamblin © Ask the Experts , LLC . ALL right RESERVED.See our TOSfor more item . Product exposure via Dualshine , NW Home , Terrain , and The Cat Ladies Store . Uncredited photos : Shutterstock .
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Kristina Hicks - Hamblin
