PSA: Aloe vera can make cats sick, so can other plants. Please do the research and put your plants away or get the ones non-toxic to cats. But you all already know that.
Yeah, you'd think it's kill or be killed... but it's more like kill and be killed.
Evolution doesn't require each individual to live to a ripe old age when they can successfully spread their genes by producing litters of 4-6 babies up to three times per year, starting before they're even one year old.
Even if they slowly poison themselves and die at five years old they'll have plenty of genetic descendants that might also think poison tastes good.
Or they'll run into plants that arent native to their ancestors environments.
Or they have a deficiency for something so they're compelled to eat plants they might not had they not lacked a nutrient.
Or they're just menaces, munching up the neighbours flower bed for kicks.
I had a 3ft tall money tree. Cat safe plant. My miserable feline ate the entire thing down to the barked stem. She did the same with a Christmas cactus.
Never again, I said. 5 years later I tried again with an olive tree. The miserable cat ignored it. The new cat delicately grabbed each leaf, plucked it from the branch, and dropped it on the floor. No eating. Just persistent plucking.
My mother planted some of that in our garden when I was young. Literally the next day the entire plant was gone and the cat was sprawled out on the grass baked out of his tiny mind
Cat grass (despite the name lol) is a different thing to catnip (which is the one that gets them spaced out). Cat grass is just a type of regular grass that you can grow indoors for your cat to eat.
Outdoor cats will eat grass to help their digestion, so it's important to have something safe for indoor cats to eat otherwise they will just eat anything green and that could be bad for them.
It's easy enough to grow from seed or you can get it already growing in a pot.
My cat is very good at keeping the money tree clean, he only plucks the brown leaves and plays with them. He ignores every other plant, including a cat grass that we had for a while
I have a cat that ignored my spider plants for a year, then recently decided the stems with babies sprouting make the perfect toys to hunt. He eventually removed them all, leaving little sprout corpses around the living room.
34 Comments
saltnotsugar@lemmy.world · 149 pts · 160d
What is the charge!? Eating a salad? Eating a succulent salad???
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 51 pts · 160d
Get your hand off my belly!
prettybunnys@piefed.social · 29 pts · 160d
UNHAND MY COOKIE POUCH
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 160d
I SEE YOU KNOW YOUR CATWONDO WELL
ickplant@lemmy.world · 94 pts · 160d
PSA: Aloe vera can make cats sick, so can other plants. Please do the research and put your plants away or get the ones non-toxic to cats. But you all already know that.
kernelle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 160d
I've had to give away so many plants because of this
BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 160d
As a rule of thumb, succulents are at the very least going to make your cat yarf and a good handful can cause pretty serious organ damage
Zwiebel@feddit.org · 5 pts · 160d
How does our outdoors cat just know what not to eat
kindnesskills@literature.cafe · 15 pts · 160d
They don't.
Not every cat chews on any plant, but if you're unlucky your outdoor cat is munching on bad flora and slowly wearing down their organs.
FundMECFS@piefed.zip · 9 pts · 160d
One of the many reasons why life expectancy for indoor cats is ~15 years while outdoor cats is generally about half of that.
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 160d
You'd think one of the most successful predators of the animal kingdom would know not to eat random plants
But what so I know, I'm not a cat
kindnesskills@literature.cafe · 11 pts · 160d
Yeah, you'd think it's kill or be killed... but it's more like kill and be killed.
Evolution doesn't require each individual to live to a ripe old age when they can successfully spread their genes by producing litters of 4-6 babies up to three times per year, starting before they're even one year old.
Even if they slowly poison themselves and die at five years old they'll have plenty of genetic descendants that might also think poison tastes good.
Or they'll run into plants that arent native to their ancestors environments.
Or they have a deficiency for something so they're compelled to eat plants they might not had they not lacked a nutrient.
Or they're just menaces, munching up the neighbours flower bed for kicks.
Zephorah@discuss.online · 55 pts · 160d
I had a 3ft tall money tree. Cat safe plant. My miserable feline ate the entire thing down to the barked stem. She did the same with a Christmas cactus.
Never again, I said. 5 years later I tried again with an olive tree. The miserable cat ignored it. The new cat delicately grabbed each leaf, plucked it from the branch, and dropped it on the floor. No eating. Just persistent plucking.
We’re back to never again.
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 160d
Maybe some cat grass so they have something they can eat.
AnAverageSnoot@lemmy.ca · 28 pts · 160d
So this actually backfired on us. Once the cat grass was finished, my dumbass cat decided to test every plant to check if they taste like cat grass.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 160d
You can buy wheatgrass seeds so you always have a new one growing.
Skua@kbin.earth · 18 pts · 160d
My mother planted some of that in our garden when I was young. Literally the next day the entire plant was gone and the cat was sprawled out on the grass baked out of his tiny mind
MouldyCat@feddit.uk · 21 pts · 160d
Cat grass (despite the name lol) is a different thing to catnip (which is the one that gets them spaced out). Cat grass is just a type of regular grass that you can grow indoors for your cat to eat.
Outdoor cats will eat grass to help their digestion, so it's important to have something safe for indoor cats to eat otherwise they will just eat anything green and that could be bad for them.
It's easy enough to grow from seed or you can get it already growing in a pot.
Skua@kbin.earth · 9 pts · 160d
Oh, my mistake!
notthebees@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 160d
Cake day
Skua@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 160d
Hah, my own instance doesn't show that. It's a little surprise for me when someone mentions it
notthebees@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 160d
It shows up in voyager
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 160d
That sounds like catnip, not wheat grass.
Skua@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 160d
It was! I now know that catgrass is a separate thing, I thought it was just another name for catnip
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 160d
Happy cake day.
SalamenceFury@piefed.social · 6 pts · 160d
So catnip is just edibles? 😂
Nikelui@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 160d
Cat grass is just for fibres and vitamins (and make them puke hairballs), not the drug one.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 160d
It never makes my cat puke, just keeps her poops regular
prettybunnys@piefed.social · 2 pts · 160d
Catnip is more like ecstasy, is my understanding
criticon@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 160d
My cat is very good at keeping the money tree clean, he only plucks the brown leaves and plays with them. He ignores every other plant, including a cat grass that we had for a while
Duranie@leminal.space · 4 pts · 160d
I have a cat that ignored my spider plants for a year, then recently decided the stems with babies sprouting make the perfect toys to hunt. He eventually removed them all, leaving little sprout corpses around the living room.
brendansimms@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 160d
omg is this why my aloe tips are all jacked up
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 160d
Bitey cats like wheatgrass. And it helps them poop good.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 160d
Chives, on the other hand, mostly make the owner of the cat sick with annoyance.