Parasite management is key in contributing towards the good health of your pet. Prevention is important when it comes to parasites, they can be very easily caught and very difficult to get rid of!
Parasite treatment covers:
Heavy worm infestations can cause poor growth and diarrhoea. Animals with roundworm can re-infect themselves, other animals through grooming and occasionally humans. Roundworms can cause Toxocariasis. Typically, this would affect children under the age of 10, accidental ingestion of eggs that develop into larvae can cause particular damage to eye such as visual impairments.
If your pet has tapeworm they would commonly display lethargy, weight loss, diarrhoea and depending on severity visible tapeworm segments in faeces.
If your pet has lungworm they may suffer from coughing, lethargy, weight loss and poor appetite. Lungworm can be picked up from slugs, snails and hunting infected small mammals of birds.
Located in the canals of the ear or sometimes surrounding skin, ear mites can cause severe irritation, head shaking and scratches. Scratches can lead to secondary infections where the skin has been broken.
Pets that like to go out and hunt or root around are likely to pick up ticks. Ticks whilst an irritation are also a carrier for transmitting disease. Ticks can cause a secondary infection. It is important to fully remove the head/legs that fix themselves into the animal’s skin. If you are not confident removing a tick with a tick twister, please book in with one of our nurse.
Fleas can cause a multitude of skin irritations and can even cause allergic reactions from their saliva. Unless your pet has a severe flea problem they may be hard to spot, evidence of fleas can be seen if the pet has flea dirt on their skin. A helpful test if you think it could possibly be flea dirt and not mud is to place a bit of the dirt on a damp kitchen tissue, if flea dirt it’ll turn red.
Female fleas can lay thousands of eggs, these eggs can be shed around the house on all soft furnishings and cars if you pet is infected with fleas. Flea pupal will lay dormant if the conditions of humidity or warmth are not right. Vibrations can cause these eggs to hatch in to full adult fleas, in turn this can lead to a full flea outbreak.
Caused by a mite that lives under the skin, manage is commonly picked up out and about, in areas where foxes have also visited. The mite causes intense itching this in turn then leads to hair loss and self-made trauma to the skin.
We offer a range of parasite treatments that can be obtained from the practice. Pets will need to have been seen within in the last year in order for us to prescribe such treatments. We also offer flea sprays that can be used in the house/ car if there is evidence of flea infestations. If you are concerned your pet has a flea/worm issue or would like to know more, appointments are available with the nurse.
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