As a cat owner, you can have a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of your companion by undertaking routine preventive healthcare at all stages of their life – from kittenhood through to old age. This offers the best chance of preventing problems arising or, at least, maximizing the detection of any illnesses early on.
It’s truly sickening to consider worms living in your Catgut. More regrettable than disturbing, however, worms can make your feline debilitated by keeping his body from retaining supplements. A customary worming project will help keep him sound.
Worms are very common in kittens and adult cats. Unless they have a very heavy worm infestation most infected cats show no ill effects, but heavy worm burdens can cause irritation around the anus, enlarged abdomen, weight loss and vomiting and diarrhea (sometimes containing worms). Some worms can also infect people so regular deworming is vital for feline and human health.
How Worms In Cats Are Contracted
Most Cat will get worms – frightful parasites that attack their systems – sooner or later in their lives. An outdoor cat that chase rodents can get roundworm from eating their prey; cats generally get it by means of a drain from their contaminated moms. Indeed, even indoor felines may ingest a contaminated fly that discovers its way into your home. That’s scary because people can get it too. Fortunately, treating cat roundworm is genuinely simple. Guarding against it, with the right prevention and a clean environment, will keep your cat and its owner in a roundworm-free zone.
Some of the most common ways to contract worms in cats include:
- Drinking contaminated milk from the mother during nursing
- Rolling in, sniffing, eating, stepping in or licking contaminated soil
- Consuming infected prey like rodents, birds, and reptiles
- Mosquito, flea and tick bites and ingestion
- Coming into contact with an infected cat or another infected animal
- Consuming or coming into contact with an infected animal’s feces or vomit
Types Of Cat Worms?
Roundworms (Toxocara cati and Toxascaris leonina) are the most common intestinal parasites in kittens and cats. They are long, white and look like spaghetti. Eggs from these worms are passed in the feces and can live for months or years in the soil. Cats can become infected in three main ways:
- Ingestion of eggs directly from contaminated soil e.g. by licking them off their feet
- Consumption of a rodent who has previously eaten worm eggs from the environment
- Ingestion by kittens of worm larvae in their mother’s milk (Toxocara cati only). The vast majority of newborn kittens are infected with roundworms by this route.
Tapeworms: (Dipylidium caninum and Taenia taeniaeformis) are long, flat and composed of many segments which contain eggs. The segments are regularly shed in feces and resemble grains of rice which can sometimes be seen crawling around a cat’s anusor on her bed. To complete their lifecycle, tapeworms require an intermediate host to eat their eggs from the environment. Cats then become infected by consuming the intermediate host. Intermediate hosts include fleas and rodents.
For this reason, if your cat is diagnosed with fleas, she will probably need treatment for tapeworms and vice versa. In addition, if she hunts and eats rodents, she will also require tapeworm treatment.
Hookworms: Hookworms in cats are the smallest of all common cat worms’ varieties. Hookworms in cats reside primarily in the small intestine. They grow to approximately one inch in length and feed on the blood. They can cause life-threatening anemia in cats of all ages, but especially kittens. Hookworms are passed in the feces and can infect other animals and people too.
Whipworms: Whipworms in cats are about ¼” long and reside in the cecum and colon. Whipworms can cause severe damage to these organs, and are considered one of the most harmful cat worms in existence, but are also more geographically distinct than other cat worms.
Heartworms: Heartworms in cats (link to cat Heartworm page) live in the heart and pulmonary arteries. They are transmitted by infected mosquitoes, which migrate throughout the body over about 6 months before finally coming to rest in the circulatory system. Heartworms are transmitted only from an infected mosquito’s bite, and not within or between species. They are preventable and treatable but can be fatal if not diagnosed and arrested before the advanced stages of infestation.
Ringworm: Ringworm, or dermatophytosis, is a skin disease caused by a fungus that results in lesions and sores on the epidermal (or outer skin) layer. Interestingly enough, ringworm is not caused by a worm at all, but rather by an infection of dead layers of skin, hair, and nails. Ringworm is curable, but treatment can take time and the condition can be very painful.
Are Worms In Cats A Danger To My Family?
A few kinds of worms in cats, similar to roundworms, are exceptionally risky to individuals, particularly young ones who play in regions frequented by host creatures like raccoons, and cat. Sandboxes and other soil and sand secured open-air play zones routinely fill in as stopgap litter boxes for creatures contaminated with cat worms, and numerous other intestinal parasites. In fact, approximately 10,000 children per year are infected with parasitic worms, and conditions including blindness can occur in severe cases. However, we will now discuss several effective precautionary measures you can take to help keep you and your family free from worms in cats.
How Are Cat Worms Treated?
Cat worms are Treatable, inasmuch as they are diagnosed, captured and treated before the onset of advanced stages of infestation. Your veterinarian can recommend the best possible deworming drug (anthelmintic), alongside the fitting organization convention, in view of the parasite and degree of invasion.
- TAPEWORMS IN CATS, the medicine separates tapeworms within the intestinal tract, making them too little to find in the defecation
- ROUNDWORMS IN CAT, the drug separates the worms from the intestinal tract, and discharge them into and with the stool
- HOOKWORMS IN CAT, the drug murders the grown-up hookworms as it were. We will suggest another treatment in 2 a month to treat the hookworms that were babies amid the main treatment
- RINGWORM IN CAT, Your Vet will recommend antifungal meds, shampoos, lime-sulfur plunges, and the shaving or seriously influenced zones
- WHIPWORMS IN CAT, Your Vet will recommend prescription in 3-multi-week interims, and after that every 3-4 months to help keep a re-invasion
- HEARTWORMS IN CAT, and relying on the seriousness of the pervasion, you can endorse oral and injectable drug, anti-infection agents, uncommon weight control plans, diuretics to decrease liquid amassing and even expanded medicine of heart prescription in extraordinary cases
We highly recommend consulting your veterinarian before purchasing or administering any over-the-counter or prescription medication for cat worms. Only your veterinarian can determine the severity of the infestation, and then order the proper number of treatments, as well as any other recommended instructions.
Recommended dewormers for cats from Chewy:
Recommended dewormers for cats from Amazon:
Until your kitty is about four months old, she’ll require wormed at regular intervals. Little cats get worms effortlessly, they can be difficult to dispose of and they can have genuine well-being impacts. When your kitty begins growing up, she won’t require wormed so frequently. An outdoor cat that hunts and is exposed to fleas and ticks should be wormed every two to three months, while an indoor cat only needs to be wormed about every six months. Explain your cat’s living situation to your vet for recommendations if you’re not sure how often to worm your adult cat.