Not for the Faint of Heart. Worms!

Round and tape worm segments mingled into the poop left behind in a trap and on the towel lining it from a feral male, after he was wormed at the Neuterscooter for both round and tapeworms, with drontal.


This is why you need to worm your cat.

Tapeworms are flatworms with segmented bodies. Often all you might notice occasionally is something that looks like a rice grain, on the cats' butt or on the outside of its stool or in vomit. Tapeworms are most often acquired when a cat swallows an infected flea. So keep your cats free of fleas. It is very important.

Most common tapewormers--droncit, or the generic version--prazaquantel, now available in many feed stores. These are rather large pills, and can cause foaming at the mouth, because they taste awful. You can aid the pilling process with a pill gun, available for purchase at most vet offices.

Anytime you give a cat a pill of any sort, you should follow it with a syringe full of water. Otherwise the pill material can burn the lining of the throat. Imagine yourself swallowing a pill without water. Give the water by syringe very carefully, so the cat does not inhale the water.

Roundworms are long and threadlike but have round bodies. They are nasty and can kill cats and kittens that are heavily infested. You most often will see roundworms coiled in stool or vomit. The adult worms live in the gut. When you roundworm the cat the first time, the worms living in the gut are removed, but larvae, hanging out in organs, that even migrate through organs and even through the eye of a cat, will then say to themselves, so to speak, "Look, room for us now in the gut!" And move in. Therefore, one needs to roundworm a cat three times, with doses of roundwormer given ten days to three weeks apart.

Most common roundwormers, piperazine, a thin red liquid and this wormer is available at even grocery stores. Be sure to follow dosing instructions. My favorite, however, is Strongid, a thick yellow liquid. Generic name: pyrantel pamoate.

Other wormers out now, a back of neck product, like flea treatments, available at some vets, called Profender, that is supposed to rid a cat of both tape and roundworms.

Revolution, also a back of neck tube application, rids cats of roundworms for a month's time. I like to have this product for use on ferals, as it also kills fleas, flea eggs, earmites and earmite eggs for a month. It does not kill tapeworms.

I love killing parasites. I often retrap ferals and give them flea treatment and worming. I also carry wormer with me all the time and routinely stop by colonies I've trapped for fixing and reworm all the ferals by giving them small amounts of wet food, with worm meds mingled in, and seperating the plates out. Most colonies rarely get wet food and the food competition will cause them to wolf the food quickly. Wallah! They just got rewormed!

It's one of my hobbies, you might say, worming cats. I love doing it.

Kill those parasites! They're disgusting.