How to know if my cat has parasites

Cats infected with parasites can have a thousand symptoms or none. The most common ones include vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss or a loss of shine in your coat, varying according to the type of parasite that nests in your body. Sometimes it is difficult to be sure that your pet is really infected, although it is advisable that you take it twice a year to deworm it, especially if it usually goes out. Since we give you the keys on how to know if your cat has parasites.

Earthworms or tapeworms

Earthworms or tapeworms are the most common internal parasites . Its scientific name in Dipylidium, and its symptoms can go unnoticed, although sometimes they usually appear in the kitten's feces, since they live in their intestinal tract. If the infestation is severe, it can cause weight loss, vomiting, irritation in the anus or growth retardation.

Ankylosomas

Hookworms (Ancylostoma) are blood-sucking parasites that live in the cat's small intestine . They can cause multiple diseases and even cause the death of the animal due to severe anemia and a low level of proteins .

Cats affected by Ankylosomas have lethargy, black stools or diarrhea, weakness and vomiting. In very serious cases anemia appears, which can be deadly for young or elderly pets. In addition, they may have small skin lesions caused by the larvae on the pads of the legs.

Ascarides

Roundworms are more common in young cats, and have a double complication: they are very resistant to treatments, and easily infect people . Their larvae can cause serious diseases if they infect small children, so it is advisable to take our pet to the veterinarian a few times a year to make sure that our pet is clean of parasites.

The most common symptoms in kittens infected with roundworms are distension of the abdomen and diarrhea, and some can lose weight and sleep more than usual. Sometimes, although it is not very common, the amount of parasites is so high that it blocks the intestines.

In addition to complications in the digestive tract, animals affected with ascarids can cough, fever and even pneumonia, by passing the larvae to their respiratory tract.

Coccidiasis

Coccidia is not strictly a parasite, but a protozoan parasite that mainly affects dogs and cats.

Symptoms usually occur in newborn animals or with a few weeks, and include diarrhea and gut pain. They present the complication that the cat suffers a severe dehydration that threatens his life.

Giardiasis

It is another type of protozoan parasite that affects cats and dogs and, in this case, usually does not present symptoms . In any case, it can cause diarrhea and blood in the stool in very small kittens that are weakened by the infection of other parasites.

Deworm cats

If your cat has parasites or as a preventive measure, you must deworm and kill these little enemies. To do this, pipettes and different specific products are available in the market, in .com we explain how to deworm your cat.