What Every Cat Parent Should Know - About How To Keep Your Kitten Healthy

It is always a joy choosing a new little kitten and taking it home for the first time. However, you may be faced right from the start with signs of a common health problem in weaned kittens: a distended abdomen and feline diarrhea with signs of colic. All these symptoms may be caused by round worms and you will need to take action to avoid further deterioration.

Cat diarrhea is a symptom that is correlated to gastrointestinal disorders. Enteritis is caused by many infectious agents, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and endoparasites. Especially weanling kittens will suffer from round worm infestation, if preventative worming of the cat mum and kittens did not take place or were not given according to a proper schedule.

Toxocara cati and Toxascaris leonina, two feline round worm species, infect the small intestines and are responsible for poor growth, loss of condition and debilitation in young cats.
Common signs are gut motility problems that appear either in form of diarrhea, constipation, vomiting or even more severely, as invagination of sections of the intestines.
Colic is often present and so is the typical "worm belly", where intestines are gassy and distended.

Round worm larvae are being transmitted with the colostrum and milk of queens. Therefore it is very important to treat breeding cats at least before and after a pregnancy and her whole litter by the age of 4 weeks.
Weanling kittens should get worming treatment every fortnight, up to the age of 3 months. From then on they should receive regular treatment throughout their life.
This helps to control worm counts in a cat's intestines and in the environment. Poor growth, weakness and a weak immune system can be avoided effectively this way.

Suitable cat dewormer for kittens and pregnant queens contain fenbendazole which eliminates adult round worms. Fully grown-up cats can be treated with anthelmintics that are effective against adult worms and their larval stages. There are many different cat worm medicines available that come in different forms, such as tablets, paste, granules, liquids or topical spot-ons. Especially spot-on products can be used conveniently and are easily administered onto the skin, so you can be sure that your cat got the whole dose.

Anthelmintics that are specially designed for the use in cats are safe and very effective, if they are administered regularly at the right dose.
Infection with feline nematodes needs to be taken care of in time to avoid serious complications or, even worse, life-long debilitation or death at a young age.
Give your little kitten a healthy start into its young life, so it will grow and thrive well and gets the chance to turn into a healthy and happy cat.