Parasite Treatment for Your Pets
Worming of Cats and Dogs
Worms carried by both cats and dogs can be harmful to your pets as well as members of your family even if there are no signs of illness. The process of worming your pet should be performed every three months for adult cats and dogs to eliminate the problem. Worming can be carried out on cats and dogs which are over two weeks of age. Initially, it should be performed fortnightly until the puppy/kitten is three months old. Worming tablets can be bought from your pet store or from the pet section of your local superstore. You can also ask your vet for information and treatment in the form of tablets, granules or liquid/syrup, which may work more effectively than those purchased over the counter.
You will need to know the weight of your pet to decide how much of the medication they will require.
The process of giving tablets may not be easy which can make monitoring the amount they actually swallow quite difficult! However, using syrups (some of which are chocolate flavoured!) are much easier since the required amount can be mixed into your pet's food without the need for more forceful techniques!
The price of worming your pet starts from around £4 for a single course of treatment.
Controlling Fleas in Cats and Dogs
Most cats and dogs will need to be treated routinely for fleas, especially in the Summer time. However, as well as your pet requiring treatment, your home will also need to be vacuumed and sprayed to help eliminate the infestation problem since fleas spend little time actually on your pet. Cats and dogs can wear flea collars to protect them (costs being around £2 for a collar that is effective for a month), but you can also purchase flea sprays and spot-on treatments.
It is suggested that your pets are treated every month to avoid reinfestation. Spot-on treatments purchased from superstores cost just over £7 for 24 weeks worth of treatment (repeated every four weeks). However, the best treatment is that which can be received from your veterinary surgery.
Rabbits - Fly Strike
Especially in the warmer months, rabbits can be prone to attack from fly maggots. If this does occur, your rabbit must immediately be taken to the vet to help treat damaged skin. Sadly, quite often the rabbits have to be put to sleep since the attack can be so severe. However, to avoid such problems it is important to keep your rabbit clean. You should check your rabbit twice daily to make sure that it does not have any open wounds, sores or indeed any signs of infestation.
The use of fly screens on your pet's hutch will reduce the risk of such at attack taking place as well as protect against biting insects such as mosquitoes which can transmit myxomatosis. There is also a liquid treatment that you can use which is applied to the rear half of your rabbit to stop fly eggs from hatching.
This treatment, called Rearguard, is available from your veterinary surgeon and needs to be applied every ten weeks (£15 for a single course treatment).
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Date Added: Wednesday 5th March 2008
"Worming for dogs and cats, and indeed flea treatments should be got from a vet'. In most cases it will be cheaper. the cost of a single drontal wormer is around £2.50, far cheaper than the pet shop wormers which are not as effective. Flea treatments too are less effective from the pet shop than the vet and certainly cheaper as you have to give repeated doses and treatments to try to control the problem. I keep 14 dogs and 10 cats and keeping them worm and flea free is a priority. Imagine the suffering of a flea outbreak here. I use 'stronghold' for the dogs, which is a spot on which treats fleas,ticks,lice, earmites, mange PLUS roundworms all for an average of around £5 per month per animal. The cats get frontline flea spray plus a drontal wormer since they are more likely to get tape worm (which stronghold doesn't kill) than dogs are.It costs around £4 per cat per month to keep them worm and flea free too. Way cheaper than pet shop rubbish and safer too since some pet shop stuff has been known to kill cats. Keep your pets parasite free and get the stuff from your vet for effectiveness and cheaper price."
fenwoman