Cat keeps getting worms and vomiting

[Mrscouldron]

Hi all. We live in a very rural area and our cat is free to come and go as she pleases. She is 8 years old if that makes a difference. She’s started constantly getting worms no matter how often we treat her. She’s catching and eating at least 4-5 mice per day. She’s started being sick a lot and vomiting up the mice after she’s eaten them. I want to try and stop her from catching so many. I’m going to put a bell collar on her but is there anything else I can do? I can’t shut the cat flap as we have a dog who uses it as well to let themselves out to the garden. I also don’t want to make her a house cat after all this time her having her freedom. Any advice is much appreciated.

How do you know it’s worms - do you see them in the vomit? Can you describe the worms? Tapeworm or roundworm? What do you use to work her? How often do you worm her?

They are in her vomit moving around. They are very thin white worms if that helps identify them. We have been worming her with 2 pipettes of the spot on wormer every 4 weeks. We can’t give her a tablet as neither of us nor the vet could get her to take it. Even hiding it in food or crushing it she knows and won’t touch it. The vet assured us that the spot on works just as well though.

The life cycle of round worms is usually 2-3 months, so it’s possible that the wormer is working fine but that the cat is reinfecting itself over and over again. But are you saying you’re seeing the vomiting with live worms in every month? If yes then I would be worried the wormer isn’t 100% effective for some reason. Is the wormer profender? Or is it something like advocate that has the flea and wormer combined? What tablet have you tried - the tiny one Milbemax/Milpro? Or the bigger Drontal?

Our cat got a 3 month flea/wormer last time. Maybe try that. Obviously there are costs because you need it prescribed.

Also - who is putting the wormer on? Is it possible it's not going on the skin and only sitting on the fur?

I would urge caution again using a collar on a cat, especially in a rural setting. They can cause issues with getting caught. A vet relative has a few a year to deal with and they don’t all make it. I’d let them keep catching the mice and speak to vet about upping the worm treatment to as frequent as is safe for your cat. We live very rurally and when we moved in, our electrics had all been nibbled my rodents.

I think she’s reinfecting herself constantly. That’s what the vet thinks too. She can’t have any more than she’s having for her weight so we are at maximum dose.

Thanks for the advice re the collars. Are even the breakaway ones not advisable?

I would never take the risk myself with putting a collar on a cat even the breakaway one.

We have many cats and live very rurally too. When we moved in, we gave our neighbours super soaker water pistols in case they didn’t want our cats in their garden. They (mostly!) gave them back and one even said our cats had sorted out their rodent issue in their barn within a fortnight. We did change any carpet in the house to hardflooring to make rodent-vomit clear up a 5 second job!

Hi, we have a similar issue with our 9 year old cat. There’s no way I’d ever get a tablet into her either forcefully or disguised in food so I was using the spot on too. But she still had them so I took her to the vet and he syringed a liquid wormer (parazole I think) into her. He did another spot on while I was there and gave her a good check up. She has feline excema too so he gave her something for that as it had flared up again. Might be worth asking if your vet will do that?