Flea Remedies

Natural worm/flea remedies for cats?

Hi everyone, I’ve been reading up about the chemical commercial flea/worm treatments on the market for pets and found out they can have serious side effects. Can anyone suggest some good natural remedies to help get rid of fleas and worms?

Thanks!

Most of the reading you have been doing involve the over the counter products generally manufactured by Hartz. These can have serious health issues for cats – they contain dangerous ingredients. The products from your vet are much safer (and actually work). Don’t equate "natural" with "safe" as many all-natural ingredients that are fine to use on dogs are lethal to cats. An example is pyrethrin – and all-natural extract of the a chrysanthemum flower. Fine for dogs, but can cause seizures and death in cats. Tea tree oil is another example – it’s lethal to cats yet is a great flea repellent for dogs.

Many of the "all natural" web sites that are selling their products don’t give you information about the safety of the product (other than their good word) or any information about it’s safety (again, other than their good word). many of them make these incredible claims that can’t be backed up with any kinds of scientific studies. I read about one that was on Yahoo Answers a couple of weeks ago that made startling claims about their product, and said horrible things about what chemicals can do to our pets. Eventually I got to the page that listed the ingredients (not easy to do) and one of the main ingredients was tea tree oil, which as I said is *not* for use on cats.

The products that your vet sells are very safe, and this is backed up by studies and real data, not the desire to make a buck. Fleas and worms can have serious side effects for our pets, and need to be dealt with in a safe and effective manner – and that means safe products from the vet.