What Kind of Worms Does My Cat Have?

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about what types of worms your cat can possibly have. There are three worms that we most associate with cats, one being round worms, two being hook worms, and three being tape worms. Now very commonly a cat could have internal parasites or worms and you may not notice a thing. Young kittens especially though can be symptomatic. You can see diarrhea from worms, you can see thinning or weight loss. You can see a large abdomen, vomiting all sorts of things just kind of failure to thrive appearance. But if you are seeing something in a stool, talk to your regular clinic or put that specimen in a ziplock bag and run it to your veterinary clinic and they can help you. The typical types of parasites that we see visually in a cat come out in the stool sometimes are round worms. This is a spaghetti looking type of worm. They are round but long. So you see this especially in young kittens because they, all kittens have round worms typically. Another type of parasite that you do see visually quite often would be tapeworms that they get from ingesting fleas. Tapeworms the actual worm itself, stays within the body but the segments of the tapeworm actually get dislodged and come out through the stool and so in a cat if under their tail they have a little dry rice appearing segments of worms those are tapeworms. But talk to your regular clinic first as far as prevention and treatment and control if you think your cat possibly has worms."