How to know if your cat has fleas


The fleas are very annoying and dangerous insects. They feed on your cat’s blood and can cause serious diseases such as allergies, anaemia or tapeworms. It is very important to know how to detect if your kitten is infested with fleas to eliminate them.


How to tell if a cat has fleas

If a cat has fleas, it will present a series of symptoms that can help you to know if it is being attacked by these obnoxious parasites.

They are signs that, if you pay attention, are very easy to identify.

Symptoms of a cat with fleas

These signs must be distinguished from other insects or wounds that your feline pet may have on the skin and that are caused by other factors. So, the symptoms of a cat with fleas:

A cat that has fleas scratches a lot

Fleas bite our felines on the skin in order to suck their blood and feed on it. Fleas irritate our cat’s skin and make them itch. But, apart from the itchiness, the skin can also redden and even lose hair in certain damaged areas.

A cat with a flea infestation scratches a lot with its hind legs on its ears and neck.

These are the parts of the body where these parasites usually hide. Although this alone is not an indisputable sign that your kitten has fleas. Here are other symptoms.

There are cats that have more sensitive skin and tolerate flea bites quite poorly, and may even suffer a kind of allergic reaction to fleas that can make their dermis red.

There are kittens to whom flea bites produce allergic dermatitis, this disease causes their skin to become very irritated and when they scratch skin wounds and eczema occur.

If you want to prevent all this, you should know as soon as possible if your feline pet has fleas, in order to eliminate them.

Fleas on a cat can be seen running across its skin

In which parts of the feline do fleas usually hide? The truth is that these insects can be found anywhere on your cat’s body.

There are times that there may even be a flea next to your pussy’s eye feeding, although the most common is that these parasites agglutinate in the following areas:

  • The neck.
  • The cat’s ears.
  • The end of the back and the beginning of the tail.

You should look at these common areas carefully, since it is very possible that you will observe an adult flea running at high speed across your cat’s skin .

Sometimes you can see them near your cat’s ears or anywhere else on its body that has little hair.

Because of the contrast in colors, fleas are more easily detected on a white or light colored cat than on a dark colored one.

It may be that one day you will not detect fleas on your pet, but this does not mean that it does not have them, what happens is that it is not very easy to observe them because they continuously jump and get off your pussy.

When the fleas have already fed, they get off the cat and go to other areas such as your bed, the cracks in the floor or the wood or the carpets of the home. They can stay there for a few hours and then they can climb back up on the feline.

But if we do not detect them on the pussy and we cannot catch them “red-handed”, we will need another symptom to know if a cat has fleas .

How to see if your cat has fleas

To know if your cat has fleas, you must stroke it against the grain and look closely. Even if you have never physically seen any fleas, if your furry friend is full of them, you will detect some black specks (little black dots) on your cat’s skin .

Remember that, as before, when you observe your pet pay particular attention to the top of the tail, ears and neck.

The black specks that you see are flea feces and dirt that they cause. And if you see some tiny white balls, they are the flea eggs from which the nits will come out.

This is usually the easiest way to tell if your cat has fleas. The reason is that even though these parasites jump up and down your pet, their detritus or poop is deposited there! This is the trail left by fleas.


What are cat fleas

Fleas are parasitic insects that have the ability to be very fast and jump very great distances, they almost seem to fly. Interestingly, considering its tiny size, it is the furthest leaping living thing on the planet.

Thanks to their great speed, it is sometimes difficult to see them, and even more so if your cat only has a few. On many occasions, if you remove your pet’s hair looking for fleas, you are running to another area of ​​the animal and are hidden from your eyes.

But physically, what do cat fleas look like ? What do they look like ? Well, the body of these parasites are elongated, flattened and very hard. So much so that it is very difficult to kill them by crushing them with your finger.

There are different species of fleas, but they are usually very dark or black in color.

They are characterized by being “obligate parasites”. It means that its way of life is to establish itself in a feline, suck its blood to feed itself, deposit its eggs in the animal and thus complete its life cycle.

Fleas that live in cats, like those of dogs or pigs, by sucking blood act in the same way as mosquitoes with humans.

That is, using their saliva in the wounds they produce on the skin so that the blood does not clot and it can suck the blood for longer. Naturally, this involves an exchange of fluids between this parasite and the host animal, which is not healthy at all.

For all these reasons, it is important to know how to detect fleas in cats and apply the appropriate treatments to eliminate these harmful parasites, whether they are fleas or ticks. When you know for sure that your cat has fleas, you will need to deworm it.


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