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The Tapeworm is an intestinal parasite; that needs two hosts, an intermediate host for example fleas, mice or other wild animals, and a final host being your cat, here inside your cat it develops into an adult tapeworm and lays its eggs. Tapeworms have both ovaries and testes so are capable of reproducing on their own; they have a head, neck and a segmented body white or cream in colour, and are ribbon like in appearance. An adult tapeworm can grow up to 15 -60 cms in length.

Tapeworm eggs are passed in the faeces and eaten by flea larvae the eggs then hatch inside the flea larvae and become tapeworm. The flea larvae then develops into an adult flea witch goes on to infest your cat and suck its blood, your cat then ingests the flea while grooming, then once inside the cats stomach the flea is broken down and the tapeworm released. It hooks itself onto the wall of the small intestine and from here develops into the adult tapeworm. It takes around 2-3 weeks to reach maturity, and at this stage small egg filled segments break off and leave the cats body with the faeces.

Signs of tapeworm in your cat, your cat will have small rice like segments around its anus and in its faeces, as tapeworm take nutrients from your cat they may also cause the cat to lose weight and their fur to have a rough appearance.

So how do you get rid of tapeworm in your cat? There are a number of very affective products on the market. The most commonly prescribed is Drontal by Bayer, but please always ask your vet what they would recommend.

Can you catch tapeworms from your cat? No, you can not get tapeworms from your cat, how ever if you happened to swallow an infected flea it may be possible to get tapeworms. Eating fleas is not recommended, and a regular defleaing treatment of pets is.