Ivermectin use in cats?

[chickenneighbor]

I hope she hasn't learned about the moat, and been scared off...just sayin'....seriously, I hope she shows up. It's hard when "adopted" feral cats change their routine. You don't know what is going on with them. Hope she shows up soon.

 

[sourland]

No moat for Scaredycat.

After last year's coyote adventure she disappeared for several months, and I was certain that she had been killed. I saw tracks this morning so I feel that she is just being cautious.

 

[CatCurious]

Sourland,
We're waiting for more news on ScaredyCat. What's the latest please? Did she survive & return to you? (Wether or not you know it, you've acquired your own "following" here. It's like a cat soap opera & you're a great story teller! SO TELL. What's happening with ScaredyCat?

 

[Raine530]

Topical ivermectin for ears (Acarexx

) is FDA approved for cats and kittens over 4 weeks of age.

The safe dose for adult cats is from 200-400 MICROGRAMS

http://www.petplace.com/drug-library/ivermectin-ivomec-heartgard/page1.aspx

For cats: Dose is 0.012 mg per pound (0.024 mg/kg) once monthly for heartworm prevention.​

I stumbled on this thread looking for information on using ivermectin for fleas in cats. Thank you Bear Foot Farm for your information as well. I am curious if this dosage is effective for fleas? I know that ivermectin is ivermectin is ivermectin...but the percentage varies widely depending on brand, and what type of animal you are treating. It seems to be available for everything from horses to guinea pigs.
I have helped rescue cats for decades and right now I have 10 rescue cats, one is a mama with 5 kittens. I also have a very small budget. Worm medicine is fairly inexpensive, but treating fleas effectively can be terribly expensive, and up until this week I have never found anything to be very effective anyway. I spent days searching the internet for information and found almost nothing relating to ivermectin and cats.
Here is my anecdotal story as of today: We live in Arkansas: flea central, during the summer. Frontline no longer works, and I can't afford it anyway if I am going to continue to help with rescue cats. I have two pigs that had a terrible case of lice and were covered in ticks. I gave them the ivermectin horse paste, 1.87%, orally, about two months ago. Lice were gone in two days, never to return. So that got me thinking about fleas...ticks, etc. I found a great website on guinea pigs and ivermectin, of all things: http://www.guinealynx.info/ivermectin_products.html I used the charts to figure out a correct dosage for cats based on the dosage for guinea pigs. I know that's not very scientific, but I had nothing else to go on. I treated one of my cats as a test patient (sorry Squirt) with a topically dose of the 1.87% horse paste between the shoulder blades. It was about the size of a very small pea. She was crawling with fleas at that time, but 12 hours later, I could only find a stray flea here and there. Woo hoo! No sign of any ill effects for Squirt, so I dosed the rest of them the next day, INCLUDING (gulp) my mama kitty. She is nursing 5 week old kittens and I was very concerned knowing the medicine will pass through her milk to the kittens. But the kittens were crawling with fleas also, (herbal shampoos for kittens do not work, I just ended up with dangerously chilled kittens, despite a heating pad) and were becoming anemic. I decided the unknown factor with the ivermectin was less dangerous than anemia.
As of today, 24 hours later, all adult cats are nearly flea free. Mama kitty still has fleas (presumably from her babies) although quite a few less. Kittens are all fine, some reduction in flea population, but still pretty bad. I am hopeful that they will gradually disappear.
So...I would LOVE to hear from others with experiences with this. I am astounded that there is so little information available on this subject. Fleas can be a terrible thing to deal with, and ticks are very dangerous to cats.
PLEASE don't advise me to call the vet. He just wants to sell me his expensive flea products.
Thanks!!

 

[Trudging]

Dear Sourland, don't see a post since 2/9/13, I believe. I'm waiting to hear about Scaredy Cat. Is she ok? Have you seen her? I enjoyed your posts as I was looking for information about the use of Ivermectin in Kittens. Our local Coop in Maryville, Tennessee found 4 very young kittens, less than 2 weeks old ( just opening eyes) under a hay bale 2 weeks ago. I'm happy to say 3 have survived the ordeal and are starting to venture out of their crate. We treated them with Blue Dawn Dish Washing soap baths and my son picked out remaining fleas with tweezers. No fleas since Thank God! My 5 rescue dogs have all been treated with Ivermectin (sheep/cattle) 1/10th cc/ml per 10 lbs on back of neck monthly for years. Keeps fleas/ticks/heart worm/ intestinal worms away! Amazing STUFF! Twice a year get Strongid paste for Strongid worms too, since they seem to like our small farm supply of Llama, Horse and chicken poop for dessert! Now these kittens need something for Hair loss with scaly skin on their necks and mid sections. One also has this between rear legs. Maybe mange? Or scabies mites? One kitten is completely fluffy and furry. The all are playful and drinking their formula well. Even starting to use their little litter box I made with brownie pan and pine pellet litter! We plan on keeping all 3 as house cats. Any suggestions?

 

[sourland]

Scaredy cat thrives and is a gorgeous specimen. 3.5 years here and no kittens, so I am quite certain that she is a trap, neuter, release. I initially tried to box trap her, and she would not enter the trap even though she was near starved to death - indicating to me that she was 'trap wise' for a reason. My flower beds thrive, the pigeon lofts and utility shed are free of mice - she earns her keep. I have several bird boxes on my property, and this year she started terrorizing the nesting birds. Insect sticky traps attached to the poles of the bird boxes solved that problem. After 3.5 years she will sit on the railing of the deck and meow at me as long as I stay inside. She will wait about 25 ft away in full sight as I fill her feed dish. She will never be a pet, but at least she is feeling secure in her 'HOME'. I am slightly concerned that she is not rabies vaccinated, but since she will not let me trap her that can not be corrected. Frankly I think that trapping and vaccination would cause such stress that she would move on to a new location. So for all who have asked she is thriving.

 

[rumorasit]

We used to raise Rotties. That's all we ever used was Ivermectin and it was the plain old horse wormer in the tube that we bought. I had a ton of cats as everyone thought that because we lived on a farm it was a good place to dump their unwanted kitties. I've used Ivermectin on all of them as well and never had an issue. That's in the neighborhood of 40 cats from that time until now.

 

[Redyre Rotties]

If one is to use ivermectin, it must be the 1% cattle injectible. The doses given are SO MINUTE, and it is not evenly distributed in large tubes meant for 1000 lbs animals.

I use a diabetic syringe that measures each tenth of a CC to dose my dogs. My nearly 100 lbs dogs get 1/10th of 1 CC.

It's also important to note that certain breeds with Collie back grounds can be hypersensitive to Ivermectin.

http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/diseasesandconditions/a/CW-IvermectinSafety.htm

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: LOL
I see I'm several months late with an answer, but here it is anyway:

Ivomec does NOT affect fleas.

Use Frontline Plus for fleas:
Frontline-for dogs and cats 8 weeks and older. Give once monthly.
Cats (all sizes): 0.5cc
Dogs 0-22#: 0.67cc
Dogs 23-44#: 1.34cc
Dogs 45-88#: 2.68cc
Dogs >89#: 4.02cc

 

[rumorasit]

I came across a vet on another site and they said pretty much the same thing I did. And given the experience we had with it I'd say it kills pretty much everything but tapeworms. The tube wormer: I would squeeze a tiny bit on my fingertip (for the cats. The dogs took a larger dose) and rub it on the roof of their mouths. This was given for 3 days - wait - it's either 2 or three weeks ( This was about 16 years ago and my memory isn't the best anymore.) and dose again. As I recall we only had to do this like once every 6 months. The dogs each got a bit more of a dose than our cats did. The same site stated that the only thing Ivermectin didn't work on was tapeworms and liver flukes. None of our cats or dogs had ticks or fleas while being treated with Ivermectin and we weren't using anything else except strongid paste for the horses every other worming cycle. If you google for the info you'll get a mix of answers. All I know is none of our animals ever had fleas or ticks aside from worms. *shrug*