How does my cat get worms?

There are several different ways your cat can get worms, depending on the type of worm. Roundworms and hookworms are ubiquitous in the environment. You can find them pretty much anywhere. They're very hardy, so their eggs can last a very long time in the environment. You can get exposed simply by walking around or having exposure to dirt that may come in on your shoes as a potential area. Hunting can put your cat at risk because if they eat a mouse or some other creature infected with these parasites, they could also become infected. And then, with kittens, we can see the transmission of roundworms and hookworms through the placenta and the milk. Regular deworming of kittens is essential. And then we have tapeworms, which are a slightly different group. Cats get tapeworms or the most common tapeworm that we see, through ingestion of a flea. For example, if your cat has fleas and then is grooming and eats a flea accidentally, they could become infected with tapeworms that way.

The most common way in cats is from ingestion of fleas. Fleas can carry tapeworm eggs, and those tapeworm eggs can be ingested by the cat whenever they're grooming and they pick up a flea. Into the intestinal tract it goes, hatches out, and there you have tapeworms. Ingestion of fleas is one way, along with ingesting or having worms present in their environment if they're around other cats that have it in their litter boxes.

Good question. So let's start as a kitten. Most kittens and puppies will get what we call roundworms and hookworms. They can get those from mama cat or mama dog. They can get them through the placenta. They migrate into the body and through the placenta before they're born, or they can get them through the milk while they're nursing. Adult cats can continue to get roundworms and hookworms, but those are a problem for outside cats, and they get them from going out and grazing. A lot of cats, of course, will eat grass, which would be how they would get it as an adult cat. And then the other type of worm we see are what we call tapeworms. They get tapeworms from either ingesting a flea or eating a small mammal. Those are the three types of worms that we see.

Worms can be passed in several different ways. In kittens, the most common way is to be passed through the mother's uterus, meaning parasites are obtained in kittens before they're even born. Parasites can also migrate through milk and milk glands and be obtained while the kitten is nursing. Another common way is fecal-oral transmission, where eggs of parasites are passed through the fecal material of a cat and then ingested by the cat into the intestinal tract.