Identify and effectively treat grass mites in cats
Summer and autumn are, among other things, exactly the time when grass mites are active and often cats are also affected. For affected animals, autumn grass mites are often associated with severe itching.
As a cat owner you should therefore know how to recognise grass mites in your cat and what you can do to eliminate the annoying skin parasites. In the following, we will explain exactly what you need to pay attention to.
What are grass mites?
The medical name for grass mites is Neotrombicula autumnalis. They are also known as the autumn grass mite, harvest mite or autumn mite. Like all mite species, grass mites are arachnids.
Unlike ear mites or mange mites, however, only the larvae of autumn grass mites live as ectoparasites on the skin of cats and other host animals. There they feed on cell juices and the lymph of the quadruped over a period of several days.
How grass mite infestation occurs in cats
The female autumn grass mites lay their eggs on damp ground. After about four weeks, the larvae of the grass mites hatch out of these, which then cling to mosses and grasses. There they wait until a suitable host, such as a roaming cat, comes along.
If the larvae of the autumn grass mite reach the body of the cat, they look for a suitable place where they scratch the skin of the four-legged friend and feed on the cell juices, lymph and partly also on the blood of their host.
Adult autumn grass mites are no problem for cats
If the larvae of the grass mites have finished their meal after a few days, they let themselves fall off the body of the cat. On the ground they then develop over a total of three nymph stages into adult autumn grass mites. These live as non-parasitic run mites on the ground, where they spend the winter and lay eggs again the following year.
Detecting grass mites in cats
Whether your cat has caught grass mites during one of her forays can usually be noticed by conspicuously frequent licking and scratching. This is because the saliva secreted by the grass mites during their meal causes severe itching in affected cats.
Apart from this, the larvae can theoretically be easily recognised with the naked eye as tiny orange dots. However, as they only grow to about 0.3 millimetres, they are sometimes difficult to see because of the cat's fur.
If you notice that your quadruped scratches himself very often, you should check his body thoroughly for possible infestation with grass mites.
As the parasites prefer body parts with thin skin, they are mainly found under the armpits and between the toes. In principle, however, autumn grass mites can attach themselves to your cat's entire body.
Grass mites can cause cats big problems
Unlike ticks, grass mites fortunately do not transmit diseases according to current knowledge. Nevertheless, an infestation with these tiny parasites can have extremely unpleasant consequences for your cat.
Excessive scratching often leads to open spots and skin inflammation. In addition, grass mites can cause wheals, pustules and incrustations on your cat's skin.
In addition, massive hypersensitivity reactions can be observed in cats, especially in the case of repeated infestation. Even if grass mites are only a temporary phenomenon due to their life cycle, you should take the annoying larvae seriously.
Treat grass mites in cats
To treat an infestation with grass mites in cats, special agents against mites can be used for external application. These are available, for example, in the form of powders or sprays.
As some preparations contain chemical agents, we recommend that you take a look at the composition before buying. Because often a gentle treatment with natural products is already sufficient for cats with grass mites.
In rare cases, however, it can also happen that the complaints are so severe that medicinal treatment with antihistamines or corticosteroids is necessary. If this is the case, you will unfortunately have to take your cat to a vet.
Preventing grass mites in cats
To prevent grass mites in cats, various products such as sprays and spot-ons are also available. As with treatment, natural products should be preferred whenever possible.
After all, the consequences of an infestation with grass mites are in most cases comparatively harmless, while certain active ingredients can be a considerable burden on the animals' bodies.
Irrespective of this, in order to avoid grass mites, it is sensible to keep the lawn in your own garden short, so that the small parasites do not find a suitable habitat and your cat can at least stay there without any problems.
Are the cat's grass mites contagious to humans?
Grass mites can infect not only cats or dogs, but also people. However, humans are a so-called false host, which is why they stop sucking after a few hours.
Nevertheless, they also cause complaints in humans in the form of so-called harvest scabies, which is characterised by itching and reddening of the skin, among other things.
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