tea (or ti) tree oil; whiskers

Sparky, the 10 week old kitten, has fleas. A houseguest said one got on her last night so I really need to do something about this pretty quick. I think just a warm water wash would be sufficient until I can get to the bank & the store tomorrow, but hubby thinks we should add some tea tree oil I have for soothing the skin on my feet. Will this affect the fleas at all, and is it harmful to the kitten?

Also, I notice he has 5 or 6 really long whiskers on each side of his face, and maybe another 6 or 8 that are only half an inch long (one centimeter) mixed in. Do kittens get their whiskers at different times? Did these short ones break, maybe due to nursing? Just curious.

As for the tea tree oil, yes it can be fatal to cats if in a good dose. I don't recomend using it at all.
The whiskers...hmmmm...they are all different. I have seen some cats with real long ones, yet I have a few that are all different lengths. Maybe someone on here has a "real answer" for ya.

Yes, please don't use tea tree oil or any other essential oil on your kitten/cat. If you want to read more, go here:

http://www.holisticat.com/aromatherapy.html

As for the whiskers, about half of my kitten's whiskers were chewed short by either her mother, or littermates. The breeder didn't really know why, guessed that perhaps mom chews them off to keep the kittens from wondering off too far, or that other kittens chewed them off in play or to show my kitten that they're higher up in the kitty hierarchy. Don't know if either of these things could be true, but the reason for the very short whiskers were mom or littermates in any case.

Oh My God!!! I will be having severe words with my VET later tonight!!
I took my Birman kitten (7 months old) to see the vet for some flea repellant, and he said that cos she was young and the fleas were'nt too bad to use a tea tree shampoo!!! Thank God she's ok!!

thanks for letting me know this in time or I would have gone ahead and done all my other cats with the same shampoo!!!

Ooooo Im mad now!!

But thanks guys!

Perhaps there is a difference between the essential oil itself and the shampoo? Because the shampoo is diluted with the other ingredients?

We ended up using organic people shampoo because we were in a pinch (houseguest complained, had to do something fast), but I will be getting some flea shampoo with the next paycheck, just to have it on hand.

Hmm, you could be right there sunlion, (I'll hold off on slapping my vet just yet then..:laughing: )

Does anyone know if tea tree shampoo is safe or not? (for kittie that is??!!)

The shampoo is okay. The essential oil (which some people use on their pets) for fleas could kill them. Matter of fact I have an article on it somewhere. I have personally decided not to use anything with the oil in it.

Phew!!! Im glad I did'nt do anything to risk my baby sprout!! I don't think I'll use it again though.....just in case! Thanks for informing me Sandie (Im seeing the vet tonight for boosters, so you just saved him heh heh..not really, Im not a violent person!! honest! :laughing2 )

LOL, I will see if I can find the article I read and put in some tid bits. I was pretty surprised when I read the article.

I never used anything chemical to get rid of Minnosh's (& her brother Portakal's also) fleas when I got her when she was around 1-1.5 months old. I first gave her a bath with a kitty shampoo. This makes the fleas unconscious for a while. And I also made a flea-cemetery-pool in a bowl with boiled water & some detergent in it. Then I carefully picked the fleas with a tweezer & put them into their cemetery bowl !! I repeated this a few times & no fleas were left at all !..I don't know if what I did at that time was a right thing, but flea products are actually pesticides as you know, so maybe it wasn't that bad at all ??

Anyway, there was a thread about natural flea repellents before. You may like to find it & try some of them maybe ??