How often do you deworm, vaccinate and use flea treatment on indoor cats?

Title pretty much sums up my question, How often do you deworm, vaccinate and use flea treatment on indoor cats?

Never... the vet never advise us to do any of that since the cats are indoor only. I'm talking about deworming and flea treatment.

Vaccination... we have to do just two. Felv (I think) every two years and rabies every year, which I hate because my cats are indoor only so they shouldn't but the law when renting blah blah blah !

Once kitties are de-wormed as kittens, they shouldn't need to be de-wormed on a routine basis.  One or two rounds of de-worming meds took care of all the parasites for my gang.

We generally don't use flea preventative on our kitties unless needed. When needed, we only do it every 3 months.  I have one kitty who can't tolerate flea meds, so she doesn't get any at all.

As for vaccinating, we don't vaccinate frequently.  All of my kitties have had their kitten shots and at least 1 rabies shot. We have discussed this in depth with our vet and she's okay with our decision.   

We used the heartworm/flea/dewormer topical this spring and summer because of the previous years mosquito infestation. The first one in over 25 years of living here. We went from none to what seemed like billions because of rain and weather patterns. This year we had none and I sprayed and treated obvious potential hot spots on the property. All of our cats have had recent fecals and we have no positives for any parasite. Unless we have fleas this spring I'll treat with frontline plus again which is much cheaper and only every 6 weeks. If we had mosquitoes we'll go back to the Revolution.

My newly adopted cat is 2-3 yrs old, no idea on his history. The humane society gave him 1 yr rabies shot & dewormed him, ran standard blood tests that were all negative. I'll take him in May to get 3  yrs rabies shots & for the next two years, will do yearly on the other shots, after that I'll do tiers & only vaccinate as needed. This has approval of my vet. There are no other animals in our home.

Live in warm enough US state where fleas & ticks are a huge problem. He came with fleas, flea bite dermatitis and fur loss. I'm using Advantix as reports on Frontline, even the new formula is not working on fleas. I do take him outside every nice day on his harness, so for us, flea/tick protection is really important.

I think the flea protection, or not, is dependent on if your cats are never allowed outside, also if you have other animals that go indoor/outdoor and if you spend a lot time hiking, gardening and so forth where you'd have a higher than normal risk of fleas and ticks catching a ride into the house, on your clothing.

thank you so much! All that makes sense I just thought I would ask.

We only have two parrot, no dogs and no other cats so issues with fleas. these cats will strictly be indoor cats. I just know that the vet assistant mentioed that people deworm every few months and then do flea treatment every month so that is why I was asking. 

I don't do any unless it is needed. My cats are all strictly indoors and we have a couple of what we call  cat blockers (screened front porch, screened back porch) so the chances of them getting outside even on accident is almost 0 they would get in the screen room but no further and even that has not happened yet.

They had to be vaccinated and wormed when they were kittens so the vet could fix them. They also got their kitten worming done at that time. I did have all the kitten booster shots done then too. The next time they got vaccinated was when I moved from Ma to Fl. I had them vaccinated and treated for fleas. They had to be vaccinated and have a health certificate to travel across state lines. I  did a flea treatment before they left in case any of the other animals traveling with them had fleas. 

My vet in Ma and my vet here in Florida has said that as long as they are indoors there really is no reason to vaccinate them. If I were to bring a new cat into the mix they would be tested and vaccinated before being introduced to the gang but other than that I wouldn't bother.

Dogs on the other hand are vaccinated every 3 years and revolution is given monthly since they are walked outside and have exposure to other dogs and things.

On the worming, allowing that the yearly fecal is negative, I'd personally not worm unless you detect a problem. As your kitty is indoor only, seems there would be only a slim chance of infection. Fecals can miss stuff, as they only use a small sample. I'm a stickler for yearly check ups and that is part of my routine.  With my previous animals, I've always tested first, then treated as needed. A few exceptions with my dogs here & there but for the most part, this protocol has done well for us and saved the pups from getting needless meds.

My cats get a yearly physical with a rabies shot and other vaccinations. The vet recommended monthly flea treatment with Paradyne because it also wards off heartworm and other worms and my first cat is a very good mouser and eats his catch. It's very expensive, though, and with two cats now it comes to $600 per year, which is outrageous for indoor cats. So I stopped treating them in November, and don't plan on starting it again until April or May.

DreamerRose said:

 
My cats get a yearly physical with a rabies shot and other vaccinations. The vet recommended monthly flea treatment with Paradyne because it also wards off heartworm and other worms and my first cat is a very good mouser and eats his catch. It's very expensive, though, and with two cats now it comes to $600 per year, which is outrageous for indoor cats. So I stopped treating them in November, and don't plan on starting it again until April or May.

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That is interesting. My former vet, from years ago said cats for some reason don't get heartworm. I wonder has that changed the past few decades? Have you ever tried just treating for fleas and doing fecals to see if your cat is actually getting worms from the mice? One of my previous cats was a feral that showed up as a kitten. Mostly outdoors by his choice, not mine, only came in for naps & visits. Best mouser I ever had, ate anything that didn't eat him first. Never had worms, he always tested negative on yearly fecals. Just curious

Greypaws said:

 
That is interesting. My former vet, from years ago said cats for some reason don't get heartworm. I wonder has that changed the past few decades? Have you ever tried just treating for fleas and doing fecals to see if your cat is actually getting worms from the mice? One of my previous cats was a feral that showed up as a kitten. Mostly outdoors by his choice, not mine, only came in for naps & visits. Best mouser I ever had, ate anything that didn't eat him first. Never had worms, he always tested negative on yearly fecals. Just curious

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 I think I may revisit this with the vet in the spring. It's just too expensive. And yes, according to Paradyne, cats do get heartworm, and 40% of those that get it are indoor cats. So I guess something is necessary during mosquito season. But $25 per treatment? I'm willing to take a chance on the mice, too. Mingo doesn't catch many anymore since he cleared out the house.

DreamerRose said:

 
 I think I may revisit this with the vet in the spring. It's just too expensive. And yes, according to Paradyne, cats do get heartworm, and 40% of those that get it are indoor cats. So I guess something is necessary during mosquito season. But $25 per treatment? I'm willing to take a chance on the mice, too. Mingo doesn't catch many anymore since he cleared out the house.

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Learned something new just now, I did a search on this site about cats/heartworm and apparently, yes they can get them as per a thread from 2008. Also, there seems to be high & low risk areas. So I guess that this whole thing depends on where you live. I'd definitely speak to your vet again and if this truly needed, ask for more affordable options.

I'll definitely be asking my vet when we go right after Christmas for a check up. Things change over the years and those pesky mosquitoes can do so much damage. Living in southern, US we may be in high risk area. I know we are for dogs. Hate giving needless chemicals to my animals but it seems wrong not to protect from something truly deadly like heartworm. I just paid 75.00 for 4 months of Advantix, for one cat, so I definitely feel your pain in the wallet. On the other hand, it is much less than when we had multiple dogs 60-90#, so I can't exactly complain LOL. Personally I'm going to have to balance preventative meds with the pleasure that Mr. Sparks has for going outdoors daily on his harness. He loves it and I don't want to take that away from him, nor do I want a huge vet bill or sick cat for something we could have prevented.

Yes, I live in northern Illinois, which is low risk compared to SE US. But we still do have mosquitoes. Advantix doesn't sound much cheaper than Paradyne.