Where and how do cats get ticks – and what to do if you spot one

Unlike fleas, ticks don’t jump onto cats. Instead, ticks perch on the tips of grasses and plants waving their forelimbs in the air waiting for their next host (the name given to an animal or person that a tick feeds on). This waving behaviour is known as ‘questing’.

When a cat (or us, or another animal) brushes past, ticks grab hold, climb on and clamber to a better position before attaching themselves by biting through the skin. Under the elbows and on their heads are prime locations to find ticks on cats, so those places are worth checking over.

Our cats can get ticks when they’re walking or hunting in vegetated areas. This could be a field, meadow, wood, heath, park or even just a garden. So pretty much anywhere with greenery!

Weather conditions are most favourable for ticks from spring until the end of autumn, but cats can come across ticks at any time of the year.

The most common UK tick is Ixodes ricinus (sometimes called the sheep tick). This tick is a potential carrier of Lyme disease, which is thankfully rare in cats but unfortunately can still affect them.

Dermacentor reticulatus is relatively new to the UK and these ticks have made their home here in Essex, Wales, the South East and South West. It’s believed they’ll spread to other areas of the UK.

Ticks are egg-shaped arachnids, so they have eight legs. The key thing to know is that ticks look very different before and after feeding. When they first climb onto a cat, they’re only about the size of a sesame seed. But once a tick starts feeding and swelling with the blood they’re eating, it can grow up to 200 times, reaching the size of a coffee bean. 

Left untreated, ticks will typically stay on pets for up to 10 days, feeding on their blood and increasing the chance of transmitting serious illness to them. If you see a tick on your cat, remove it as soon as possible.

Using the right technique is important because we don’t want to leave the tick’s mouthparts in the skin, where they can cause discomfort or infection. The wrong technique could also make the tick become stressed, which could increase the risk of a tick-borne disease being transmitted.

Put the removed tick in a sealed bag or container. Then either crush the tick while it’s in the bag or container, or wrap the bag or container with tape and dispose of the tick in your outside bin.

Alternatively, you can send ticks that are still in one piece to Public Health England’s Tick Surveillance scheme to help with their work.

Remember to wash your hands afterwards. And know that, even if you’ve removed a tick, there could be others on your cat – including tick larvae and nymphs. If you haven’t already used a tick treatment, treat your cat now for peace of mind.

It’s good to know that ticks tend to be less of a problem for our cats – partly down to their amazing ability to grown nearly every last square inch of their bodies and partly down to them being less likely to suffer badly with tick-borne diseases. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not a concern as ticks use an anaesthetic-like substance when they first bite to go almost unnoticed, even by our shrewd kitties. So, treating our cats can really help them stay healthy and avoid problems like local infections and abscesses where ticks bite – and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.