Selfsufficientish.com

.. does anyone know of a safe antiseptic to use on cats please, when they come home with grazes and small wounds. Found recipe on net but not convinced to be honest ... fennel, vinegar and sugar???

I have always used Sudocrem on all of our animals, well the whole family in fact

Not sure that you would be able to get hold of it though Silver Ether. Maybe someone else will come along with a more practcal idea.

My mum always use TCP with no bad effects.

Zoe

I use a couple of drops of lavender essential oil then rinse with salt water

Please read up on cats and essential oils before using any on them. I'm not an expert but I have read quite a few things that say you shouldn't use them.

Hi,
The simplest thing to use is salty water - teaspoon of salt in a pint of boiled and then cooled water. This avoids any possible problems with phenols (TCP) and essential oils, which could pose a problem if the cat licked them.
Mary

http://www.vetsinperth.com/

I use iodine (can't remember the product name but it's French anyway) for humans, as prescribed by a vet!

Betadine (I think)

I am pretty sure Lavender is safe for cats and dogs, you wouldn't want to use some of the stronger oils, and you need to make sure it is rinsed off with salt water so they don't lick it. It works wonders for infection, swelling and inflammation.

Some good info here about essential oils, haven't read it all however! http://www.thelavendercat.com/

honey also encourages tissue growth

My OH recommends cheap whisky - external on the cat or dog that is!

I had a look at the lavender cats website. It appears to be well written, but I don't like to take things at face value and I thought I would look at their references. There was a scientific paper written in 1998 about people using tea tree oil on cats. This seems to form the basis of their argument. The cases where there was any harmful effects from Tea tree were noted to be when people had used large amounts on cats. 3 cats were dipped in 60ml of 100% tea tree oil and (funnily enough) reacted badly. To me this seems like a ridiculous quantity to use as this is a really strong oil - one drop would nip my skin for ages. Tea Tree in high in terpenes and it has then been extrapolated that all essential oils that contain terpenes are harmful to cats in any quantity. 'Terpene' is a label for a group of chemical constituents, and contains a large number of different plant constituents. This link to the abstracts:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8197 ... d_RVDocSum

http://jvdi.org/cgi/reprint/10/2/208

We all know some cats love cat nip. This is a plant that contains essential oils (including terpenes). Should we be building fences to stop the cats getting to their favorite plant? I don't think it is right to tarnish all essential oil use in cats because of this paper. I think if you are sensible about it essential oils can be of great benefit to cats and other animals. Lavender is often used in cat flea treatments and I am sure that they are for sale in my local pet shop.

Try putting 60 ml of teatree in your bath compared to a few drops of lavender!!!!!

There are lots of websites out there that have testimonials about the safe use of essential oils, and I have never noted any adverse effects

100% tea tree ... mad folks. So as I need this very rarely I can use a tiny amount of lavedar to make sure its clean... or salt water to aid its healing as well as cleaning...Thanks for all the info ... Its just occasionaly she turns up with a rat... and it looked like she had be nipped on the front paw ...