Hi, well to start I usually feed any cat that came to my house, and a pregnant cat start coming around 2 months ago but unlike the others cat, she remained on my yard and basically she lives here.
At some point, when I realized that she was pregnant, I started to lock her on my house where she can give birth and be safe.
Just some 3 days ago, she gave birth to 2 completely black kittens (she is black with white points) and one white kitten with black points. But when I was looking closely at the white kitten, I realize that he had fleas, and obviously all the kittens and the mother have, but they are too dark to watch the fleas.
I read that an easy way to remove the fleas is bathing the kitten, but ironically I also read that if a person touches a kitten too much, the mother can stop recognizing it by its smell, and even eat it, without mentioning that they are only 3 days old, so I guess that this is not an option.
I also read that fleas abhor the smell of chamomile tea, so I could do a bit and rub a bit over the kittens without bathing them, but I don’t know if what I mentioned in the previous point also applies.
For the mother, I don’t think I have to worry, because I’ll buy her a pipette,
I also want to clarify that the kittens are not infested with fleas, maybe they have 5 or 10, but they are 3 kittens that sleep one on top of the other, and I prefer to be safe rather than sorry.
(Sorry if this is not the correct place to ask such a question, but I couldn’t find an “AskVet” alternative on Lemmy)
Why are people upvoting you is beyond my comprehension.
The fact that you were kids and made a mistake doesn’t mean that you can’t/shouldn’t bathe a kitten!!!
Just make sure you prepare for the task: use warm water and wash the kitten from tail to neck - it’s better to avoid the head and anyway there’s little to no fleas on the head. I’m no vet, but I got this advice from my vet when I found a flea infested kitten under my car.
So, for people reding this: yes, you can bathe your kitten, but get some advice from your vet beforehand!
Personally, if there’s even a 1% chance of something killing a kitten, I don’t do that thing.
Definitely talk to your very first, if you absolutely want to give them a bath, but they clean themselves with their tongues, so absolutely not necessary whatsoever.
Then again almost everything has a 1% of killing anything, the world’s pretty dangerous. So - with a vets opnion - bathing a kitten to remove discomfornt isnt all bad news.
Great example is im sure many kittens have died eating before, but of course we still feed them