Cat First Aid Kit
Every cat owner should keep a first aid kit or medicine chest equipped with the following:
- Tweezers, blunt ends
- Rectal thermometer
- Surgical spirit Absorbent cotton
- Roller bandages, 2- and 3-inch widths
- Sterile pads
- Adhesive tape, 1 inch width
- Small scissors, blunt ends (bandage scissors, if possible)
- Nail clippers Sandpaper boards
- Brush and comb
- Eyedropper Spoon
- Small medicine bottle or baby syringe (for administering liquid medicines)
- Mineral oil, light (e.g. liquid paraffin)
- Vaseline or commercial ointment for burns
- Golden eye ointment Cotton swabs
- Glycerin
- Insect powder (rotenone and pyrethrum only, for ticks, fleas and lice) Antiseptic powder or spray
- Milk of magnesia Calamine lotion
- Epsom salts
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Diarrhoea medicine
- Malt-flavoured petroleum jelly for hair balls
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Snakebite suction apparatus, if in poisonous snake region
Note: Do not include aspirin in the cat’s medicine chest as a pain-killer. Aspirin is toxic for most cats. The reaction of a cat to aspirin is similar to that of a child who gets an overdose. At first, the cat shows signs of abdominal pain, with labored breathing. Its pupils dilate to the point where the animal is almost blind; there is delirium and theca may die. Researchers have found that cats fail to eliminate aspirin from their systems as fast as other animals; hence, there is a tendency to accumulate or store up aspirin in the body.