Ticks on Cats in Australia: Signs, Removal and Cat-Safe Prevention

Your cat has been quiet all morning. They’re hiding somewhere dark, haven't jumped up to greet you, and don't seem like themselves.

With tick paralysis, a dog gives you an obvious warning: the back legs wobble. Cats are harder to read. 

The first sign is often nothing more than hiding, a reluctance to jump, or a change in their meow. I'll take you through the signs to watch for, safe removal, and what actually protects a cat. 

If your cat is hiding, not jumping, breathing differently or sounding unusual, stop reading and call your vet first.

Tick paralysis can progress quickly, so any suspected sign warrants immediate veterinary attention, even if you cannot find a tick.

If your cat shows any of the following in a tick area, this is an emergency and not something to watch overnight:

• Unwilling or unable to jump onto furniture they normally manage
• Wobbly, weak or uncoordinated back legs
• A changed, hoarse or absent meow
• Gagging, retching or noisy, grunting breathing
• Hiding, or lying still and refusing to move
• Vomiting or bringing up food and water

Call your vet or the nearest emergency clinic before you leave the house.

The stages in a cat, and what to do at each

Do not offer food or water

If your cat is gagging or having trouble swallowing, do not give food or water. The toxin affects the throat muscles, so anything swallowed can be difficult to clear and end up in the lungs.

A proper check takes a few minutes, and you do it with your hands rather than your eyes.

You are feeling for a lump the size of a small pea, or a raised crater on the skin where a tick has been. Run your fingertips slowly through the coat rather than looking for an insect, because a tick that has not yet fed is easy to look straight past.

Work in the same order every time so you do not skip anywhere:

• Face, chin and around the mouth
• Around and inside the ears
• Under the collar and down the neck
• Chest, armpits and front legs
• Along the back and belly
• Groin and inner thighs
• Between the toes
• Base of the tail

Most ticks on cats turn up on the front half of the body, because that is the part they groom least. Long-haired cats need the coat parted section by section.

Check daily through the season, and any time your cat has been outside in a tick area. If you find one, the next section covers how to get it off safely.

Use fine-point tweezers and pull straight up, then have your cat checked even if she seems fine.

1. Part the coat so you can see where the tick meets your cat's skin.
2. Grip the tick as close to the skin as you can, aiming for the mouthparts rather than the swollen body.
3. Pull straight up in one steady, even motion. Do not twist, jerk or wiggle.
4. Put the tick in a sealed container or a zip-lock bag so your vet can identify it.
5. Check the bite site, then search the rest of your cat for more ticks.

Twisting or squeezing tears the tick and pushes more of its saliva, and therefore more toxin, into the bite site. A clean vertical pull lifts the whole tick out with the least disturbance.

What not to do

Do not apply petroleum jelly, methylated spirits, nail polish or a lit match. Each irritates the tick while it is still attached, which encourages it to salivate more into the wound.

If your cat will not let you

Cats are less tolerant of this than dogs, and a struggling cat is easy to injure. If she will not settle, or the tick is near an eye or inside an ear, stop and go to your vet. A tick removed properly an hour later is better than a bad removal now.

After removal

Signs can appear or get worse for 24 to 48 hours after the tick comes off, because removing the tick does not immediately halt the illness. Keep your cat quiet, cool and indoors, and watch them closely through that window.

Treating tick paralysis means giving your cat an antidote called tick antiserum, then keeping them in hospital while the toxin wears off.

Antiserum neutralises the toxin still circulating in the blood. It cannot undo toxin that has already bound to nerve endings, which is why early treatment works better than late treatment. A study of 76 cats treated with tick antiserum found most recovered, with reactions to the antiserum itself uncommon. Cats are usually sedated for it and monitored closely.

Alongside the antiserum, your cat will be clipped and searched for more ticks, given fluids, and helped with breathing if needed. Nursing care matters as much as the antidote, including bladder and eye care for a cat who cannot move normally.

What it costs in Australia

PetSure's 2025 claims data puts the average tick paralysis treatment cost for cats at $2,660, with the highest single claim reaching $30,479. A case caught early sits well below that average, and the top end is driven by cats needing intensive care.

Prevention costs a small fraction of that, which is worth knowing when you are planning the year rather than in the middle of an emergency.

Indoor cats carry a lower tick risk than outdoor cats, and it is not zero if you live in a tick area.

A tick does not need your cat to go outside. It needs to get into your house, and it has several ways to do that. It can arrive on your clothing after you have been in the garden, on the dog, on another cat, or through an open door onto a yard that backs onto bush.

Indoor-outdoor cats are the highest-risk group of all, because they spend time in exactly the shaded, humid, leafy places ticks wait in, and nobody is watching while they do it.

For a genuinely indoor-only cat in a tick region, the sensible position is prevention through the season and a check whenever she has been near an open door or the dog has been out in the bush.

Some dog tick products can kill a cat, so every product that goes on your cat has to be registered for cats.

This is the single most important thing on this page. Several dog flea and tick products contain permethrin, which is safe for dogs and toxic to cats. Cats break down compounds like this far more slowly than dogs do, so a dose that a dog clears without trouble can build up in a cat.

Your cat does not have to be treated with it to be harmed. Most cases follow a dog product being applied to a cat by mistake, but grooming or sleeping against a recently treated dog can be enough. Signs include drooling, muscle twitching, tremors, unsteadiness and seizures, and they are a same-day emergency.

If you have both species at home, either choose a dog product without permethrin or keep them apart for 48 hours after the dog is treated, which is the manufacturer's own advice rather than simply waiting for it to dry. Our guide to paralysis ticks on dogs covers which dog products carry it.

Check the label says paralysis tick

Cats have a much smaller set of registered paralysis tick products than dogs, and plenty of cat products cover fleas and worms without touching ticks at all. A product being labelled for cats does not mean it protects against paralysis ticks.

Before you buy, check that the pack names paralysis tick specifically. The products registered against paralysis ticks in cats, and long-acting enough to use as your routine prevention, are Bravecto Spot-On and Bravecto Plus, NexGard Spectra Spot-On for cats, Revolution Plus, Felpreva and the Seresto collar. Ask your vet if you are unsure.

The collar is worth knowing about if dosing your cat is the hard part. It runs for eight months, which is longer than any of the spot-ons, and it repels paralysis ticks as well as killing them.

Those are the ones to look for inside our cat tick treatments range.

Kittens and tick prevention

Tick products carry minimum age and weight limits, and those limits vary between products. Check the pack rather than assuming a smaller dose of an adult product is safe, and ask your vet if your kitten sits near a threshold. Our kitten flea, tick and worm treatments range is filtered to the smallest weight bands, which narrows the search.

For a kitten too young for any registered product, prevention is physical. Keep them inside through the season where you can, and check them by hand daily.

Most products kill ticks after they attach

Tick products kill ticks once they attach and start feeding, which is fast enough to prevent paralysis in most cases. The Seresto collar is the exception and repels them as well, but no product is a complete barrier. That is why a daily search through the season sits alongside prevention rather than being replaced by it.

Season and region

Paralysis ticks run down the east coast from far north Queensland into eastern Victoria, with the southern species in Tasmania, southern Victoria and south-eastern New South Wales. Numbers peak in spring and early summer and stay high through humid, wet weather. In Queensland and northern New South Wales the risk never really stops.

If you would rather run one product than three, and cover worms at the same time, our cat flea, tick and worming treatments range is where the all-in-one combinations sit, and it is usually the simpler choice for a cat that goes outside in a tick area.

If the choice between them is what is holding you up, our guide to the best flea, tick and worm treatments for cats sets the options side by side on weight range, coverage and how often each is due.

One comparison is worth reading before you buy anything for ticks: Advocate vs NexGard Spectra for cats. Advocate is a common choice and a good product, and it does not cover paralysis ticks at all. If your cat is on it and you live in a tick area, that gap is the thing to know about.

If your cat is hiding, not jumping or sounding different and you live in a tick area, call your vet now. I would always rather see a cat who turns out to be fine than one brought in a day late.

If the season is only just starting, the two habits worth building are a preventative registered for cats and a daily check through spring and summer.

Our guide to the best cat flea, tick and worm treatments covers how ticks fit alongside fleas and worms in one plan.