★★★★★
I adopted two kittens in November and both were infested with fleas and ear mites. They were babies, only four weeks old, but the mother stopped producing milk, and the woman who owned the pregnant cat said she'd had enough of the constant bottle feeding.
My key goals became to rid them of the fleas and mites, but the vet I have told me to avoid any medications at their young age, especially since one of them was the runt of the litter and barely weighed 14 ounces. The other was one pound.
Anyway, he suggested I mix 1/4 cup of olive oil with 10 drops of peppermint oil and then store it in a bottle. Every day, I'd put three or four drops of this oil mixture into their ears and then massage it in. I'd follow this with a bath in warm water with baby shampoo to kill off as many fleas as possible. Then I'd use blunt-tipped tweezers to pick off fleas that climbed to the head. Wrap them in a blanket and dry them off some. Then I'd use a flea comb to remove any other fleas that escaped. I was told that by bathing them right after the oil treatment, any mites that escaped the ear were washed away by the shampoo.
After two weeks, I took them back to the vet and heard the words I was waiting for--both kittens were completely flea and ear mite free. They are eight months old and never had fleas or ear mites again. So obviously the olive oil and peppermint oil mix did the trick. Now I have my two boys who weigh 11 and 13 pounds (the runt is 13) and as I've been told they are obviously part Maine Coon, the vet's told me to expect them to be huge. Given the size of their paws, I'd already expected that!
