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How it all started
Two years' ago I was adopted by a two-week old kitten after she was abandoned by her feral farm-cat mother, who's 'nest' had been disturbed. She had given birth to just the one female kitten in the bottom of a pheasant feeder barrel, at the back of the beater's shed on a farm. Unfortunately, workmen had come in to clear away all the contents of the shed prior to building work being carried out, which scared off the mother cat. The workmen found the kitten and as she had been handled and moved, the mother cat would not come back to her.
It was a particularly cold, damp April day and as the hours passed the kitten became weak, cold and hungry waiting for her mum to come back to feed her and keep her warm. The Keeper half-jokingly said to me that the best thing to do would be to drown her in a bucket of water as no-one had either the time, or desire, to hand-rear her.
I fed her with a syringe of specially formulated milk every four hours, around the clock, gradually extending the time between feeds until she was finally weaned. She considered me her mum and was a delightfully mischievous, gorgeous little kitten. I named her Bella.
Eventually came the time to worm her. I had delayed the process for as long as I could as I was reluctant to give her chemical drugs and knew, from when I used to work for a vet, that worming chemicals are particularly strong and potentially damaging. I eat and garden organically and try to keep chemicals out of the home as much as possible, using environmentally friendly products wherever practicable. However, Bella was now hunting and I knew that she would most definitely have worms. In fact, she was probably born with them as they could have been passed to her from her mother.
I bought a well-known brand of worming tablet from the vet and followed his instruction to give her half of the tablet. Following this she immediately became terribly ill with constant vomiting and diarrhoea. She went completely off her food and could keep nothing down, not even water. After a few days my lovely, healthy, bouncy Bella had become a miserable little bag of skin and bones and had also started passing blood.
Following advice from the vet and round-the-clock syringe feedings of glucose and water she finally, after a full week, began eating and keeping down, a little light food. It was, however, quite some time before she was back to normal.
I swore I would never put her through that again.
So followed my quest for a natural, gentle, non-chemical method of worming my little kitten, but could find nothing.
For two years I searched until one day I finally found what I was looking for; diatomite - and to my delight, discovered that diatomite not only rids animals of worms, but also fleas, ticks, lice etc. At last, no more careful combing out and drowning of fleas (I would not use any chemical flea product on her coat).
I now import and distribute this wonderful, natural product under the trade name of “NatureGuard” and it is now available and affordable to all those who, like me, wish to keep their animals, and homes, chemical free as well as free from parasites.
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