Sorry to step in here, I think you two have miss-understood each other.

By worming your cats, your are not ‘preventing’ them from getting worms, you are merely eliminating the worms that are there. This is what Ryan means when he says worming is a cure and not a prevention, and my understanding of this he is correct.

However, what Abook’ is saying is that there may be some worms that cats get that you do not know they have got, so to treat for worms routinely would ‘cure’ any you do not realise the cat has got. This is still a ‘cure’ and not a ‘prevention’, but it is more of a ‘just in case’ cure.

However, by worming regularly and eliminating any worms that you do not realise they have, you are ‘preventing’ the situation getting worse and ‘preventing’ any further affects that untreated worms can lead to. So I think this is what Abook’ means by ‘prevention is better than cure’.

As for worming cats that are on raw meat diets more frequently than cats that live on cat food, I think it will be one of those things people wont agree on, if you are feeding ‘human grade’ or good quality fresh meat, I should think it wont be so much of a problem. The problem is more likely to come in if cats frequently catch mice and birds, which of course a cat eating cat food can do too. I’m not sure though. I tend to worm when and if they have worms. If they have gone a while without a worming tablet, given that I have never noticed any of my cats to have worms, I do worm them as a ‘just in case’ measure from time to time.