Yes, cats can get several serious diseases from ticks, and some of them are life-threatening. While tick-borne illness gets far more attention in dogs, cats are vulnerable to infections including cytauxzoonosis (often called bobcat fever), anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, tularemia, and even Lyme disease. The risk depends on where you live, whether your cat goes outdoors, and whether you use tick prevention.
Cytauxzoonosis (Bobcat Fever)
This is the most dangerous tick-borne disease cats face in the United States. It’s caused by a parasite transmitted through the lone star tick, and it was historically considered nearly always fatal. With aggressive treatment using a specific combination of antiparasitic and antibiotic drugs plus supportive care, survival rates have improved to around 60%, but that still means a significant number of infected cats die.
Signs typically appear about 10 days after a tick bite. Early symptoms are vague: low energy, poor appetite, difficulty breathing, and pale gums. The parasites multiply inside white blood cells and clog blood vessels throughout the body, causing the disease to escalate fast. Without treatment, cats can die within two to three days of developing a high fever. In later stages, body temperature drops dangerously low, and seizures or coma can follow.
Cytauxzoonosis is most common in the south-central U.S. but has been confirmed in states stretching to the mid-Atlantic coast, including Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. Cats that survive typically recover fully within a few weeks, though they remain carriers of the parasite and can serve as a reservoir for future tick transmission.
One critical detail: the parasite can be transmitted in as little as 36 to 48 hours of tick attachment. That’s a tight window, which is why daily tick checks matter for outdoor cats in affected regions.
Anaplasmosis
Anaplasmosis infects white blood cells and is one of the better-documented tick-borne infections in cats. In a review of 33 confirmed feline cases, 94% of cats showed lethargy, 88% had a fever, and 76% lost their appetite or stopped eating. About a third had painful limbs or a painful abdomen, and 36% developed conjunctivitis (red, inflamed eyes).
Less common signs included pale gums, breathing problems, rapid heart rate, and neurological symptoms. Blood work often reveals low platelet counts, which can increase the risk of abnormal bleeding, and roughly a quarter of infected cats become anemic. The symptoms overlap heavily with other illnesses, so diagnosis usually requires a specific blood test (PCR) performed before treatment starts.
Ehrlichiosis
Ehrlichiosis in cats is caused by bacteria closely related to the one behind anaplasmosis. Confirmed natural infections in cats are relatively rare, but documented cases show fever, loss of appetite, and lethargy as the most common signs. Some cats develop joint pain, heightened sensitivity to touch, enlarged lymph nodes or spleen, pale gums, or bleeding abnormalities like tiny red spots (petechiae) on the skin or gums. Blood work may show anemia, low platelet counts, or drops across all blood cell types.
Tularemia
Tularemia is a bacterial infection that cats can pick up from tick bites or from hunting infected prey like rabbits and rodents. It is potentially fatal in cats if not treated early with antibiotics. Cats are actually more susceptible to tularemia than dogs, and their predatory habits put them at higher risk since they’re more likely to encounter infected wildlife or contaminated water in addition to ticks.
Tularemia also poses a direct risk to you. Infected cats can transmit the bacteria to humans, making it one of the few feline tick-borne diseases with clear zoonotic potential. No vaccine exists for tularemia in the United States, and the prognosis for both cats and people worsens significantly without prompt antibiotic treatment.
Lyme Disease
Lyme disease occurs far less frequently in cats than in dogs. When cats do become infected, they may develop lameness, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, or difficulty breathing. The infection can also affect the kidneys, joints, nervous system, and heart. However, many infected cats show no noticeable symptoms at all, which makes Lyme disease easy to miss entirely in felines.
How These Diseases Are Diagnosed
Because tick-borne diseases in cats share many of the same vague symptoms (fever, lethargy, not eating), a vet can’t diagnose them based on a physical exam alone. The most reliable approach is a PCR blood test, which detects the genetic material of specific pathogens. Individual PCR panels exist for the organisms behind anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, Lyme disease, and related infections. These tests work best when run early in the illness, before any treatment begins, since antibiotics can reduce the amount of detectable pathogen in the blood.
If your cat has been outdoors in a tick-heavy area and starts showing any combination of fever, lethargy, and appetite loss, mentioning the tick exposure to your vet helps them decide which tests to run.
What to Do If You Find a Tick
If the tick isn’t embedded in the skin, you can remove it with a flea comb or similar tool while wearing gloves. For embedded ticks, use fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible, and pull straight up with steady pressure. Twisting or squeezing the tick’s body can leave mouthparts behind or push infectious material into the bite.
After removing one tick, check your cat thoroughly for others, and inspect their bedding and favorite resting spots. Then monitor your cat for the next two to three weeks. The incubation period for most feline tick-borne diseases falls in the 10 to 14 day range, so watch for lethargy, appetite changes, fever, pale gums, or difficulty breathing during that window.
Preventing Tick-Borne Disease
Tick prevention products are the most effective line of defense. Topical treatments in the isoxazoline class provide up to 12 weeks of protection from a single application, with studies showing 100% efficacy against fleas from week three through week twelve. These products kill ticks quickly enough to reduce the risk of disease transmission, since most pathogens need at least 24 to 48 hours of tick attachment to infect the cat.
Only use products specifically labeled for cats. Many dog tick preventatives contain ingredients that are toxic to felines. If your cat spends any time outdoors, especially in wooded or grassy areas in the southeastern or south-central U.S., year-round tick prevention is worth the investment. Even indoor cats in tick-prone regions can be exposed if ticks hitch a ride on clothing, dogs, or other pets that go outside.