It’s the time of year when fleas are in full force—and some think that in Southern California, it’s all year long. Keeping your pet free of fleas is a challenge. I want to give you some pertinent facts about the lifecycle of Ctenocephalides felis, commonly known as the cat flea, but the treatment extends to all pet fleas.
When a flea jumps on a pet, it bites the animal to get a blood meal—the bite and the flea’s saliva causes an allergic reaction that leads to your pet itching and scratching. After she’s dined, the female flea can lay eggs in the hair coat within 24 hours. A female that stays on your pet’s hair coat can produce up to 50 eggs per day. These eggs fall into the environment, which for many people is the carpet in their home.
The eggs that drop from your pet’s hair coat go from egg to larva to pupa to adult flea within three to eight weeks, all depending on temperature, humidity and the ability to find a new host to bite. These hungry adult fleas that hatch after this time period causes so much ongoing trouble with continual infestation of your pet. They even make you think that a product you have been using effectively in the past is no longer killing them. This is why it’s important to kill the flea before it can become an egg factory, and that’s what most flea products do. Keep in mind that flea products take several hours to several days to kill all of the fleas on your pet when first applied.
Current flea products are convenient to use whether oral or topical, and they’re effective when used once per month. There is even a collar that will kill fleas for eight months. It should be remembered that even though these products kill fleas on your pet, that’s only 5 percent of the flea’s life cycle described above.
Once you use a flea product and start killing adult fleas, it takes several months for all the fleas in the larval and pupal stages to hatch and become adults. Once they’re adults and jump on your pet for their blood meal, they’ll be killed by your flea product and eventually you’ll have no more fleas in your environment as long as there’s no continual source of new fleas. This is the point at which you have the flea situation under control.
Until this point, your pet will be exposed to fleas in its immediate environment on a continuous basis, as the fleas hatch continually and adult fleas jump on your pet. These are the fleas that you see on its hair coat, making you think your product is not working.
How do we prevent this continual exposure of these fleas in the local environment from pestering your pet continually?
- Use your flea products year-round. This step alone will probably solve your problem. Since many flea products do more than control fleas, your pet will also be healthier regarding heartworm and internal parasites (worms).
- Flea-comb your pet before your bring it into your house after it goes outdoors, especially a dog park or similar area
- Every day, vacuum your household carpet, furniture, rugs, flooring and wherever your pet sleeps. Find where your pet’s fur accumulates, and go under baseboards, ventilators, and furniture. Pre-adult fleas like darkness, so vacuum under beds and cracks in your wood floor.
- Put a flea collar or flea powder in the vacuum cleaner bag. Put the flea-infested bag into a sealed plastic container, and discard.
- Wear white socks and walk around your house to see if fleas jump on your socks. This is a good way to monitor whether you got them all.
- Use borate powder products, which is a non-toxic powder that desiccates the fleas in your carpet.
- Wash your pet’s bedding in hot water, and let it soak in soapy water for at least 15 minutes prior to washing.
- Time your pet’s routine bathing for just before the next topical flea product application is due, to maximize its effectiveness.
- If visitors bring their pets over, make sure they’re flea free by requesting them to be treated prior to a visit. Fleas on visiting animals do not usually jump from pet to pet, but they will contaminate the environment.
- Treat all pets in your house. This commonsense suggestion is often overlooked.
- Clean your car and pet carriers.
- Treat your immediate outdoor environment if it’s a continual source of new fleas.
- Feral dogs, cats, raccoons, and opossums that take up residence or roam through your yard need to be controlled. Rabbits and squirrels are seldom a source of fleas.
Wishing you and yours a flea-free year, every year!