Flea life cycle and reapplying flea meds

[Mori]

Hello – our boy developed fleas a few weeks ago and has been to the vet for treatment. He’s had the puppy/kitten Revolution dose, and it took care of most of the fleas but it’s now a week later still finding 2-12 on him per day. Is this typical because of the flea life cycle? I thought the meds would kill all of the eggs and possibly cocoons.

We’re hand picking them off at the moment. And we’ve been repeatedly cleaning all hay/bedding/carpets/plushies/pillows/curtains – to no avail.

We’re going to possibly try salting the carpet or try diatomaceous earth and sweeping it up, but he’s free roam and area he lives in in quite large. I’m not very inclined to move him to another part of the house, that become infested with fleas while cleaning, then move him back to the area we’ve just treated. And I’m very confused how sweeping every other day, pulling out all of the furniture and doing an upholstery clean, changing his hay daily, brushing him multiple times a day and we’re /still/ seeing so many fleas.

The vet said we’d have to flea bomb the house if there are still fleas showing up in a month, which again goes back to the infesting other parts of the house issue…(we’d have to remove him from the space to somewhere else that could also get infested…)

Ca anyone offer any other recommendations? Will we be able to do a second (hopefully not but still thinking it could happen, third) dose of Revolution after a month?

Thank you in advance!

[Bam]

Revolution doesn’t kill all life stages of fleas, so repeat treatment is necessary. It has a duration of 8 days, so after 8 days, eggs can hatch and fleas thrive again. Advantage II is supposed to kill eggs and larvae as well as adult fleas. Here’s the Advantage II fact sheet: https://www.bayerdvm.com/products/advantage-ii-for-cats/ You should use the dose for kittens. We have had other members that have used Advantage II on their buns. (There is an anti-parasitic that must never be used on rabbits, and thats fipronil. It’s sold under many different brand names, for example Frontline and Sentry. It’s deadly toxic to rabbits but very commonly used with dogs and cats.)

I remember a couple of years ago there was an outbreak of fleas that were resistant to Revolution, but that was in Australia. Advantage worked on those fleas though.

Fleas in the environment will have to be dealt with though, if they persist, but with Advantage you should be able to move the bun to another part of the house without risk of that part of the house getting infested.

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