Still have fleas!!!!!

[skunklionshow]

So we are almost at January and I have fleas again!  Phoebe went in for her blood sugar check last night and she was covered in flea dirt.  I’m so ticked off!  We had issues this summer and I treated everyone monthly.  I stopped txs in October thinking that winter would be here soon.  The vet said that they’ve been recommending year round flea meds, b/c the weather has been inconsistent and we haven’t had a cold snap for a long enough period of time.  So I have 4 cats & 2 bunnies and flea meds are approx $60 mos, maybe more, I can’t remember…..Any suggestions?  Anyone else treat their pets year round?  How costly is that to do?  I’m thinking I might talk to the vet about buying a 6 mos supply for a discount….maybe they would give me 20% off for buying in bulk?

[Scarlet_Rose]

Oh no! Not again.  Wow, those little buggers are hard to get rid of. You can try some natural remedies with your cats to see if that will ease some of the cost.  I don’t know but 1-800-PetMeds claims to give a discount on flea treatments too, so maybe check them out too.  I have a book called The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care by CJ Puotinen, I will look up some remedies for you and post them.  Unfortunately I need to go somewhere at the moment, but it is also a book you might find at your local library too. It was my saving grace with my cats and a litter of unwanted kittens with a host of "alley cat" problems including a severe flea infestation, mites and worms. Kittens I could not use a flea dip the vet would normally recommend for such severe cases so I talked to my vet about it and they agreed to let me try the herbal method and that it would be safe and darned if it didn’t work like a charm and they smelled great afterwards too! LOL O.K. I better go now.

[Scarlet_Rose]

O.K. I am back! I am at a bit of wonderment about the alluding to the weather being sporadic and the freeze not killing the fleas off.  Fleas are actually quite resillient and can survive a freeze and go months without eating.  An adult flea doesn’t live too long, but they lay thousands of eggs and incubate anywhere and everywhere and hatch in two weeks, the larvae molt twice and then spin a cocoon that they stay in for one week to a year!

Herbal treatments unfortunately fall into the big category of bad for rabbits, things like cedar and pine oil.  There is also mention of pennyroyal which I would not recommend for ANY pet or human as it is toxic.  For the little kittens I actually dipped them in some warm water with a combination of castille soap, essential oil of pine, eucalyptus, lavender and chamomile.  The pine is purported to kill the fleas and boy did it ever. Do not use any citrus oil as a treatment on a pet as toxic reactions can occur and cats are very sensitive to citrus.  Tea tree oil will help kill them in the wash for rugs and clothing, hottest setting possible for both the washer & dryer (place in the rinse cycle 2 tablespoons of 15% tea tree oil solution). Rose geranium is also good for repelling fleas.

I’ll have to look more to see if the essential oils of pine and cedar emit the phenols that are harmful to rabbits. Well, I hope this helps and I would only use the "solution I did on the cats, just soap them up with the dilution (let sit for 5 minutes) and rinse off.  I don’t like dipping per say, as it is really stressful for all.  For the rabbits, use a flea comb and place a few drops of lavender oil in water and dip the comb in as you brush.

[BinkyBunny]

What flea meds does the doctor prescribe for your bunnies?

Our vet recommends Advantage and that has worked very well – but you can’t follow the dosage on the package. The weight and the age of the bunny matter, so you have to call your vet. Advantage has always taken care of the fleas for my rabbits and cat. (All different dosages!)

Is your cat an outside cat? If once you have the rabbits free of fleas (and that means the flea eggs too -which is why Advantage is good – it kills them too) then you should only have to treat your indoor outdoor animals to prevent them from bringing them in. We were having flea troubles this year too. Here are a few things that worked for us:

1. Keep Cat treated to prevent fleas from coming indoors. Some flea meds won’t entice them to bit, but they’ll be along for the ride. Again, not to push Advantage, as there may be something else out there, but it is supposed to in a sense not only kill but repel.

2. Have a pre-entry area for humans – we can bring in fleas on our shoes, socks, pantlegs. You can use a little hand vaccum. Also baking soda is said to work, but I haven’t used to to sprinkle all over my shoes and pants. And then of course it would be all over the floor in the pre entry area, and you’d have to vacuum that up to.

3. Vacuum everyday. And if you have a large place, maybe it would work just to vacuum by the entry and main walk way areas. (don’t know..just a suggestion) I put a flea collar inside of the vacuum cleaner to kill them so that when I dump my vacuum canister, none escape. My husband recently read that just the motion of the vacuum kills them. Don’t know for sure, for sure

So far we have been flea free.

I’ve never tried the natural route with flea treatments, and I am interested to know more.  Dr. Harvey is also knowledgable and open to this, so next time I am there, I can ask her more about this too.  It seems to have worked well for Scarlet’s fuzzy gang.

 

[Scarlet_Rose]

Thanks BB.  I would like to know what your vet thinks as well, especially if they know if the pine and cedar essential oils emit phenols.  I already did my vet check up with my two and she’s pretty busy. 

I must admit that I resorted to the natural route with the kittens because the chemical shampoos and dips at the time the vet flat out said no because it could kill them or were toxic.  So out of desperation I researched and researched some more, got the blessing from the vet (only 1 or 2 drops of pine oil in a large dishpan with 2 drops lavender, 1 drop of eucalyptus and 3 chamomile and a small capful of liquid castille soap).  I did use an herbal powder on the rugs (it smelled good too) it had ground mum leaves, marigold and eucalyptus leaves.

As for another thing to use, a lot of sites will tell you to use diotomaceous earth, but it can be very harmful and irritating to any living thing if inhaled and it is very dusty, not to mention it scratches and irritates the skin.  The principal with it is that when it comes in contact with the larvae, it sucks the moisture out of it and kills it (I think it absorbs 10 times the moisture regular clay does), note that this does not work on the adults with their tough exoskeleton. It is very irritating to lungs, so be very careful with it and do not use it where you or your animals tread. You  can also use baking soda and corn starch.

Eucalyptus is purported to kill fleas (it may repel them too, there are mixed results) but I can’t honestly say that it does for sure or not, I did notice it with the pine oil though (I only put 2 drops in).  I still can picture the horrors of bathing those poor kittens.  I had to submerge their body in a mixing bowl and they were crawling all over their faces, in and out of their noses, eyes and ears, I had a roommmate hold them and calm them while I took tweezers and a flea comb while I got all of them off.  When I plucked them I had a stronger solution of hot soapy water with pine oil and lavender in it in a separate dish and it killed them right off. Though I wonder if it killed them by drowning, however I can tell you from their reaction to the scent of the other oils, they did not like it one bit. As you can imagine, this took HOURS for 5 little kittens, but it was worth it. This was a long time ago and there wasn’t anything for the kittens like there is now such as Advantage, or they were so young still it was out of the question as they were still nursing and we didn’t want mum ingesting it from licking them.

It was all a very big adventure that I can say for sure.  They all found good homes though and were very loving little darlings.

[Ash]

I love natural remedies. thanks for sharing, I’m going to add it to my book list to check out!

[Deleted User]

Having 3 dogs, four cats and a bunny, every few years we would have a flea infestation of biblical proportions. They would be everywhere. Between herbal baths, vacuming and replacing the bags everyday, we could not keep up. In desperation, I came across a flea trap from a company called Victor. What a miracle. It is basicly a night light and a sticky pad. Fleas do not live on the animals, they feed, leave their debris and jump off to live in cracks and crevices in your home. They are attracted to the light and get stuck.

Since we really could not put anything on the Bun, we would put her in her cage at night. place the trap next to the cage and after a few nights she was flea free. We still had to treat the dogs and cats, plus the areas they slept in, but we significantly reduced the amount of toxic treatments in the home. You can’t leave the traps where the rabbit can get at it, but if you can, leave them on where the cats and dogs lounge.

You can find them on Amazon.com under Victor Ultimate Flea Trap

[skunklionshow]

I usually use Revolution on the bunnies and advantage for the cats.  The vet drew me up a dose of advantage for the rabbits this weekend.  I just have to apply it.

I NEVER had fleas when I lived in Chgo…maybe Philly is just flea bag kind of town.  Our cats are all indoor only.  However, I know that the apt downstairs has had mice lately, so it could be coming from the mice.  We also have something living in the ceiling/roof.  Actually I haven’t heard it since Christmas…maybe he found a new home?  I have read that a few drops of apple cider vingear in drinking water can kill fleas & mosquitos on people/ animals.  So maybe I’ll add that to the mix.  I hate bathing the cats.  The noises they make when being bathed is absolutely horrific.

I’m going to try the flea collar in the vaccum and look up the Victor flea trap.  Its just so frustrating trying to get these buggers!!!!!

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