Flea Facts and Tips


This page is filled with ways to terminate those pesky fleas! There are all sorts of different articles throughout this page. Good Luck de-fleaing!


Fighting Fleas

By Cindy Froslie

As anyone who lives in this area knows, fleas are a serious problem. Chemicals and drugs are the most frequent weapons used but at what cost to the health of your dog and you? The following ideas are a few natural, non-toxic suggestions to help make your home, yard, and dog less attractive to fleas. These will not eliminate an existing problem but will hopefully help keep one from starting.



1.} Supplement your dog's diet with Brewers Yeast. This is supposed to make your dog taste unpleasant to the fleas. It does not work immediately so give it a month or two.

2.} Sprinkle Borax powder on your carpets, let sit 30 minutes and vacuum. You can also mix Borax and baking soda (half and has to add a natural rug deodorizer. Remember to change your vacuum cleaner bag often and carry the bag outside to the can. Fleas ran live in the bag.

3.} Add Borax to your laundry, especially when washing your dog's bedding.

4.} Make a grooming spray of a few teaspoons of dog conditioner, 2-3 drops of eucalyptus oil (or oil of penny royal), and water. Use daily on your dog before brushing. Fleas are supposed to be repelled by the smell of eucalyptus.

5.} Comb your pet DAILY with a flea comb. (This is not difficult with a well groomed coat.) Pay particular attention to the rump area, the belly, and under the legs. If you see fleas or flea dirt (resembling poppy seeds) you have the start of a problem. Flea combing daily can keep you on top of the situation. Use a chemical spray to kill the fleas on the comb.

6.} Spread Nematodes (a natural flea treatment, available at lawn and garden centers) in you yard.

7.} If your dog does have fleas or has itchy, red skin, sprinkle Gold Bond Medicated Powder on the red area (as long as the skin is not broken). This will help relieve your dog while you are eliminating the problem.

The End



Flea Bites

By Deborah Churchman


WHY BITE?

We fleas bite animals for the same reason you bite candy bars -- hunger. Adult fleas suck blood for food. The animals we suck the blood from are called hosts. Most kinds of fleas suck the blood of mammal hosts such as cats and dogs.

MANY KINDS

There are about 2000 different species (kinds) of fleas. Some species, such as rabbit fleas, have only one kind of host. But some species use many hosts. Cat fleas, for example, turn up on cats, dogs, rats, squirrels, rabbits, chickens, and humans. Gotcha!

SUPER JUMPERS

Fleas are the best little jumpers in the world. We have special springy material in our legs that helps us take off faster than any other animal. And we can jump really far -- 150 times our length. That would be like an adult person jumping over 30 school buses lined up end to end!
Good thing we're such good jumpers. We can't fly. And sometimes we need to get away fast - like, if a dog is scratching at us. Also, we need to be able to get onto our hosts. Most hosts are fast movers. So we can jump and jump and jump, as much as 600 times an hour if we have to!

ATTACK OF THE KILLER FLEAS

We fleas seem like little pests to you. But in the Middle Ages, we were a very big deal. Partly because of us fleas, 25,000,000 people died. That was one out of every four people living in Europe at the time! They died of the bubonic plague, a terrible sickness caused by a bacteria. The bacteria were carried by rat fleas.

WHY WE'RE FLAT

Adult fleas burrow through fur and feathers. We're built for it, with pointed heads, flattened bodies, and no wings. We also have combs and bristles on our bodies for clinging to our hosts' body coverings. So it's really hard for the hosts to get us off.

GOOD TIMING

My friends the rabbits fleas don't lay eggs until after they suck blood from a pregnant rabbit. Then they lay eggs in the rabbit's nest. The fleas' eggs hatch around a bunch of baby bunnies. So the young fleas have a nest of new hoppers to hop onto.

EGGS, EGGS, EGGS

We fleas lay lots of eggs. A female cat flea lays one egg an hour, every hour of the adult life (which is usually about three months). Most kinds of fleas don't lay their eggs on a host animal Instead, we lay them in the host's nest or den. That's what makes us fleas so hard to get rid of. You may get us off your dog or cat. But a new group of fleas is waiting in your pet's bed. They can wait a long time too. When a young flea grows up, it covers itself with a cocoon and waits -- for up to a year. When it finally senses an animal nearby, it breaks out of its cocoon and jumps on board.

The End


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