It’s never a fun sight when your pet starts scratching at their fur and fidgeting around. If you find yourself worrying about fleas, you’ve come to the right spot. We’ll equip you with all the helpful tips and tricks you need to keep fleas from being more than just an unwelcome pest in your home.
Signs of Fleas
Your pet is likely to start scratching as soon as a flea has bitten them. Unfortunately, fleas don’t usually come alone, a single fleabite can cause your four-legged friend to become desperately itchy. As if that weren’t enough, their exasperation will usually show itself in the form of red pimples or bumps on their bellies and behinds.
Not only do fleas cause irritation and scratching, but certain types of fleas can lead to alopecia or hair loss in pets. So, if you’ve noticed some balding patches and the scratching hasn’t let up for days, you may want to call the vet and get your pet checked.
Look out for small red-brown or black specks around your home – such as on furniture, rugs, and pet bedding – could be flea dirt. To distinguish flea dirt from typical household dust and dirt, collect a sample onto a white paper towel and spray it with water. If you notice reddish smear, it’s probably flea dirt.
What Do Fleas Eat?
Although fleas feed on blood from humans or animals, their diet is much more varied than simply digesting mammal’s blood. In fact, fleas need more than just blood to survive; fleas consume faeces, skin cells and even certain types of plant matter. Faeces and skin cells provide extra nutrition for fleas while they reproduce – further showing the adaptability and strength of flea populations. Understanding their dietary needs is important to effectively contain them.
Fleas have a unique habit of latching themselves onto their host’s skin for a long period of time and they can feed as much as 15x their own size every day in order to sustain the reproduction process. Although there isn’t too much information released about flea feeding habits, it is known that female fleas require blood present in large quantities to survive.
Breeding Habits of Fleas
After fleas have fed on a human or animal host, they will mate and lay eggs in the fur and surrounding environment of the host. Depending on the temperature and humidity, flea eggs can hatch within as little as one day or even as long as ten days. From there, fleas enter their larval stage before reaching adulthood and restarting the cycle all over again.
How To Get Rid of Fleas
- 1Cleaning your home and infested areas - this includes washing bedding, rugs, and pet bedding, and thoroughly vacuuming and sweeping floors and carpeted areas and along the edges of walls.
- 2Treating your pet – bathe your pet with flea treatment, you can either buy this from a local, trusted pet shop or ask your veterinary practise for recommendations.
- 3Vacuuming – make sure you thoroughly clean the areas where your pet spends most of their time lying or sitting down e.g., their bed, your bed, your carpet, chairs, and any other furniture around the house they can lay on.
- 4Contain and wash – place your pet’s bed and all effected fabrics into bin bags, secure them so that no fleas can escape. Then, wash anything you can on 60+ degrees celsius. For an added layer of protection, you can use anti-bacterial detergents that are best for killing off bacteria and germs left behind by the fleas. Once the wash is finished, dry the bedding, and put them back in their usual spot when your pet is flea free.
How To Prevent A Flea Infestation
- 1Use Flea Powder – a great way of keeping a flea free home is to use flea powder along the skirting boards of the rooms in your home, especially in the corners.
- 2Regular Flea Treatments – to keep the fleas away, you should be using an anti-flea treatment specifically for the type of pet you have and its size. If you’re unsure about what brand to use, seek professional advice from your registered vet. It’s really important you keep on top of anti-flea treatments as it greatly reduces the chance of a flea infestation happening again in the future.
- 3Monitor – check your pet regularly for fleas and check your home for any signs of infestation, you can do this by setting up traps to make sure they aren’t lurking around. If you’re worried about fleas and are unable to get rid of them, please seek the help of a professional.