While vacuuming picks up the fleas from the floor (fleas spend part of their life cycle off the animal and on the ground) there are only 2 safe ways to get the nasty little monsters off the cat and that is by flea combing or if there is an infestation a product like Front Line (drops that are placed on the back in between the shoulder blades). I would not use a stray that is sprayed onto the cat's coat. A cat will lick it off and ingest the stuff and the spray will contain some nasty chemical, no doubt.
Manual and laborious flea combing is the safest and cats like it anyway. It is a kind of proactive measure, really. It is sort of homemade too. Another proactive measure if we have lots of cats and a functional rather than "pretty" home might be Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. This is a natural and safe product too. It kills fleas by cutting their exterior skeleton and drying them out!
Some time ago I tried a device that emitted light and had some sort of sticky substance inside it but it didn't work. My cat had caught fleas from me. They were Italian fleas from Rome. I had fed a feral kitten at a restaurant and caught the fleas from her and imported them into England!
Some posts on fleas
Last summer, in august, my lovely cat Smoes suffered terribly from fleas for the 1st time in her 13 year old life. I started taking the usual flea prevention since april this year. Extra careful hoovering,more frequent hoovering (every day), putting anti-flea powder in the vacuum-cleaner, combing her fur almost every day, putting anti-flea drops between the shoulder blades. I was sure I was doing the right thing. However, my prevention measures didn't work. Perhaps the extreme hot summer had something to do with it. In despair Smoes and I visited the vet for help. In the waiting room was another catlady with the same problem. Apparently, the type of drops I had bought in the petshop didn't work for my cat, because of her size and weight. The vet gave me a specific type of drops for cats over 4 kilos. This specific type of drops also makes the fleas sterile. Within two weeks after using them Smoes and the house were free of fleas.
ReplyDeleteFlea control is something you're better off letting professionals do the work. DIY flea control is never going to be as thorough and effective.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you there. Handyman efforts in pest control only lead to headaches.
ReplyDelete