In flea control, one flea is one flea too many

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:04:59 +0000

Many flea control problems have started with “just one flea”. It can be so easy to ignore that single little parasite. After all, one flea is no big deal right? That’s where so many people go wrong. If you can see even a single flea, then you are already on the back foot in the fight against fleas. In this article I will explain how even one flea is one flea too many.

Finding one flea is only the tip of the iceberg. You may be aware that adult fleas make up only 5% of the flea population, so seeing one flea means that there will be at least another 19 fleas in various stages of development in the environment. Not only that, it has been found that when we are looking for fleas on our pets that we only find 5 to 15% of the number of fleas on the pet. That means that if you find one adult flea on your pet, there could be as many as twenty! For the purposes of this example, we will assume that one visible flea means 10 fleas living on the host.

Adult fleas will lay 37 eggs per day on average, for up to 100 days. If there are 10 fleas living on your pet, then that means that they are laying 370 eggs every day, which are falling off your pet, contaminating the environment. If you see a flea on your pet, in two weeks time there could be over 5000 eggs in the environment. In ideal conditions, the flea can complete its life cycle in around 14 days. Even if only one in a hundred eggs survive to adulthood, you could be looking at an extra 90 fleas on your pet in as little as three weeks, with new fleas hatching every day. After four weeks from seeing that one flea, you could have 460 fleas on your pet, and over one hundred thousand flea eggs in the environment.

As you can see the numbers start to get pretty scary. These numbers of course don’t take into account any fleas killed by your pet’s grooming or anything else like that, but you can see that it doesn’t take much for the flea population to explode.

Just think – all of that damage can come from seeing just one flea. As you can see, if you see even one flea on your pet then you need to start flea control straight away. If you wait even a month then your flea problem could grow into a massive issue that will take months to get back under control. If you want to avoid this situation altogether, then it is best to get a head start on the fleas and start using a monthly flea control product to kill fleas before they can become a problem.

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The Flea Life Cycle

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:35:59 +0000

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” Sun Tzu

The war against fleas is like any other war. Sun Tzu was an excellent general who knew the value of understanding the enemy that you are fighting against, and I thinkthis statement stands true regardless of the size of your battlefied. If you are going to win the battle against fleas it is important to understand them. Today I am going to talk about the different life stages of fleas. This knowledge will help to defeat fleas in your home.

The most common flea found on dogs and cats in Australia is the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis. It is originally from Africa, and may have been brought into Europe during the Crusades, before spreading throughout the whole world along with human migration. Its life cycle can be split up into five main stages:

The adult flea:

The adult cat flea is around 2-4mm long and a dark brown colour. The body is compressed laterally to make it easier for the flea to navigate in between hairs. It is capable of great jumping feats, with an average jumping distance of 20cm and an average height of 15-25cm. The adult flea is a permament parasite. It is very unlikely to jump from one pet to another, and only survives 3-5 days in the environment Adult fleas take their first blood meal within 30 minutes, and breed within 48 hours. Females can lay up to 50 eggs/day for 50-100 days with an average of 20-30 eggs a day laid over a 2 month period. Fleas can live 100 days or more.

Eggs:

Flea eggs are pearly-white and oval-shaped. They are about 0.5mm long. Flea eggs are not sticky, so after being laid they fall from the fur and accumulate in areas where the host spends most of their time. Sleeping and resting areas in particular are likely to become heavily contaminated.

Eggs hatch in 3-7 days to produce flea larvae.

Flea Larvae:

Once hatched, flea larvae will seek a dark, humid area to hide in while they develop. They can move up to 20cm to do this, and will often take up residence at the base of carpet fibers, under furniture and in cracks in the flooring. Larvae feed mostly on flea poo and other organic debris. Larvae are very sensitive to dessication (drying out), and will die if exposed to relative humidity levels of less than 33%. Flea larvae take 5 days to 3 weeks to develop into pupae depending on environmental conditions.

Pupae

The third larval stage matures into a pupa, which is usually covered by a silk cocoon. The cocoon is whitish, about 0.5mm long and is covered in sticky silk fibres. These pick up debris from the environment and help to camouflage the pupa. The pupa metamorphoses into an adult in 6 days to several weeks. At this stage it can do one of two things: if there are animals around, it will hatch as an adult and try to find a host. If there are no animals around, then they can remain in the cocoon as a pre-emerged adult.

Pre-emerged adult

If no animals, adults will survive for around 150 days in their coccoon. At this stage they are protected from insecticides, which makes them very difficult to kill. Their ability to remain in the cocoon for a long time means that fleas can continue to emerge into the environment for up to 4-6 weeks after beginning a flea control program. When they do emerge, fleas are stimulated by factors like light, vibrations, and carbon dioxide to jump on their host and begin feeding.

Now that you know a little more about fleas, you can see why sometimes they are such a difficult opponent. The ability to remain in the cocoon for so long means that flea eggs laid in the summer can survive the winter and emerge in spring, leading to a sudden explosion of numbers in as short as a fortnight. This highlights the importance of using flea control all year round to keep the fleas in the environment under control.

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Flea Control » flea life cycle

In flea control, one flea is one flea too many

The Flea Life Cycle