Image taken from http://www.hanklee.org
Summer is on its way, and with the warm weather, one of our least favourite visitors: fleas.
I hesitated to write this post because as a cat breeder, fleas are one of those things that you shouldn’t admit to having. But in the interests of cat owners out there who’ve been plagued by fleas, hopefully my experiences will help.
I’ve prided myself on a flea-free household. Because of that, I’d never had to use flea repellents, or flea killers and this meant I could rear cats as holistically possible, with a minimum of medication and a natural diet. It was part of my holistic approach to rearing cats. I’d read that the best flea repellent was to feed a raw diet. Maybe that’s true for a lot of raw feeders, in which case I was the unlucky exception.
Many years ago, when I was grooming one of my cats, a small black speck moved in the fur on the brush and yep … to my horror, it was a flea.
I can say, hand on my heart, that it was the first flea I’d seen since my moggy, Sophie died some 5 years previously. (After she died, I spent months steam-cleaning the house and it was flea-free when my new cats arrived. )
I knew that it probably wasn’t the only flea around. It could have come from any number of sources: hopped in from the neighbour’s garden, from a visitor’s clothes, from a visit to the vet … who knows.
But the fact is, by the time you find one flea, it probably means the house is infested and full of fleas in various stages of egg laying and adulthood.
And to my horror … I spotted something jumping out of the carpets. And what was that itch on my ankles …
So, how did I get rid of the fleas?
I did a lot of research on the internet on flea eradication. If done the holistic way, it would be through baths (the cat, not myself!), vacuuming twice a day etc.
However, vacuuming only gets rid of existing fleas, not the eggs that hatch into more fleas that would jump onto the cats and feed then drop off and hatch again. And you can imagine how much time vacuuming the entire house, including all the nooks and crannies would take.
The faster way would be to medicate using Frontline or Advantage and chemical sprays. There’s no need to tell you that these are non-holistic remedies.
Both Frontline and Advantage work by entering the bloodstream of the cat and poisoning the fleas who drop off and die. Frontline and Advantage are supposedly toxic to fleas, and not to mammals. But there are many articles on the net with examples of cats which have experienced bad side-effects from these neurotoxins.
So, a quandry.
The holistic way which would take a long time and may not work.
Or the non-holistic way that could have long-term health consquences for my cats.
I hate having to make decisions like that. Of course my vet recommended the latter method. He pointed out that at least with Frontline I could be sure that any fleas landing on my cats would die. And in the meantime, I’d have bought myself some time and could try other methods in getting those blasted fleas out of the house.
More later.
