Does your cat have fleas? Cat flea treatment begins when you determine that your cat has fleas.
How do you know if your cat has become flea infested? The easiest and clearest sign that your cat has a flea problem is when it scratches itself continually. When a flea bites your cat, it leaves a certain amount of its saliva, which can cause a condition known as flea allergy dermatitis. A symptom of this is dry patches of skin on your cat. Flea allergy dermatitis may also cause your cat to lose hair due to scratching the irritated area. Cat fleas can also lead to a tapeworm infection. A large flea infestation on a small cat can cause your cat to lose enough blood that it develops anemia. Anemia from a large flea infestation can eventually lead to death.
How Does A Cat Become Flea Infested?
Interestingly enough, your cat does not pick up fleas by rolling around in the grass or scraping against a bush. In fact, it does not pick up fleas at all. It picks up flea eggs.
When your cat enters the house, some of these eggs stay on it while others may fall off and can become lodged in the fibers of your carpet or cracks in your floor.
Why Are Cat Fleas So Hard To Get Rid Off?
Once your cat has acquired the flea eggs, it's very difficult to get rid of them.
This is because a cat flea has four stages to its life cycle. While a flea begins as an egg, the flea eggs soon go into a larval stage where they create tough little cocoons and become pupae. These cocoons are so tough that they can resist practically every flea killer known to man. In fact, the flea pupae can live in these cocoons for up to a year without feeding.
Eventually the pupae will become adult fleas. This lifecycle takes anywhere from 2 to 20 weeks, depending on the temperature in your house. In the summer, the lifecycle is usually about two weeks. This is why fleas increase so rapidly during hot weather months.
Cat Flea Treatment
There are a number of cat flea treatments you can use to rid of cat fleas. But before you try any of these, be sure to talk to your veterinarian as this is the best person to recommend the best cat flea treatment for you cat, given it’s general physical condition, age and weight.
Cat Flea Shampoos And Dips
The first cat flea treatment is to give your cat a flea shampoo or flea dip. However, as you may already know, giving a cat a bath can be anywhere from difficult to impossible. If you can shampoo your cat, make sure you use a good, medicated flea shampoo. Also keep in mind, that a flea shampoo will not provide lasting flea control. You can give your cat a bath one week and find the next week that the fleas are back.
A flea dip is a strong chemical rinse that can get rid of cat fleas, mites and ticks. It is probably best to use a flea dip only if your cat also has mites. A flea dip will last approximately one to two weeks and leaves a lot of chemical residue on the cat.
Cat Flea Powders And Sprays
Cat flea powders and sprays will provide some short-term protection – 3 to 7 days -- and are very easy to use. However, they have fallen a bit out of favor recently due to the introduction of newer, better cat flea treatments.
Flea collars
Did you know that a cat flea collar works two ways? It emits a toxic gas that kills fleas and its chemicals are absorbed into your cat’s layer of subcutaneous fat. The toxic gas emitted by flea collars usually work only in the immediate area of the cat’s head and neck.
Flea collars that emit the flea killing chemicals are considered to be much more effective. However, you need to keep in mind that flea collars are not right for some cats -- especially those that spend a lot of time outdoors.
Oral Flea Medications
There is now a whole class of oral flea medicines that are considered by many veterinarians to be the best way he to treat a flea infestation. Two of these flea pills are Program® and Sentinel®. When you give one of these flea medications to your cat, the fleas ingest its blood, and the female fleas will then lay eggs that cannot hatch. These oral flea medications do not kill adult fleas so it is best to use them in conjunction with a flea adulticide treatment such as a spray or Capstar. What's more, you'll need to give your cat one of these oral flea medications probably every 30 days throughout flea season.
Spot-on Flea Treatments
Spot-on flea treatments are very effective for killing adult fleas. Some of these even include chemicals that will inhibit the larva from emerging from the flea eggs. And others can stop flea larva development as well. Common brand names for these cat flea treatments are Advantage™, Frontline®, and Bio-Spot®. Like the oral flea medications, these cat flea treatments must be given to your cat every 30 days.
Protecting Your Cat From Fleas
If your cat develops a flea infestation that goes untreated, it can turn into a serious problem for you and your cat. There are a number of cat flea treatments that can be used to rid your cat of these irriating pests. For example, a combination of a good flea medicine and a spot-on flea treatment can de-flea your cat and protect it for up to 30 days. You will have to repeat these flea treatments once a month but you can think of this as a small price to pay to keep your cat happy and flea free.
Next >> Cat Fleas