Fleas can be a problem throughout the year but their lifecycle speeds up in warmer weather and we are seeing lots of pets at the minute who are suffering from a flea infestation.
Adult fleas usually stay on the one animal. The adults start to lay eggs from 2 days of age onwards and will lay about 40 eggs per day. This means that by the time a flea has been alive for 2 weeks, it will have produced around 500 eggs.
Killing adult fleas on the pet before they become old enough to start to produce eggs is essential. Different flea products have different kill rates and your Vet will be able to advise which products to use to kill fleas most rapidly.
With only about 5% of the flea population living on the pet and 95% being eggs, larvae and pupae in the environment, control of the environmental stages is essential and it is where most people have a problem.
Products are available that will kill eggs and larvae but unfortunately there are no products available that will kill pupae and they can lie dormant in the environment for many months.
Obviously preventing environmental infestation is preferable but if the house does become infested, an environmental product that kills eggs and larvae is essential.
To try to limit the period that the difficult-to-treat pupae linger, it may be worth turning up the central heating for a couple of days to encourage the pupae to emerge as adult fleas. Although this will make the problem worse in the short term, the adulticidal products that you have used on the pet should then get rid of the emerging new adults.
Fleas in the environment will be most concentrated where the pet spends most time so vacuuming and washing bedding at 60degrees C or higher will help.
Make sure that if your Vet has recommended a product to put on your pet which controls the environmental stages, that your pet continues to access all the areas of the house that he did before the infestation so that you get environmental control everywhere that flea eggs may have been shed.
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