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Fleas What do you use?


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I have successfully treated severe infestations (that same with kittens we adopted) naturally with baking soda, salt, lemon essential oil, and regular (not flea) pet shampoo. What's nice about it is that it is completely safe to use around young babies/children. There's nothing at all that can hurt them to this method.

 

My eHow article on it didn't copy/paste well. Here's the link that explains it fully.

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In the past, we've also treated naturally. When I got my puppy, I wet her down with lemon juice outside first, then bathed her carefully. She was NOT bringing fleas into my house. We haven't had an issue in years, but if I was anticipating anything, I'd likely do the dietary supplements (my mom gives it in a tiny bit of cottage cheese). Garlic, apple cidar vinegar, brewer's yeast would be some ideas.

 

I might also consider under some circumstance doing the yard.

 

I don't use the drops. PLEASE don't use a flea collar or Hartz ANYTHING.

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We use Frontline Plus on our cats. We get it from 1800petmeds.com. It's kind of expensive but extremely effective. We apply it once every 1.5 months, since our cats stay inside all the time. If they went out, I'd up it to once a month, at least during spring, summer, and fall. This kills fleas, ticks, lice, and flea eggs.

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Well, for those who are interested and need to save money, you can use Ivermectin 1% injectable for cattle. This is something that farm families and many dog breeders do. It is NOT recommended by your ordinary small animal vet - off label and such. Most of them also sell heart worm/ flea and worming meds and wouldn't want everyone to know they can do it so much cheaper. WAY, WAY CHEAPER - exact same medicine and dosage.

 

However, virtually everyone who ownes livestock guardian dogs does this. You give the medicine oraly 1X month. I give it to ALL five of our dogs. It treats all external and internal parasites except liver fluks and tape worms. (We worm for that once / year with safeguard.) It also prevents heartworm. Our dogs live in the pasture/ woods with the goats. They get 1 dose of ivermectin once a month. They don't have fleas, ticks, or worms and will not get heartworm. The dose is quite small, just like heartguard. Anyway, just putting this out there for those who are pinching pennies like us. You can search the internet to get dosages etc. If you are unltra conservative about these type of things, disreguard. FYI: NEVER give invermectin to collie breeds without the test to show they are not sensitive.

Edited by katemary63
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It almost killed one of our cats and did cause permanent neurological damage. It was so sad. We lost him a month or so ago and it makes me even sadder knowing that his life would have been much better if we had never used that stuff.

 

We use Revolution on our cats and have never had fleas in our house.

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We use Frontline Plus on our cats. We get it from 1800petmeds.com. It's kind of expensive but extremely effective. We apply it once every 1.5 months, since our cats stay inside all the time. If they went out, I'd up it to once a month, at least during spring, summer, and fall. This kills fleas, ticks, lice, and flea eggs.

 

Just curious, if your cats are indoors only, why do you treat them these things. How can they get it?

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Well, for those who are interested and need to save money, you can use Ivermectin 1% injectable for cattle. This is something that farm families and many dog breeders do. It is NOT recommended by your ordinary small animal vet - off label and such. Most of them also sell heart worm/ flea and worming meds and wouldn't want everyone to know they can do it so much cheaper. WAY, WAY CHEAPER - exact same medicine and dosage.

 

However, virtually everyone who ownes livestock guardian dogs does this. You give the medicine oraly 1X month. I give it to ALL five of our dogs. It treats all external and internal parasites except liver fluks and tape worms. (We worm for that once / year with safeguard.) It also prevents heartworm. Our dogs live in the pasture/ woods with the goats. They get 1 dose of ivermectin once a month. They don't have fleas, ticks, or worms and will not get heartworm. The dose is quite small, just like heartguard. Anyway, just putting this out there for those who are pinching pennies like us. You can search the internet to get dosages etc. If you are unltra conservative about these type of things, disreguard. FYI: NEVER give invermectin to collie breeds without the test to show they are not sensitive.

 

Oh, BTW, this is about dogs only.

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Just curious, if your cats are indoors only, why do you treat them these things. How can they get it?

 

Here in Western PA, we get ticks in summer. I've killed one or two from time to time that made it into the house. Same for an occasional flea. There is a shrubby/weedy/meadowy hillside behind our backyard that the deer like, but that also breeds ticks and fleas. So this keeps our cats free of vermin. Currently, we only apply the Frontline Plus during the summer and fall months, unless I see signs of excessive scratching before then.

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We have successfully treated fleas with salt, a vacuum, and a flea comb. We would comb our dog daily (at least once per day) and dip the comb into a cup of soapy water to remove and smother any fleas. We would also sprinkle the carpets with salt at night (this desiccates the fleas and eggs) and then vaccum the carpets and soft furniture in the morning. Place the vacuum bag and any combings into a heavy trash bag and place the bag in the freezer until you set the trash out to keep any surviving fleas and eggs from escaping back into your house. The longest we ever had to continue treatments was two weeks.

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