Did you know?
- Fleas are similar to cockroaches in that they adapt to their environment. They become stronger and more immune to the popular commercial flea control chemicals with each generation.
• Most of the fleas are living in your pet’s environment, rather than in its fur. Every flea found on your pet may mean that there approximately 30 more living in your home.
• A single flea can lay as many as 60 eggs per day. The lifespan of a flea is about 90 days, but the hibernating cocoon can survive up to year without feeding.
Controlling fleas does require some effort, but there are safer and effective ways to control fleas than chemical-based commercial flea control products.
Before reaching for pesticides, see if these safer, non-toxic methods help control flea problems:
Nematodes
While you can’t kill off the fleas that your pet is going to encounter when it goes outside, you can keep the population down in the area around your house by using nematodes. These microscopic worms eat flea larvae and are therefore a natural way to control the flea population.
Sanitize your pet’s environment
Fleas lay their eggs everywhere — in carpets, curtains, upholstery, animal bedding, cracks and crevices. Destroying the fleas’ eggs by thorough weekly vacuuming and frequent washing of animal bedding goes to the source of the problem and will help eliminate the flea population in your house. After vacuuming, be sure to replace the bag right away and take the old bag out of the house. Keeping clutter on the floor to a minimum also will deprive the fleas of hiding places.
Apply Diatomaceous Earth
Once your home is sanitized, defend against a recurrence of fleas and other insect pests by applying small amounts of diatomaceous earth throughout the home. Diatomaceous earth is a remarkable, all-natural product made from tiny fossilized skeletal remains of unicellular plants called diatoms. But while ‘DE’ may look and feel like talcum powder to us, to insects it is a lethal dust with microscopic razor-sharp edges which cuts the flea`s protective outer covering, leading to dessication and death. And while DE spells death to insects, it is harmless to humans and pets