Fleas |
Fleas
are a major problem in our area as they thrive in the mild and relatively
humid climate of the north west coast. Before the advent of central heating,
summer was the main flea season; now they are a problem all the year round.
Fleas are very small (about 2 mm long) and difficult to see as they move extremely fast. Adult fleas spend most of their lives on our pets, feeding on their blood and often causing severe skin irritation. Female fleas can lay around 50 eggs a day which fall off the pet and into carpets and bedding. The eggs hatch and can develop into adult fleas within 2 weeks rapidly resulting in a heavy infestation.
| Infectious Dermatitis caused by fleas |  |
We stock a range of safe and very effective products and can advise you on the best form of flea control to suit your household. Please note that most of the effective products are Prescription Only Medicines; this means we can only dispense them for pets which are registered with our practice and have been examined by one of our veterinary surgeons in the past 12 months.
More "Flea" information from Novartis and Bayer. The Novartis page includes a section about testing for fleas.
The flea life-cycle
Graphic with acknowledgements to Bayer
1 Within 48 hours of its first bite, the female flea starts to produce eggs, 20 or so at a time.
2 The eggs fall off the animal's coat. Larvae hatch out from them and crawl into dark corners (the bottom of your carpet is perfect).
3 The larvae pupate and spin a cocoon, inside which the adult fleas develop. Under favourable conditions, they can hatch in as little as 12 days from egg laying.
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