Flea Facts That Will Make You Shudder
* Flea fossils date back to the Lower Cretaceous period, meaning fleas have been around for about 100 million years. At that time, fleas may have infested a Tyrannosaurus Rex or Triceratops!
* Fleas can jump up to 150 times their own length. To put that into perspective, if a human competed in the Olympic long jump with that ability, that athlete would certainly win the gold medal with a gravity-defying 1,000 foot long jump. So they can easily jump onto your pet from the ground, or from another pet.
* On average, a flea's lifespan is 21 days. The life cycle of the flea ranges from as few as 12 to as many as 190 days, depending on the environmental conditions (meal availability, humidity, temperature, etc.).
* A single female flea can lay 1000 eggs within 30 days. The female flea can lay on average 2,000 eggs in her lifetime. That means that if all 53 million dogs in the United States each hosted a population of 60 fleas, the U.S. would house more than six trillion flea eggs. Laid end-to-end, those eggs would stretch around the world more than 76 times! It's important to kill fleas before they get a chance to lay eggs.
* The female flea consumes 15 times her own body weight in blood daily.
* Female fleas lay their first egg 24 to 36 hours after the first blood meal is taken. That first blood meal happens within minutes of flea jumping onto a host.
* A flea can bite 400 times a day1. That's a rate of 4,000 bites a day if your pet has just 10 fleas.
* Of all the eggs that are laid, only 30% stay on the host animal - 70% of the eggs are deposited in the environment (rugs, sandboxes, lawns, bedding, etc) where they will hatch in 1 to 10 days!!!
* The optimal environment for completion of the flea life cycle is a low-altitude geography with a temperature between 70-75 degrees and a relative humidity of 78%.
* From the eggs, larvae emerge. This hatching takes place in the environment and not on the animals. The larvae feed on adult flea feces (partially digested blood) in the environment. Within 5 - 11 days, the larva molts twice before forming a pupa. The pupal stage typically lasts for 8 to 9 days; however, fleas can remain in this stable stage for up to 6 months if necessary. From the pupal cocoon, an adult flea emerges and a host is sought.
* At Grove Veterinary Clinic, we offer many different flea control products and can help you understand each of the various products that are used to treat and prevent flea problems and infestations. Each patient is different, and each client's environment is different. The decision about the most appropriate flea control for your companion and you is driven by many factors; the important facts to consider include your pet's lifestyle (i.e. indoor vs. outdoor, swimming behavior, bathing behaviors), your home environment (i.e. are children present, is there carpet in the home, etc), the characteristics of your yard and surrounding environment (woods, fields, urban, etc.), your pet's medical status (i.e. allergies or other illness), and your pet's sensitivity to medications.
* We carry oral and topical flea control options. The products that we carry include Merial's Frontline Plus (topical), Bayer's Advantage products (topical), Pfizer's Revolution product line (topical), Novartis's Capstar tablets (oral), and Lilly's Comfortis tablets (oral).
* We are extremely excited about Lilly's FDA-approved oral Comfortis product. Clients have truly enjoyed this option for flea control; it works well and it works quickly. The duration of action has been reliable, and its safety (FDA-approval) has been proven. This oral medication option has prevented the need for application of messy pesticides to our pets; additionally, the product does not get washed off and out of the skin with bathing and swimming.
* Give us a call today to discuss what flea control option is best for your companion and you.