As long as the temperature remains above 13 degrees Celsius, cat fleas can survive and reproduce. An adult cat flea can lay 4-20 eggs per day. Without external environmental constraints, an adult flea will lay over 1000 eggs in its lifetime. These eggs will turn into larvae and become adults in about 4 weeks. In spring and summer, fleas reproduce faster and can grow from eggs to adults in as little as 13 days. Therefore, cat owners must pay attention to deworming their cats.
Free range cats are most prone to fleas because they have a higher chance of coming into contact with stray cats, and during their usual play in grass and bushes, they are likely to contract cat fleas. So, won’t domestic cats be infected with fleas? Not at all! Many families have cats and dogs, and dogs like to play around outside. Fleas on dogs may be transmitted to cats. In addition, the shoes and pants worn by cat owners when going out may also carry flea eggs. When cats come into close contact with their owners, they may accidentally eat flea eggs, thereby infecting cats with fleas. In summary, cat fleas will try their best to parasitize cats.
So how can the poop scooper find cats and fleas?
- When fleas bite cats, the itching is unbearable, so cats will frequently comb their fur and scratch themselves (mainly using their hind legs). And there will also be red spots or “scabs” on the area bitten by cat fleas.
- Cat fleas are very small in size, and due to their frequent movement to suck blood, they are not easily detected. The poop shoveler can dig open the cat’s fur to see if there is any feces left by cat fleas inside, which are black spots that look a bit like coffee grounds. You can collect some of these black dots, put them on white paper, and melt them with water. If the water turns red, it means it’s a cat flea.
- Of course, the poop scooper can also directly search for cat fleas on cats. Cat fleas like to stay in the inner parts of the cat’s body, such as the ribs (from the armpits to the end of the ribs), thighs, around the abdomen, around the anus, tail, and inside the ears.
Here is today’s focus, how to treat fleas on cats?
We need to understand one thing about cat fleas. The commonly seen cat fleas are only adult fleas, which account for only about 5% of cat fleas. The remaining 95% are flea eggs, larvae, and pupae. This part of the life form of cat fleas is the top priority of flea eradication work. Therefore, in order to completely eliminate cat fleas, it is necessary to choose a cat insecticide that can prevent and control fleas throughout the entire life stage.
For example, the external drive of Braun relies on non prednisolone and methoxyphene to act. These two drugs can not only kill adult cat fleas, but also flea eggs, larvae, and pupae, so flea extermination is completely clean and not repeated. At the same time, if cats are infected with fleas, they may also have tapeworms in their bodies, and Braun has taken this into consideration very well. Its internal drive relies on the action of acetaminophen and praziquantel, which can effectively kill tapeworms. In addition, it can also drive away common parasites such as ticks, lice, ear itching mites, ear scabies mites, roundworms, and hookworms, and is currently the most broad-spectrum in vitro and in vivo insecticide for cats.
Have you learned how to treat fleas on cats? Finally, I would like to remind everyone that in addition to deworming cats on time, it is also important to clean and disinfect their living areas. Otherwise, cat fleas in the environment can run onto cats and cause secondary infections.