Fuck you fleas. (Kitten)

Magus`

I recently got a kitten from a friend and everything is great except for one thing - it has fleas. I have done everything that is deemed safe to do for a cat of this age which is mainly give it baths (one with normal soap, one with Dawn and finally one with a low power flea shampoo) and while each time I've gotten dozens of fleas off, they just seem to repopulate over night. The thing is, the cat does not go outside and I know my house doesn't have fleas so I'm kind of at a loss of how they keep coming back in the numbers they do. They get bad enough that when I wash them I see streaks of blood come off his forehead from places they've been clustering.

Any suggestions?

Cambiata

Giving your pet a daily dose of garlic (Soft gel) is supposed to help, but I don't know how much scientific evidence there is on that.

dispatch.o

Take him to a vet, you need to get it shots anyway at 7/10/16 weeks.

Magus`

I've read that, but I've also read (just as much) it's toxic. Like when he gets a month or two older I can use stuff like Advantage but.. it just sucks to see him have this goddamn army of the things on him. Doesn't help they seem to cluster on his head a lot which is like the one place I have to be relatively hands off.

DevoutlyApathetic

Do you have a flea comb? They really help with this.

Magus`

Yep, I do. It doesn't seem to be working as well as I'd like, though. ;/

PedroAsani

Sad fact is, if the kitten has fleas, so does the house. You need to treat all the bedding, carpets, etc.

Easiest way to do this is isolate the kitten in the kitchen. Hard surfaces only. Use a cardboard box, and wash all the bedding, vacuum the carpets, treat sofas and mattresses that have come into contact with the kitten. Clothing too.

Now bathe the kitten as you have done before, and be sure to submerge as much as possible. They are going to run to the driest part, which is why they are always on the head after a bath. Comb, tweezers, even tape will help get those last lot.

Make an appointment with a vet. Fleas on small kittens can cause serious problems if left too long.

Magus`

The cat has fleas because the previous owner had it outside all the time. Not to say it hasn't spread fleas here as well, but they didn't originate here. I've checked my other cats and they don't have fleas but.. yeah. I'll try to wash him again, I just don't want to hurt his eyes.

cabsy

You definitely have flea eggs in your stuff now that you've had a kitten shedding fleas and eggs everywhere. The one thing you can ever use a flea collar for is to put in your vacuum, as long as you have a canister/bagless which you almost certainly do. That'll help when you vacuum. And yeah you definitely need a vet visit, I don't know how old it is but I'm assuming it is <8 weeks if you aren't using topical flea treatment like Advantage on it already. But then you say it's another month to two months before you can, so either you have a newborn kitten that should still be nursing or it is actually old enough. I'd recommend a vet visit either way, your vet may feel comfortable giving you advantage/frontline/etc before 8 weeks if the situation is bad enough. The reason it has so many new ones on it even after baths is that it is probably completely covered in flea eggs, and if you've had it more than a few days so is a lot of your stuff

Magus`

It's 2 months old, roughly and the general idea seems to be 3-4 months for stuff like that. I'm gonna take him to the vet soon to get his shots. I'll do the flea collar thing, though it's been a week and I haven't seen fleas anywhere else/on other cats but yeah.. probably just a matter of time.

Feral

Make sure you Advantage the adult cats.

That way if any fleas try to bite them, they'll die.

Magus`

They have flea collars (I planned for this, I just didn't realize how resilient the ones on the new cat would be). If they show signs I will definitely do that, though.

Feral

Not a fan of flea collars, personally. Seen too many cats with bad flea problems despite wearing flea collars. They seem to kill/repel fleas around the neck and forelegs but not on the haunches or rear legs.

Spot treatments are much more effective than collars. If the cost is the source of your resistance, check out bestflea.us.

ceres

I think the source of resistance is that the kitten is too young.

There's also the DE route for your stuff (not the kitten).

Julius

Magus` wrote: »

I recently got a kitten from a friend and everything is great except for one thing - it has fleas. I have done everything that is deemed safe to do for a cat of this age which is mainly give it baths (one with normal soap, one with Dawn and finally one with a low power flea shampoo) and while each time I've gotten dozens of fleas off, they just seem to repopulate over night. The thing is, the cat does not go outside and I know my house doesn't have fleas so I'm kind of at a loss of how they keep coming back in the numbers they do. They get bad enough that when I wash them I see streaks of blood come off his forehead from places they've been clustering.

Any suggestions?

Vet for a flea treatment. (Should go there anyway.) Clean everything in your fucking place: carpet, sheets and clothes.

The eggs can survive for ages in stuff. We had one of our cats come in with fleas and the only thing that worked was the treatment the vet gave combined with cleaning the entire house. Fleas die out quickly so it's basically making sure that kitty doesn't get infected again.

PedroAsani

Magus` wrote: »

The cat has fleas because the previous owner had it outside all the time. Not to say it hasn't spread fleas here as well, but they didn't originate here. I've checked my other cats and they don't have fleas but.. yeah. I'll try to wash him again, I just don't want to hurt his eyes.

Origin is unimportant once you can see the fleas. My cat will go months without any, so I avoid dosing her since I don't want to use any unnecessary medication. But then she comes back and I only notice she has them when I get bitten. She sleeps next to me on the bed, so my arm is prime exploratory ground for fleas. So that means I need to dose her, the bed, the carpet, mattress, etc. And because it only happens once a year if that, it's a good motivator for a whole-house clean.

One lifehack I found recently is that if you turn the heating off, place a large bowl of water in the middle of the room with some dishsoap in it, and place a lamp over it, close to the water. Leave overnight, and the heat from the lamp will attract and kill any and all fleas in the room.

Orogogus

Magus` wrote: »

It's 2 months old, roughly and the general idea seems to be 3-4 months for stuff like that. I'm gonna take him to the vet soon to get his shots. I'll do the flea collar thing, though it's been a week and I haven't seen fleas anywhere else/on other cats but yeah.. probably just a matter of time.

Frontline and Advantage II are both advertised for kittens 8 weeks and up. Are you sure you're not looking at the number of doses (e.g., 3 months = 3 doses)?

Magus`

Could be, yeah. I'll check again soon. Vet next week for sure.

Djeet

Flea eggs are basically indestructible. You need to break the flea life cycle. Capstar starts working within hours and kills fleas in all stages, but stops working after a few days once it's metabolized. So you use something like that to get immediate knockdown and then wash the kitten and vacuum extensively to pickup any fleas/flea eggs in the environment (carpets, bedding area, couches). Then you use something like Frontline or Advantage to get the 3-4 weeks protection against fleas. And you may need to reapply Capstar for immediate knockdown if you get another outbreak. These meds are extremely safe assuming you use the right formulations and give he right dosage for the weight. Make sure you use the right formulation though. Some formulations for dogs are toxic to cats/kittens.

Jam Warrior

You need Advantage or a similar treatment. When you get it you want to encourage the cat the cat to walk around the whole house as much as possible because she will become walking flea poison.

Anything related to catching the fleas physically is a placebo at best because you'll only be catching a tiny percentage and the eggs will be everywhere.

When you get the treatment regime up and running, keep it going and expect it to take a while to see effects. The fleas will be coming out of hibernation/eggs for months until the broken cycle runs itself out. Combine the treatment with regular (like daily) hoovering of all suspect surfaces. And empty the hoover outside right away or the little fuckers just crawl back out.

Personally we found Frontline to suddenly stop working on our cat/fleas and it caused a massive outbreak while we fruitlessly treated and got no results. Switched over to Advantage and within a few months our house was no longer a medieval plague pit recreation.

During the bad times though, ugh, you could put your head down low to look across at floor level and see all the little fuckers jumping about.

mts

You can use a lot of the flea stuff on that young a kitten the problem is you need to be competent enough to determine the correct dosage and sadly not everyone is so it's easier to say don't do it. One of the best ways to get rid of fleas in the house is to treat your other animals since they will be the source of food. You definitely want chemicals though if it's the bad an infestation you might need the collar also.

oldsak

You could try using diatomaceous earth on your kitten and house to control the infestation. I think the food grade stuff won't hurt your kitten when he cleans himself.

cabsy

Most vets really, really don't recommend flea collars for cats, quick google result, they're good for vacuums but have been known in some cases to cause cats to become seriously ill or die. I agree with Jam Warrior in that I find frontline to be not particularly effective and I'm a little irked I'm having to use it on my cat because he has ear mites, so I'd say go with Advantage if possible or Advantage Multi if you can get it/your kitten has ear mites (it likely does)

Heir

I'm pretty sure the reason nothing is working is because you haven't posted any pictures of your kitty yet.