Ackkkkk!!!! Fleas???

[Pipp]

This is NOT flea season around here.My cats are indoor cats! They haven't been outside inyears! But just went to brush my little whitegimped kitty, and she's loaded with them!:huhItmust have been recent, I would have noticed.Iassumed the other two cats are infested as well,sothefelines got a dose of Advantage -- which they normallyonly get in the fall.

Dill (the mini-rex) and Sherry (his bonded dwarf mix) liveinvery close proximity to the cats. Iread in the Resource Center (about an hour after the Advantage was puton thecats, unfortunately :baghead) to keepotherpets awaybecause the fleas will startbailing offthe cats.Sherryhadn't been inthe living room withthe cats since they weretreated,but Dill was on the couch with one of thecats. So just in case he had them and Sherry didn't, (andSherry is just finishing her molt, don't want her ingesting all Dill'sfur if she grooms him), they are now separated. Sherry's inher tub and Dill's in a cage (horrors!) in the spare room. Ihope that I moved them in time -- if it wasn't already too late.

Dill started molting -- or I think he's molting -- yesterday or the daybefore, which now seems suspicious. He'saholy terror, noteasy to check.(I'll add that when I went to pick himup to look, he blew hiscoat, right then and there!I couldn't believe allthe hair just fallingoff of him! I assume it was astress reaction? One of my cats does that whenshe's on the vet'stable. She leaves enough hairbehind to build another cat. Anyhoo, Dill's never done thatbefore, but then I've never seen him molt before, either).:dunno

I couldn't see any fleas on him, but I'm not sure where tolook. (He doesn't trance). It will be hard to seefleas on Sherry because of her fur and skin colour. Anyhints? Do they leave the little droppings on the skin like oncats? Which bunny body parts do they hang out in?Dill was scratching his ears the other day, but they look pretty cleanto me, although I can't see very far into the inside of theear.

I'm terrified of having to deflea thebunnies.:nerves1 Really hoping thatgetting them off the cats andthen cleaning upmyinsanely messy house :blushan (been on a deadline,haven'tvacuumed in ages) will beenough.:sweep

I'd really like to know where the fleas came from as well. Iwas out picking dandelion leaves and grass for them the other day andnoticed little bumps on some of the leaves that I thought were bugeggs, and threw those leaves in the garbage and didn't take it outright away. Could they have been flea eggs??:dunno

And here's hoping than no bugs hitched a ride into the room I sharewith Pipp,or the back porch where Radar and Darry are.

(PS: I have read through the Resource Center text files, but I can'topen PDF docs, so I might have missed some stuff). rivateeyes

I'm itchy just thinking about it, argh!!! :yuck

sas, pipp, dill and sherry and radar and darry (and the cats and bugs)

 

[naturestee]

Boy am I glad I don't have that problem(yet)! Fleas should leave "dirt" (flea poop) on rabbits likethey do on cats. You could also use a flea comb tocheck. I don't know if they like specific parts of the body-I always found them all over Scooter, my parents' flea-prone cat.

I don't know why but some animals seem to just have constantfleas. Scooter was like that. He would have atleast minor flea problems year round no matter what we did, while theother cat might have maybe 10 fleas on him all year. We stilltreated both, and the carpet, and kept a flea collar in the vacuum bag,and annual carpet shampooing, and...

Does Dill groom the cats? On the back of the neck?I think the main problem with Advantage is direct ingestion before it'sfully absorbed. You only have them separated for a few hours.

The bumps on the leaves are not flea eggs, they're eggs of insects that eat plants.

Have fun!

 

[Pipp]

Yeah, one of my cats almost died from lickingthe Advantage off the other. But Dill doesn't groom thecats. I'm just hopingthe fleas didn't jump to therabbits once the Advantage made the cats inhospitable.

Flea comb! I'll have to start digging around, hope I can find it.

Really wish I knew where they came from, too, seeing as I've had greatflea control for years (after years of fighting them), so no eggs inhere, and nobody's been outside! And at first I thought thecat had been rolling in dirt or carbon or something, she was that fullof flea dirt! :shock:

I'm still very afraid of a treatment reaction from the bunnies, it willbe a last resort. Just not sure of the chances of keepingthem off the rabbits (or how to figure out if they havethem).

Have fleas ever sent anybody's bunnies into a molt? (Or something that looks like amolt?)


sas et al