So Fleas

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TeaTimeBunnies

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I am having a horrible day. I woke up feeling terribly ill. Found that the dog threw up on the couch cover we JUST took to the laundromat and washed. Found pouring rain. Slipped and fell in the mud on my way to my rabbits, and spilled the feed so I had to go back and get more. Then found out that my house bunny has fleas. I know that I've read somewhere that I should use kitten flea powder on her, but what brand should I use? This is the first case of fleas on a rabbit that I've dealt with so I have no idea what to use. I only saw one flea on her and would like to nip this thing in the butt, before it gets any further. Suggestions please

-- Mon Jul 03, 2017 1:51 pm --

My mom has some anti bug goat soap that is made with all natural ingredients. Does anyone think this might work too? My rabbit also has a small wound on her hip that I've been treating with plain antibiotic ointment so I'd like to try and stay away from chemicals because of it.
 
First are the fleas only on the rabbits? Fleas are semi-species specific and there are dog fleas, cat fleas, rabbit fleas... They are not as picky as parasitic mite species, especially cat and dog fleas sharing hosts, but do not survive well without their preferred host. More often it's another source that the fleas are coming from and will die off the rabbits when their source is treated instead. That can be dogs, cats, wild rodents, yards can be horribly infested by wildlife but usually you'll also be battling them on your dogs/cats and know it by now.

If there does not seem to be another source and they can infest the rabbits specifically then you can use a variety of the prescription and otc flea meds for dogs and cats. Do not use frontline or the cheap stuff relying on other, older chemical treatments that need to be handled with more care if used. If you want to go completely nontoxic and inexpensive DE can work for minor insect infestations and stop the bites before they happen instead of after but it's messy, unsafe to breathe too much of, and has no guarantee of getting all of them. There is a range of soaps, shampoos, and dusts ranging in potential toxicity that I don't generally bother with that someone else may know to try but if DE doesn't work I go for the actual meds. For topicals advantage is the easiest, most well known to get off any site or pet store now and many of those ones previously only available from a vet have generics if you watch the ingredients closely or while it is a bit more costly (cheaper if you get the biggest dog size and draw dose by syringe) I get revolution for everyone including dog and cat to rodent from http://www.petshed.com/revolution.asp because it pretty much works without fail, quickly where other things may have resistance built up to them. I normally use http://www.morfz.com/rx/drugcalc.html for medications and dosages but unfortunately it is not up to date with the topicals approved for cats and dogs. For future reference it may be useful so I'll put it out there anyway. The dosages for the various dog/cat flea medicines shouldn't be too hard to find once you get past the sites that just say consult your vet but my "midnight" snack is growing cold and I need sleep.
 
We have been fighting fleas on our dog and cats. I guess one jumped on me as I walked into the bunny's room and then on to her. I only have seen the one flea on her, but I know how dangerous fleas can get if left to their own devices for an amount of time.
 
Fleas are nasty little critters. The scary part is that the adults you can see are only a very small percentage of the population. If you've been fighting them on your dogs for a while now, then you may be past the point of being able to use natural treatments like DE and essential oils :(

Akane made good product recommendations. Bayer also makes the Seresto collar for dogs and cats, which has the same flea control as their topical products, but lasts for 8 months and can be very cost effective. Akane was also right to steer you away from fipronil, which is often ineffective and isn't the safest thing available. The oral products on the market are also very effective and work quickly, but are more expensive.

Since you've already been seeing fleas, it's important to treat all the pets in the home with whichever product you choose for at least several months. Otherwise, the fleas will quickly resurface as soon as you stop treating and previously laid eggs hatch out.
 
Thank you both!! The dog is on a preventative that keep the fleas from breeding on her as well as prevent international parasites. The cats however are another story. The hardest part is that the fleas are awful here this year because of a poor winter. So as soon as the dog steps outside one gets on her and comes back in and breeds on the cats. I suppose it could be worse on us because we only have a rug and wood floors instead of full house carpeting, but fleas will also burrow into anything fabric and wait until the flea treatment is over so we've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to bathe pets AND treat the carpet, couch, and pillows. Ugh, I hate fleas :wall:
 
We had the problem at our first house when I was a little kid that the yard and damp, dirt floor more like crawl space than basement under the house for access was making a damp subfloor. With the wildlife and neighborhood pets wandering through the yard the fleas had taken over the yard and can live in damp flooring without biting your pets often enough to die from the chemicals. When the topicals first came out my mom was actually dosing every 2 weeks with advantage instead of monthly to keep them dead. I was too young to know what was used but that was the only time the yard was sprayed and it was with a specific product for fleas as well as the house and vacuum, vacuum, vacuum even with wood. Suck those buggers out of any cracks and dehumidify things if necessary. They don't like a dry house of any material. That's also when DE can be useful because it can cover the floor or ground and then be cleaned up or left to work into the dirt floor beneath a rabbitry while killing the hiding pests that aren't biting at the right time. If you want to get more serious there are things like sevin dust and sprays for livestock like poultry, which work as a broad insecticide and are actually toxic. It depends how extreme the situation is to warrant toxicity risks. I have seen fleas kill small animals when carried by dogs and cats into an area. Our apartment flooded because their pump failed and we had to empty the guinea pigs, degus, dwarf hamsters, and duprasi (fat tailed gerbils) to my mom's while they redid the floors. Well she's not good on flea treatment and despite not noticing it on her larger pets I had to pts the duprasi and hamsters within the week. Simply moving the animals back killed the rest of the fleas without a preferred food source to keep them going. Really once you get an established infestation in the area by wildlife and other pets treating the animals specifically is only half the battle and you'll lose the war. You need to kill those bastards on the ground or floors and remove all the ones you can so they don't keep getting on the animals or you'll have to endlessly chemically treat everything and still get some bites.

I had that same problem with the dang tropical rat mites. They could live on the pest mice coming in the house and they just kept re-infesting things. What was the worst was that if a mouse dropped a fed female in a gerbil cage hundreds of mites would hatch one night and I'd wake up to a bin of dead gerbils or in the middle of seizures and dying from bites no matter how many times I put revolution on them. It did no good to kill them after the bite and we actually took 3 cages, stacked them in the bathroom, and sealed the tops until the mites died before cleaning because they were so bad we couldn't handle the bedding and like I said it would happen over night. They'd be fine and the next day they'd be dead and if I stuck my arm in to check things it would come out completely covered in crawling dust specks that were mites. I ended up doing a layer of DE under their bedding and dusting them occasionally so the mites would die enough I could save the gerbils if it happened and spreading it on the floor around the cages of the gerbils and guinea pigs. The guinea pigs didn't get it as bad because I would guess they are farther apart genetically from mice or rats. It was a natural predator that we brought in that killed the mites after all the DE and chemicals and then we eliminated the pest mice after our 3 year fight against them and haven't seen a mite since. They couldn't live on my gerbils or guinea pigs in the house. They just had another source and were using them (and me) as an emergency food source to try to survive without their preferred host while failing to survive well enough to reproduce. I actually read of some people who just went ahead and moved because they had an infinite source of rat mites they couldn't stop. They said it was as bad or worse than bed bugs.

Fleas are a little easier and less dangerous than rodent mites but so common that anything could keep carrying them into the area. Right now I'd just try to keep the numbers down with cleaning and powders or liquid sprays depending on the surface and type of traffic around the rabbits, yard, and house while keeping the dogs and cats treated along with the rabbits as needed. If the rabbits actually get to the point they are suffering from the fleas instead of an occasional spread you can kill back off I would call a professional for the house and yard to nuke things at that point. If it gets that bad you've got to wave the white flag and while it's not without it's downsides you'll spend less having a professional use the right chemicals on the area than how often you'd have to buy milder products for spot treating areas and animals endlessly.
 
So I just want to give an update. I haven't found another flea or any flea dirt on my rabbit, but I went ahead and dusted her with baking soda to dry out any possible eggs or larvae that I can't see. Also I used an old family flea soap recipe that I modified a bit for our situation and since it worked so well and is cheap and easy to make I figured that I'd share it. It is 1 cup dish soap, 1 cup white vinegar, and salt added until is is the texture of a salt scrub. Then scrub it deep into the fur and let sit for about 5 minutes. That makes enough for about one medium sized dog, and all ingredients can be found at a dollar store. There were dead fleas coming off as I rinsed. The dish soap kills adult fleas, salt kills eggs and larvae, and the white vinegar deters more fleas. I'm also going to test using baking soda in the furniture. I figured that if it works for drying out eggs on the rabbit then it will hopefully work in everything else
 
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