Flea infestation is a headache best avoided
Did you know that if your pet gets fleas, the adult fleas that you see are only a small part of the overall problem?
That’s right, the adult fleas on your pet make up only 5% of the whole flea population. The other 95% of the fleas are in your home, still growing up.
That’s because a single female flea can lay up to 40-50 eggs per day. These eggs fall off your pet around your house, where they undergo several life stages before they become adults and hop back on your pet. This means that even a few adult female fleas can infest your house very quickly with a huge number of immature fleas.
This is especially problematic when you consider that these immature fleas can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months to mature into adults. This unpredictable time frame is tricky. If your pet is not on flea medications when these fleas finally reach adulthood (for example, because you thought you had finally beat the infection), they can infect your home again and restart the cycle.
Pets who are allergic to fleas suffer most while these fleas mature, since the newly mature fleas can often get in a bite or two before the flea treatment kills them. These allergic pets often need additional medication to help soothe the itchiness while all the fleas in the house are cleared.
Fleas can also pass other diseases to your pet, like tapeworms, which may require additional treatment on top of the flea treatment.
In contrast to all this, flea prevention is very simple, requiring once-monthly (sometimes even less!) administration of flea preventives, stopping fleas from ever gaining a foothold in your home in the first place.