Fleas are not welcome in our cattery! A quality flea control product (Frontline, Comfortis, Revolution, Advantage or Advocate) should be applied at least 2 days prior to your cats stay to ensure they do not bring fleas into the cattery. If we see fleas on your cat, we will administer a Comfortis flea tablet which will be payable when you collect your cat. Comforts starts killing fleas in 30 minutes and lasts for a full month. Not only does this ensure that our cattery remains flea free, but it ensures your cat doesn’t take any fleas home with them.

‘My cat got fleas from the cattery!’

If you do not use flea control every month all year round, your pet is breeding fleas in your environment at home. Even if you can’t see them, they’re there! It is important you understand the flea lifecycle so you can keep your environment and your cat flea free. Pupae can survive for up to 140 days in the environment, so if your pet has just a couple of fleas before you drop them into the cattery, you will have a plague of fleas when you get home and here’s why…

 

Fleas can lay up to 50 eggs every single day.

If your pet had just a couple of fleas before you went on holidays, you potentially have hundreds of fleas waiting for your arrival when you get home. Fleas sit unhatched waiting for the right time to emerge and when the right time comes….BAM! Vibrations from your foot steps stimulate the fleas to hatch and suddenly you have a plague which you didn’t have before you went on holidays! Pre-emerged adults can hatch in less than 1 second so as soon as you walk in the door they are hatching and wanting a feed.

Fleas jump long distances to attach themselves to your pet so they can feed and lay more eggs. As your pet moves about the house or yard, the eggs drop off and hatch in the grass, carpet or in between floor boards and you get even more fleas. This flea plague is very noticeable as they all hatch at the same time. Fleas stay in the Pupae stage (outside or inside the house) and hatch when you come home. These fleas were already there, you just didn’t notice them as they hadn’t hatched yet. Fleas don’t hatch when there is no food source around!

It is interesting to look at the SIZE of the fleas. If they are very small, they have just hatched. If they are large, they are adult fleas and have been around for longer. You should also be careful of your cats carrier. If your cat has dropped eggs in their cat carrier on the way to the cattery, they will go through the life stage and wait until the perfect time to hatch. That time is when we put your cat back into the carrier and there is a food source!

This is why we recommend using Flea Control ALL YEAR ROUND.

Comfortis starts to kill fleas in 30 minutes so it guarantees your pet won’t go home with fleas well enough to lay eggs in your environment. We have very strict cleaning policies and our suites are built in such a way that it is not favourable for fleas. Floors are meticulously vacuumed and mopped in between each cat and our bedding sheets are washed after every use. Shelving is also wiped down thoroughly & beds are vacuumed.

Click here to read our E-book on Fleas. It will tell you how to kill them in your environment at home and where they love to ‘hang out’.