Fleas Control & Managmen​t In Edmonton  

Fleas As Pest

Fleas are primarily pets' (dogs, cats) and wild animals' (raccoons, opossums, skunks, and foxes) parasites but will bite people. They live entirely on their host, as they need a blood meal to survive and reproduce. Fleas' behavior is just unlike bed bugs', but they pose serious health issues as they transmit bubonic plague disease. Like bedbugs, many are allergic to flea bites, and both pets and owners get secondary infections due to continued irritation on the skin. The other important health issue is tapeworm, where cat and dog fleas act as intermediate hosts for the tapeworm. These tapeworms infect people, especially children, if they swallow them by any means. Besides fleas transmitting diseases, most importantly, their bites medically affect the host, as there are bites and irritation causes dermatitis in pets. Pets disturbed most of the time, a continuous irritation, discomfort, and fur loss can occur in extreme cases, and animals become anemic.

What Flease Look Like and How They Develope 

Fleas are very small, 3 to 4 mm or 1/8 inch in length, dark brown to black in color, wingless, and have bodies flattened from side to side and prominently large hind legs used for jumping less than 1/8 inch long. 

Female fleas lay as many as 500 eggs in her lifetime while she lays 4 to 8 eggs at a time, or 50 eggs per day. The next stage larvae f​eed on dried blood excreted from adult fleas, known as flea dirt; that means larvae do not feed on hosts or pets. Pets' bedding or carpet provides them shelter from light where they burrow down into fibers. The larval stage lasts 1–2 weeks, and before emerging as adults, larvae pupate into silk-like cocoons. If conditions are not optimum, the pupal state remains dormant for months. This is why flea control programs require continuous monitoring and treatment. Under normal conditions and availability of a host, fleas can complete the life cycle from egg to adult in a month. 

The initial infestation started from an infested pet or pets that brought fleas, shedding from the wildlife. One must consider wildlife as a primary source of fleas, as they harbor fleas and provide all necessary ingredients of life: food, water, and shelter. In high temperatures, wildlife sheds flea larvae and adults in yards, especially with tall and green grass lawns or other small weeds.