Fleas (goats, chickens, pigs and cats)

[FarmerKat]

I am posting here because my question is about several different animals ...

I found 2 fleas on our dog. She is not scratching and does not have any irritated areas so I think the infestation is not too bad yet. I will give her a bath tomorrow and then use a spot on treatment (probably Advantage) - she is an indoor/outdoor dog (hangs out in the pasture & barn with the other animals a lot but spends about 1/2 the time during the day in the house and sleeps in the house). The thing that scares me is that we have carpets ... carpets and fleas are a bad combination. But I think we can nip this in the butt.

Here is what I need help with ...

The barn & pasture are shared by pigs (2), goats (2), chickens (11) and guinea fowl (2). We also have an garage cat who comes to the house during the day to play. The barn is also used to store hay.

Everything I read says to remove all bedding .... We set up the barn in the last 3 months. The barn has dirt floors. To replace all bedding, I am looking at $50 worth of pine shavings and at least $20-$30 worth of hay.

I use deep litter method in the chicken coop and have pine shavings on the ground under the roosts. The intent was to remove the litter once or twice a year and use it as compost. But the recommendations re. fleas are to burn it and replace it. Do I really need to replace it? I was thinking that adding food grade diatomaceous earth to the pine shavings and praying that freeze will get rid of any fleas during the winter. Considering that I do not know if the chickens & guineas have fleas (I just know that my dog had a couple) would you go all out, burn and replace everything?

I guess the same question goes for the goat and pig pens ... how aggressive should I be with the treatment? Again, I was going to start by adding some DE to the bedding. I do not think that fleas would bug the pigs much since they have such a thick skin ... how about the goats? Should they be treated at this point or should I just keep checking them for fleas? (The goat and pig pens are open and all animals have access to them.)

And last but not least, what is your preferred flea prevention/treatment for cats? The cat is mostly outside but he plays with the dog a lot.

[gunsmithgirl]

Um have you seen any fleas on the other livestock? At our place the dogs have had them and the goats & horses have been unaffected. I always figured it was a difference in minerals or something. But our dog had them pretty bad this summer despite the baths and spot treatments. The goats never had a one and I would've seen them I have pure white saanens which I shave down a flea would have been easy to spot. Horses-never saw one when grooming them. I would just treat the dogs and see how it goes from there, just monitor the other animals from them. Can't help with cats we have dogs to kill mice here.

[GoslingFever]

From someone who hadn't seen a flea in over twenty years until they moved to warm and sunny Tennessee --- skip Advantage. Trust me. It's a waste of your hard earned money. Fleas are resistant to permethrin and pyrethrin so much so that they are barely affected at all.

Visit Drs Foster and Smith, Jeffers, etc for K9 Advantix. This stuff is expensive, but go the other way and you'll be paying through the nose for treatments that just seem to make the fleas try harder.

This works for Dogs. Hopefully someone will chime in with a good product for the other animals.

[GoslingFever]

And DE is almost always recommended. Before you try that, take a good look at reviews on Amazon - somewhere there is a fantastic review from a guy who took two jars. In one, he popped in some fleas. In the other, he popped in fleas and DE. Days later, the fleas in the DE were still hopping and happy as ever, even when he shook it up and covered them in it.

Some people swear by it, but...

[FarmerKat]

Gunsmithgirl, I have not seen fleas on the other animals. But I have been through an awful flea infestation before and I do not want a repeat. We only had 3 dogs back then and hardwood floors ... The dogs were outside. You would walk out in the yard and your ankles were covered with fleas. Even without any carpets, the house got infected too and you could see them jumping around. I always try natural treatments first but the nematodes did not take in a sandy dry yard. We literally spent hundreds of dollars on every flea killing chemical known to man to treat the yard and eventually won the battle. But I never want to see this again. This was in Florida - so no relief weather-wise.

Gosling Fever, thank you for the tip about k9 ad advantix. I used advantage before and it worked better than Frontline on the fleas. But that was a while ago. I have just successfully eradicated hog lice with DE so I know it kills some critters (and we used DE inside our house in FL during the flea problem I mentioned above). I may have to try the jar test though ....

[Forcast]

I have fleas in the basement used Dearth it did nothing, used all the flea sprays still have fleas, all the drops I spent lot of money on this year for the dog and cat did nothing. Took a stray in for the trap spay release program and they put revolution drops on that cat $33.00 a month, it kills fleas ticks ear mites and worms all in one, but I cant do $33.00 a month on all the cats and dogs around here, but if you have ONE pet might work for you.

I too have never seen a flea on a pig chicken or horse. I do use the Dearth in the chicken house. But fleas live in the dirt--right? So I would think that the dog and cats gets them from outside, but how could you treat all of the dirt that an pet would walk on?

[Jokarva]

Can't tell you anything about the farm animals, but we use Advantage on our cats and it's still effective on fleas here. I order the large dog sized vials off Amazon and each cat gets 0.5 cc once a month....so that works for us, but NOT Advantix, that is for dogs only!

[Maura]

Your chickens should be eating the fleas. If they don’t free range, let them out for a couple of hours a day to find the fleas and ticks. Keep areas under bushes and trees cut, fleas like long grass.

Honestly, if you picked the fleas off and don’t see other signs of flea infestation (flea feces on the dog- little black bits) then I wouldn’t use any treatment. A healthy dog should not be getting fleas and ticks. Give your dog a bit of vitamin C once a week to help his system. Give him a bit of garlic in his food to make him less tasty.

[FarmerKat]

Originally Posted by Maura

Your chickens should be eating the fleas. If they don’t free range, let them out for a couple of hours a day to find the fleas and ticks. Keep areas under bushes and trees cut, fleas like long grass.

Honestly, if you picked the fleas off and don’t see other signs of flea infestation (flea feces on the dog- little black bits) then I wouldn’t use any treatment. A healthy dog should not be getting fleas and ticks. Give your dog a bit of vitamin C once a week to help his system. Give him a bit of garlic in his food to make him less tasty.

That is what I thought as well (that chickens should be eating the fleas) but I guess they can get them too (I have found some really nasty pictures of fleas on chickens online). Our birds free range but there are only 13 of them so I do not know how much they can actually eat.

The dog is a German Shepherd and it is very difficult to see through all that hair, especially where it is black. I can only see them on her belly where I keep picking. Although I really do not think she has very many because I gave her a bath and I could not see fleas coming off.

Both DH and I are having flash backs to our flea nightmare a few years ago. So we are probably overreacting a bit. LOL.

[Maura]

Look on her back at the base of the tail, they like to congregate there. Again, garlic is your best friend.