Cat Health: Flea & Tick Life Cycle

Video Transcript

"We'll start out by talking about fleas and ticks. I just want to describe to you a little bit about the flea life cycle. So what happens is that the flea jumps on your cat, and it takes a meal of blood by biting your cat, and taking the blood through its skin. That, flea that female flea then lays eggs, which develop into larvae. These little, tiny larvae are very, very small. Probably about, you know, the size that I'm pointing out between my fingers there. And they will actually crawl up to three to four feet to find a dark area in which to hide and to feed. So they'll crawl under your couch or your chair, and they feed on skin cells, and debris from both the humans and the cats in your household. They will form a cocoon like a pupa, much like a butterfly does. This pupa is very difficult to kill because it is encased with a hard shell. So, all of the insecticides that we use to kill fleas do not get this pupa stage. That's why it's important sometimes to do multiple treatments to kill any fleas that are in your household. Then this pupa hatches out and it becomes an adult flea, that then jumps on either the cat, or the human in your household. And the cycle starts all over again. I just want to point out to you that this is a tick. There are a couple of different ticks in the northeast United States. And there are many, probably more than a half dozen varieties of ticks in the country. This is a dog tick. And it was taken from a cat just earlier this morning. So that's what they look like. They're brown, well here's, I was looking for something to give you a measurement with. This is about one inch long, so you can see about how big it is. And, we have products that will kill both fleas and ticks on your cat."