Natural flea treatments - are they effective?

Today I thought I'd write about natural flea treatments.

Before doing so, I'd like to pose some food for thought:

  • What is 'natural'; and what makes a chemical natural?
  • Is a natural flea treatment as effective as a 'chemical' treatment?
  • Is a natural flea treatment less toxic than a chemical treatment?
  • What is the aim of natural flea treatment - to kill fleas or to keep them off our pets?

Normally so called 'natural' flea treatments are some vegetable or mineral product that either has the ability to kill fleas or at least repel them from the pet or its environment.

Here's a few to get you thinking -

Pop 'garlic flea' into Google and you'll see some people have written about negative experiences with garlic. Just because it grows in the garden does not mean that a product is safe.

Diatomaceous earth is an interesting option for flea control but only from an environmental perspective. While a lot of the flea stages are present in the environment, the all important breeding stage is the adult which is found on the pet.

I've also mentioned the chrysanthemum daisy. Why? Because it is the natural source of pyrethrum which has insecticidal properties. Have you ever noticed that many of the 'chemical' flea treatments have a -methrin at the end of their name - in most cases they are more effective and safer than their natural cousins. Just because a flea treatment is 'natural' does not mean that it is not also 'chemical'.

Another plant based insecticide is nicotine from tobacco. You may not know that imidacloprid and nitenpyram which are the active ingredients in Bayer’s Advantage? flea treatment and Novartis' Capstar? oral flea control respectively are actually from a family called neonicotinoids. Neo means new - so new nicotinoids. Do you recognise the name from anywhere? So they are chemicals but their grandfather is nicotine a naturally occurring substance. I'd rather be treated with chemicals like imidacloprid or nitenpyram than natural old nicotine.

I hope it's some food for thought about the natural vs chemical flea control debate.

I think this is actually an artificial way of thinking - the most important questions about any flea treatment, whether a natural flea treatment is natural or not is -

  • IS IT SAFE?
  • IS IT EFFECTIVE?

Best of luck with your flea control!