flea problem - advice please folks!

Hi everyone,

I treated both my buns with Xenex last Friday, hoovered the whole house everyday since then, treated the whole house with RIP fleas (as recommended by the vet) & am cleaning them out & emptying their litter trays everyday as usual.
On top of this I'm grooming them with flea combs & they STILL have fleas on them!!

Any advice as to what else I can do to rid my little ones of fleas would be greatly appreciated. They're in their twilight years & don't need these horrid things making them feel uncomfortable.

I dont have any experience with rabbits getting fleas but I have plenty with cat/dogs.

I'd wait till it is a sunny day (so there isnt a temp difference between you house and outside, to avoid stressing bun's systems), and put them in a run outside. Remove any bed sheets/sofa covers/blankets/cushions etc and bag up in black bags and stick outside. Then blitz the whole house - not just carpets but furniture and curtains too, a steam cleaner might help. Then de-flea them thoroughly before bringing them back inside. Wash all the bedding/covers etc you removed from the house on the hottest wash you can before returning them to their places. It might not get rid of all of them as you'll probably miss some eggs, but it should severely diminish their numbers.

I take it you are using the comb on them everyday and making sure you kill every single one you find, not just wiping them on tissue?

Thanks so much for the advice, Nessar

I have done this, & have actually treated the whole house & all the furniture, curtains, bedding, towels etc. with RIP fleas twice since last Friday! Anything washable has been hot washed, dried & treated. I'm getting OCD!

The whole house is laminate & tile flooring so I'm thinking the only place new fleas could be coming from is the hay in their trays. I get it from a good local pet shop but it comes straight from the field as I often find nettles & thistles in it, & the last batch (I buy it weekly) was particularly dusty.

I've heard putting sage in their bedding helps deter fleas? Will eating it as well as bedding down in it help? Or lavender or rosemary? Something natural would be preferable to all these nasty chemicals.

Ive never had experience with rabbit fleas but I think you need to re apply the xenex after two weeks.
Something to bear in mind though.... If you are treating two rabbits (a bonded pair) it is very important they dont groom each other at least until the xenex is dry... For this reason I find an injection from the vet is far more suitable..

Hmmmm . . . generally a healthy rabbit will rid itself pretty much of fleas. Just to give you an idea I have 34 buns and not one has fleas despite some living inside, some outside, baled hay coming in every week (that doubtless has some fleas in it) and I have never ever used a flea treatment on any of them.

I am not saying that your buns are ill, or that rabbits never get fleas, - just that this scale and persistency is unusual.

Do you have any other animals at all?? Are the buns active and able to reach all parts of themselves? Do they have mites as well (small white specks or just fleas?)

Thank you very much for your replies.

I don't have any other animals but the area is rife with cats! They come up right to the house. Friends who have cats have said it's easy for them to get onto your clothes or line washing in warm weather & get into the house that way. Also that cat/dog fleas have often built up tolerance to some treatments so take longer to get rid of.

The vet told me to keep the buns apart while the Xenex dried which I did. The vet advised me to retreat them after 2 weeks to help break the life cycle of the fleas. I will be using Advantage this time because lots of bunny peeps have advised it's a lot safer & more trusted than Xenex.

Both my buns are older & are both ill. Digby who is 8 came to us with neurological damage from E. Cuniculi. He is now on Panacur every day because when he's not on it his balance becomes off, he becomes incontinent, he stops eating hay, he gets bladder infections, so, on the advice from several vets, he's on it everyday. His litterbox habits are still a little off despite this & he has trouble cleaning his back half so I have to shower & dry his bum, tail & legs to keep him clean & comfortable & apply barrier cream to help prevent urine burn.

Missy who is 7 is a perfectly limber little lady who cleans herself with no problems. She seems to have less fleas than Digby. She has a lump behind her bladder which is inoperable & has caused a few episodes of G I stasis which is why I have zantac, metacam, fibreplex, critical care, infacol in the first aid kit at all times. I give them both fibreplex everyday to help support their gut functions.

They are due for their booster jabs & health checks in June.

ps. there are less fleas & flea dirt on Digby since applying the Xenex & de-fleaing the house. I'm only finding a few on him every evening with the flea comb, & only a few on Missy too.

The vet (who knows their health issues & history) said they must be getting re-infected with them from their environment, so the only source I can think of that hasn't been treated is their hay.

You'll want to research this some more as I'm not entirely sure, but I think Dust Free Hay freeze their hay to get rid of any creepy crawlies. You could try this hay, or look into the process of freezing hay to see if it can be done at home?

Thank you!

I've thrown out the other hay & bought in some yummy looking dust extracted hay which Missy is chomping on!
Hopefully the fleas will decease in numbers from here on in. I'll be treating the bunsters with Advantage a week today just to make sure, so hopefully they'll be flea free in time for their health checks & booster jabs next month.

Thank you for all your help guys! Have a great Easter

We had the same problem with our dog a few years back, we found the cats were sleeping on the front door mat so we were bringing the fleas in, started putting cat deterrants out front and back and that kept them away and reduced the fleas, our vet also said fleas can make it down the edges of the laminate flooring, I flipped the wooden edging off in all the rooms and squirted loads of the house treatment stuff down the edges and after that we had no more fleas! Yay! Shortly after that I ripped up all the laminate and sanded the floors instead.

Good Luck!