Fleas?

Heya,

My 16 week old rabbit, Bunny, is living inside at the moment. We have recently noticed that a couple of us have very bad bites across our bodies.

Do you think it is likely that he has fleas?

Is there any thing I can give him or anything I can do?

Thank you

You really need to take bun to the vets, if the bun has fleas then your house will have them too. Both bunny and house would need treated.

Thay way you can get treatment or at least rule out fleas if it is not that.

I am sure that Fleas are pretty noticeable on a bun.

Kermit said:

You really need to take bun to the vets, if the bun has fleas then your house will have them too. Both bunny and house would need treated.

Thay way you can get treatment or at least rule out fleas if it is not that.

I am sure that Fleas are pretty noticeable on a bun.

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Okay great thanks, the last thing we want is a flea outbreak!!

I would never use chemicals in my house so I wouldn't treat the house if I were you. I also wouldn't waste money taking a bun to the vets if the bun doesn't have any fleas, it's easy to tell if they have fleas, just run a flea comb through their fur. Rabbits normally dont get fleas, even when we've had bad flea infestations in the house my rabbits haven't gotten fleas.

Flea bites are usually small red dots that disappear within minutes/hours and they aren't raised spots like mosquito bites are. Are you sure it's a flea bite?

It's not necessarily fleas it could be lice- all my small pets get them every year and I always know because I get covered in red welts as I'm allergic to their bites!

William said:

I would never use chemicals in my house so I wouldn't treat the house if I were you. I also wouldn't waste money taking a bun to the vets if the bun doesn't have any fleas, it's easy to tell if they have fleas, just run a flea comb through their fur. Rabbits normally dont get fleas, even when we've had bad flea infestations in the house my rabbits haven't gotten fleas.

Flea bites are usually small red dots that disappear within minutes/hours and they aren't raised spots like mosquito bites are. Are you sure it's a flea bite?

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So what would you use if you had a flea infestation in the house?

If they get the long-word-beginning-with-c mites then sometimes you can get bites on you too. It's probably not fleas so personally I wouldn't treat without consulting a vet. Better to know what you are treating and treat with the right thing than throw lots of chemicals at the problem not knowing what it is you're fighting.

Kermit said:

So what would you use if you had a flea infestation in the house?

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I would use diatomaceous earth, vacuum, wash pet bedding, have a light trap (bowl of soap and water with a lamp over it), pick up any fleas I find and throw them in the light trap, flea comb the pets, make sure there's no organic matter/flea poop in the house (that's what pupae live off of, if pupae don't have food you won't have more fleas)...probably a few things i'm forgetting...but this is what I'm doing now as we've had a mild winter (and I'm in a subtropical climate too) this year as well as last year and it's caused the fleas to be bad state-wide.

I know most people on here want to flea treat their pets with chemicals - a quick fix that won't work long term. But if you do that you aren't going to have any fleas in the house surely...they'd jump on the pets to feed and die due to the flea treatment...so you won't need to flea treat the house, just the pet. 2 of our cats (baring in mind 5 dogs, 9 cats and 3 rabbits are indoors) were accidentally treated with Advantage once and it killed all the fleas off.

I'm not for using chemicals on the pets or the house but it seems house treatments use harsher chemicals and are even more unnecessary, so I see no reason to treat the pets and house.

I think what I am going to do is get a little flea comb and go from there. His hair is pretty short so it should be fairly easy to visualise. There haven't been any bites in the last 12 hours so could have just been an odd coincidence.