Do fleas die winter months?
Many people are wondering about this, so I thought I would write a post about it. The answer is NO! Fleas will stay alive on your pet during winter months. You would think
that they would die out because they are so small but they are survivors.
Fleas are survivors, and can live through excessive heat and cold. The flea egg will lay dormant for up to a year, or until a host becomes available for them to get their first feeding from, usually your dog or cat. The vibrations, from walking, breathing, talking, barking or meowing, can trigger the fleas survival mode, and tells them to hatch because they have a meal available. Even if it is extremely hot or cold the flea will hatch when they know a host is available.
I personally don’t continue treating my pets with topical flea treatments, I use flea traps to catch the fleas as soon as they hatch inside my home. New fleas are going to go for the heat and blood. If you put flea traps around your home, whether they’re home-made or if they’re store bought, they will get caught and die before your pet gets completely infested.
Make sure that you have a light attached to what ever flea trap you decide to use, the flea is attracted to the heat of the light! They will jump toward the light and fall to it’s demise into the flea trap.
Make sure that you vacuum everyday! This may sound very petty, but fleas will reproduce extremely quickly, vacuuming everyday will suck up a lot of the fleas life stages, never giving them the chance to reproduce. It’s really a simple measure that help a lot.
You don ‘t want to bathe your pet to much, especially during the winter months. It’s cold
and because we have our homes heated their skin is more likely to become dried out. Comb your pet with a flea comb regularly. You will need to give them a flea bath in the beginning but using a flea comb with either a home-made flea spray or the EVOLV, which is what I use, is a simple way to effectively kill the fleas on your pet.
You should treat the outside of your home before the weather gets above 60 degrees at night, to kill any dormant flea eggs that are lingering outside, waiting for a host. If you kill them before they get the chance to hatch and reproduce, you will be ahead of the game when the warm summer weather comes.
The answer to your question, do fleas die winter months, no, they are resilient little critters and they will invade your home and your pets when given the chance. Don’t stop your flea control just because the weather has gotten chilly!
2 thoughts on “Do Fleas Die Winter Months?”
This is extremely inaccurate, or at best, misleading. Fleas themselves DO die in cold and extreme heat. And it doesn’t even have to be extreme. Sustained temperatures as low as 35 degrees Fahrenheit will kill fleas. The way they survive is by being on animals where even outside, the temperature near their skin is usually warm enough to survive. They can also be in leaf piles or along a house where they will exist in their own micro-climate that could be above 40 degrees. Fleas are actually not very good survivors compared to other insect pests,
Thank you for your information lakawak… you are right in some aspects of your information.. if the fleas are left outside and don’t come in contact or find a place to hide in leaves or dirt outside they will die.. however they can bury in the ground and leaves etc.. when not cleaned from someones yard and when the temps get warm enough they will re-infest and breed… if your outside yard is treated this is a less common problem to happen.. thank you for your input.. it’s greatly appreciated!!
Kimberly 🙂