FULL ON ASSAULT ON FLEAS!

[No Quarter Kennel]

I live in east Texas near the La border. Similar climate, terrain and vegetation to a lot of the southern states and the Carolina's. Very sandy soil, like powder actually when really dry. Fleas can be a son of a gun. I hate fleas. If I see one flea on a dog I just get madder than hell.

I've been using Termidor and get similar results to what Jack writes about in his book. Takes a double dose it seems just to get maybe a week's positive results. So, I crack open my PBB and read up on Jack's suggested method of eradicating this problem.

I do everything exactly how it says, but instead of Rock Salt, I use Chlorapyrifis spray. It's 2 tbl spoons per gallon. I learned on this project that it takes about 10 gallons to do one dog's circle. My dogs have 13' chains, so you can do the math on the square footage yourself. Here's what I did.

First, I removed a dog from his chain. I washed him with two different antibacterial, fungal and medicated shampoos. I left them in lather for 10 minutes minimum. I removed their house and anything they ate from or drank from. I emptied their house. I sprayed the outside of the house with the Chlorapyrifis. I then soaked the entire chain spot with water. A wet ground will be more conducive to absorbing this stuff and there will be less run off and less wasted product. Next year, I will do this in early spring AFTER a good rain and the ground is already wet b/c this wetting down process literally TRIPLED my time of labor on this project. After the ground was wet and there was no standing water of any kind, I would thoroughly saturate their entire circle with the Chorapyrifis. Next thing I did was dump a 2 cubic square ft of cedar shavings in a large container. I could not find 7 dust in 5lb bags any longer as they've stopped making them. Instead I used Permethrin dust. You can get it in 4lb bags and I simply put 5lbs of permethrin dust with a bag of cedar shavings. I then put 5 shovel fulls in each house. I did rinse the dog free of all soap and let them air dry in above ground pen. Once they were dry, I returned them to their chain spots. It's been over a week now and not a single sign of any flea whatsoever. I did NOT put anything on the dogs themselves. If I do, it will be a Neem Oil spray (also provided courtesy of the PBB). So far so good. I got the Chlorapyrifis idea from a guy who raises horses in my area. Said he had a flea break out like he'd never seen before once. Sprayed the place with this stuff and has never seen a single flea since. I asked when that was and he said, "Bout 10 years ago". I figure I'll get different results being mine's outside, but so far, so good.

Break down
1. Remove dog from chain and shampoo THOROUGHLY!
2. Remove house, water container, food bowl etc, from chain spot.
3. Rake the chain spot clear of all debri
4. Make sure chain area is wet or damp.
5. Spray entire chain spot with Chlorapyrifis
6. Spray the dog house with Chlorapyrifis and LET DRY THOROUGHLY
7. Mix Cedar shavings and permethrin dust and put 5-7 shovel fulls in dog hous
8. Rinse the dog, let him air dry - return him to his chain.

That's it. Hope it works like it has so far and if so, I hope it's something someone else can use and benefit from.

BTW - you have to have a license to buy that stuff, but just get someone to buy it for you. Some farmer or something will do it for you if you act right. It comes in a 2.5 gallon container and I didn't even use half of it.

[bamaman]

Good info..Knock on wood , in the last 2 years I have only spent 30 bucks on flea control.2nd yearr in a row I have had no fleas and I live in flea heaven.I wish I could pin point what I did to get to this point but I can't.I battled and used any and every tatic I come across that I thought may work.Spent a good bit of cash to.

[No Quarter Kennel]

Share the "tactics"

[SGC]

Excellent run down on fighting fleas! Please do update in a few weeks/month and let us know if you see any fleas.

I also hate fleas with a passion. I grew up in south FL and that certainly is flea heaven. We used to wash the dog well, spray the yard, vacuum the house very well (only had one house dog), then repeat in 2 weeks. That usually solved the problem for months. The fleas tend to live off the dog most of the time, in the grass or carpets inside.

In time I started also using DE (diatomaceous earth) along with the sprays, which does work well for fleas but it is a slower kill. I like it because it is non toxic to people and animals. I used it mostly on the dog's sleeping areas and on the carpets, it is a white powder and does not work well when wet. It basically cuts the outer shell (eco-skeleton) of the fleas and they dry out and die. It does kill all insects so it gets the beneficial ones as well as the bad ones.

I also added some apple cider vinegar and some fresh minced garlic to my dog's food. And I would wipe her with a mix of ACV and water which helped repel both fleas and mosquitoes. Made the dog smell like a salad until it dried, it all helped a little but fleas are a huge pain. I actually saw a bad outbreak of fleas about kill a little tiny tea cup poodle belonging to a neighbor, they sucked so much blood from that tiny dog that it got very anemic and almost died.

Now being farther north, I have far more problems with ticks. Those are rampant here, and most are the tiny deer ticks and the star ticks which carry the bacteria which makes you allergic to eating red meat. Deer in cities are now a huge problem yet no one does much about them. Also the rodents (mice, squirrels, chipmunks, etc) carry the deer ticks and so do birds.

We try to spray the yard with the Bayer insect killer and then spray again in 2 weeks and that seems to knock down the ticks for a few months. Used to be winter killed them but I was finding ticks in Jan and Feb.

I have not heard of Chlorapyrifis and will do some reading about it when I have time. If you need a license, I wonder if it can be bought on line? Not always easy to find someone who will buy it for you…

[bamaman]

Share the "tactics"

When I get time, I will sit down and think back to what all I did and share it.

[bamaman]

I used a once a year poison from TS and I can't remember the name but I wound up spraying the yard 4 times with it..I did not see where it worked that good so I wouldnt recommend it anyways.I then tried Bayer tree and shrub with pretty much same results and sprayed the yard 2 times with it.I Also wound up using pet armor on my dogs which is generic Frontline and frontline doesn't work here at all.Ok but for some reason the pet armor did work along with spraying my yard and I was able to control them enough to keep them off the dogs.Then winter hits and they are all gone .Next year I am ready to battle again but no fleas and now 2 years later still no fleas.That's all I can tell you about what I did and couldn't tell you which was more effective.I will tell you to spray again after 2 weeks because that's when the eggs hatch.Every time I spray I wait 2 weeks and spray again.

[bamaman]

Here is something I also find strange and thats I got rid of my fire ants.I found something that will just whip the shit out of fire ants and its call Bengal .Now they make stuff for roaches etc.etc. but I have been ueing thier fire ant poison for 2 years now.Fire ants eat fleas and so I got rid of the ants and still no fleas.All u do is sprinkle a little on the ant bed and its like baby powder and it kills the bed and when u cut grass it spreads it when u run over the dead beds.So this is the only thing I have used on my yard in the last 2 years and its for fire ants.

[No Quarter Kennel]

Almost two weeks - still no fleas.

[SGC]

Almost two weeks - still no fleas.

Excellent!

[bamaman]

Almost two weeks - still no fleas.

Well hopefully you got them No Quarter.I am not sure but I wouldn't think most people would understand a flea outbreak like what we talk about unless you live in the south.I know what you went through lol.