Fleas on a newborn kitten.

Dr. Marie replied:

It is definitely very important to get rid of fleas on young kittens. I have seen kittens die from having too many fleas as the fleas can eat enough blood to cause severe anemia.

The problem is that all of the good flea products are only labelled for use in kittens that are older than 6 or 8 weeks.

Many vets will still prescribe a medication such as Advantage and instead of having you use the whole tube will instruct you to use just one drop on each kitten. This is what is called "off label use" and you need to talk to your vet if you are going to do this.

What I usually recommend is a gentle bath in Dawn dish detergent. The dish soap does have some effect against fleas and will slow them down. Then, once the kitten is bathed take a flea comb (which you can buy at any pet store) and thoroughly comb through the kitten. You should be able to remove a good number of the fleas.

Once the kitten reaches 6 weeks old then I would use a prescription strength product recommended by your vet.

It is also really important that all of the cats and dogs in the house are treated with a prescription strength product as well.

I would highly recommend that you read this article about flea control.



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