All Natural Flea Treatments?

TitletownAST · AST Expert

In the past year I've been trying to be more "holistic". I don't like the idea of constantly using topical chemicals for flea and tick prevention, so I adopted a treat if the dogs happen to pick up pests approach. For the most part the dogs spend most of the year flea free - obviously the summers are the worst and we pick up an occasional tick out hiking but those are pretty easy to check for and remove. Recently the dogs picked up a few fleas out hiking and I decided to treat with the frontline and some capstar.

But this got me wondering about maybe some all natural approaches that I could use all year as a better preventive. After snooping around online I found some suggestions and just wondering if anyone here has had experience with them:

1) Diatomaceous Earth powder sold by some pet supply that you rub into the dogs coat and sprinkle in your carpet. Is all natural, human food grade (b/c it is often used to kill pests in agricultural grain stores) micro-fine powder that is safe for pets and people but apparently dehydrates and kills insects.

2) Brewer's Yeast and Garlic pills given daily as flea/tick repellant. Now I've heard before about using garlic just wondering if anyone has tried this and does it work or have any other effects on the dogs?

brat pack · Adolescent pit bull

Good post Titletown. I was wondering the same thing. There are also some natural oil based flea repellants out there too. The DE really intrigues me. Knock on wood, we haven't had a flea problem this year at all. Only a few ticks which we pick off before they get attached.

TitletownAST · AST Expert

Well, since it doesn't seem anyone has tried these things I went ahead and bought garlic and brewer's yeast supplements today so I guess I'll see how that goes. Haven't decide on trying the DE yet, though it appears to be relatively inexpensive.

TitletownAST · AST Expert

The DE came today, put it on all the dogs and powdered the carpets and inside all their crates. Will report on how it seems to work!

brat pack · Adolescent pit bull

Thank goodness you are trying it! Please let me know how it works.

Red Dawg · Adolescent pit bull

Did anyone find out how the DE worked? I am very interested in this, since I have a large fenced area for the dogs and it gets really expensive to treat for fleas.

TitletownAST · AST Expert

As far as putting it on the dogs, I didn't find that it did anything. I think it would probably be much more effective in say outdoor dog houses mixed with bedding, I did end up putting it under all my crates down in my dog room. I also treated my carpets with it and that was an unholy mess! So I'm not sure I would recommend doing that unless you want a cloud of DE for weeks everytime you vacuum. Honestly I didn't get my fleas under control until I bought some Virbac area treatment spray for the upstairs carpet and gave the dogs Comfortis to knock out the ones on them. Come spring I may treat the yard with the remaining.

Red Dawg · Adolescent pit bull

We have used nemotodes on the yard and had great results. They became unavailable last couple of years, but have found them online, so I plan on trying them again this spring. Will let you know how they work this time. In my area we have fleas year round, never an off season for fleas and ticks.