Prevent Fleabites and Infestations
In our last post, we covered the potential health risks and other issues that using chemical flea repellants can cause. Today, we will continue the natural remedy series and talk about how to make a flea repellant spray that can fight fleas naturally and safely so you can stop the “inevitable” flea infestation from ever happening.
If you’ve been reading this blog, then you already know that you don’t have to use chemicals to fight fleas or fleabites, as natural remedies are available – you could even make your own.
Make Flea Repellant Spray
Homemade flea repellants are simple to make, will not make humans or pets sick, and are inexpensive. The only real downside is that natural sprays do not kill live fleas or flea eggs.
Flea eggs by Denni Schnapp
If you start using the spray after an infestation has taken hold, the spray will prevent further spread, but you will have to use another natural remedy to kill the current infestation – we’ll get to that in a future post.
However, for now, know that if you use the natural flea repellant as a preventative measure and before fleas have entered the home, fleas aren’t likely to come in so that the infestation won’t get far enough for you to need to kill flea eggs.
A variety of natural smells and oils repel flea because the smells are so strong, and the oils and powders irritate the exoskeletons. While we know about apple cider vinegar and garlic from our previous posts, three other natural ingredients include citrus, citronella, and lavender.
The spray you make will depend on whether you have a cat or a dog.
Spray Ingredients: You will need 6 lemons – 12 if you have a dog and a cat because you’ll be making 2 separate sprays.
Lemon and water by jmauerer
Next, you’ll need two different essential oils, one for each pet. These include 50 drops of lavender essential oil and 30 drops of citronella essential oil.
You can get the essential oils at any health store, although the oils’ popularity of late means you might be able to get them at your local mega marts as well.
Make the Spray
Slice the six lemons, leaving them peeled, and add the slices to a pot, to which you will add three cups of water. Bring the lemons and water to a boil, and after one minute of boiling, take the pot off the heat, cover it and let it sit overnight.
Spray Bottle by CDW9
The next day, use a small strainer or cheesecloth to drain the liquid from what is left of the lemon slices, and then pour the liquid to a spray bottle.
You will use this lemon water to make both sprays.
For the dog flea repellant, add about 50 drops of essential oil of lavender to the water.
Essential oils by How to be Sustainable
For the cat formula, add 30 drops of citronella essential oil, and make sure that your cat isn’t around when you spray the dog since lavender can make cats ill.
In fact, a number of essential oils and plants can make cats sick, so make sure to check whether an ingredient you use is toxic or not at the ASPCA, which offers information about cat and dog poisons and other pet information.
Oil and water don’t mix, so you will need to shake the spray bottle after adding the essential lavender oil, and you might need to shake it in between sprays if the liquid separates.
That’s it, you’ve got natural flea repellant.
Stay tuned for our next post in which we’ll cover how to handle live flea infestations and how to get rid of flea eggs using various remedies that are safe and just as inexpensive as the spray ingredients are.