Fleas - Pennyroyal

Mentha pulegium, pennyroyal, photo from Wikimedia.

Fleas on your pets.

1) Previous advice: put 3 drops of pennyroyal on a nylon collar. This may be too strong for some cats and pennyroyal should never be put directly on cats, dogs, or people. Old reports indicated that this technique worked well even during heavy outbreaks, but there is a safer method now — see #2.

Pennyroyal in the past has been recommended for many uses, including insecticide and pest repellent. The use of concentrated pennyroyal oil should be avoided - it can be toxic to people and animals. Pennyroyal from WebMD.

2) There's a spinosad pill for pets that is much safer than Pennyroyal, and quite effective, called Sentinel, and another called Nexgard (Comfortis was discontinued).

Spinosad has been formulated into commercial products registered for use in commercial agriculture, including DowAgros' Conserve SC, and Entrust. Entrust is approved for use on USDA certified organic produce. There are several home garden product manufactured for use in the United States including Monterey Garden Insect Spray manufactured by Lawn and Garden Products, Inc. and 'Borer, Bagworm, Tent Caterpillar & Spray' manufactured by Ferti-Lome. Bonide Products has introduced spinosad in its Captain Jacks Dead Bug Brew insect control product line. 

The products have practically no odor. Its soil absorption is moderately strong and it degrades rapidly in the environment primarily through photolysis.

Spinosad is also the active ingredient in Sentinel, a chewable flea medication for pets. There are also monthly topical treatments with spinosad. 

It is acceptable in the organic program.  It was developed from a living organism, has little to no toxicity and seems to work well. It is for sure better than diazinon, Dursban, Orthene and the synthetic pyrethroids.

"Be very careful using Spinosad products, especially the liquid ones, because they are deadly to bees."

More about Pennyroyal from Wikipedia and Nature's Poisons. Pennyroyal is scary stuff.

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