Fleas are the bane of nearly all pet owners. Anyone with a pet will most likely have among their selection of pet supplies, some sort of household pest control or flea medication or pet meds, such as Frontline Plus flea control, or Advantage flea control, for dogs and cats. But insect growth regulators are another method of household pest control that is often overlooked, but can prove an invaluable addition to flea control efforts.
What are Insect Growth Regulators?
Insect growth regulators (IGRs) like Flea Fix, Precor, and Martins, are substances that prevent insect larvae from developing into adults. This makes them an effective complement to products like Frontline Plus, which kill adult fleas when they bite your pet. Many IGRs have an active ingredient called Nylar, which is photostable (meaning it is not broken down by sunlight) so it can be used both inside and outside. They provide you with a two-stage attack on fleas, which quite thoroughly breaks the flea lifecycle. They are available at many outlets where you would buy any other pet meds or pet supplies.
Pests Other than Fleas
Because of the nature of insect growth regulators, they are effective household pest control for much more than just fleas. Any variety of insect that has a larval stage can be effectively controlled by their use. This includes ticks, roaches, and houseflies.
Are Insect Growth Regulators Safe?
IGRs are among the safest flea control pet supplies available, much more so than nearly any flea medication. They are not pesticides or insecticides in the strictest sense; they do not even harm the adult pests. Because of this, once they are dry they are odorless, and perfectly safe in areas with children, reptiles, aquariums, and even birds and other delicate pets.
How Strong are Insect Growth Regulators?
Most insect growth regulators are professional strength, such as the products used by exterminators. Because of this, in fact, there are a few places where you cannot get them yourself without going through exterminators. However, they provide effective household pest control for at least six months, making them well worth the effort and expense even if you do need to call in an exterminator to get them.
Where IGRs Should be Used
Because IGRs are photostable and odorless once dry, they are suitable to use almost anywhere; certainly in your pet's bedding and/or kennel, any rugs or carpets and furniture where your pet frequents, dog houses, and those areas of your yard where your pet frequents. In other words, if your pet spends a lot of time in a place, IGRs will be most effective and should be used there.
Because it is so safe, it is suitable even in places like hospitals, schools, and restaurants to help with general insect pest control.
Rotate Flea Control Tactics
As most pet owners can attest, any single flea control method will only last for a couple of years at best, and possibly only a few months at a time. This is because all the fleas that are particularly susceptible to that particular method get killed off quickly, and more resistant ones move in. This does not mean, as many think, that they cease to be effective forever; you just need to have 2-3 methods that you rotate out every few months.
This makes products like Flea Fix and Martin's even more important. A perfectly good example of a strategy is to apply Flea Fix in the spring before fleas become a problem, then use Frontline Plus Flea Control for the first 2-3 months of summer, Advantage Flea Control for Dogs for the next 2-3 months, then apply Flea Fix again in the fall to maintain flea control over the winter. This is only an example, of course, but should give an idea of how to go about full flea and tick control.
Genevieve Kiger - Genevieve is passionate about all manner of natural subjects; herbs, herbalism, aromatherapy, and general natural health and body care.
