Natural and Herbal Remedies: Pets with Fleas

Someone asked recently how to get rid of fleas naturally. It seems this person's cats have picked up the little varmints and carried them into the house. This is an article with web references for cats, but it will work with dogs as well. This solution has certainly blessed our home with flea free living for many years (over 20).

Flea prevention is easy. I have three cats and have not had fleas for over twenty years. Long about 22 years ago while doing day care and having one cat, we got fleas. That was a year when the little varmints were thriving all around and the day care kids were carrying them in on the cuffs of their pants, their socks, the top part of their shoes.

There is a product put out by a company called "PetGuard." It is called "Yeast & Garlic Powder." CAUTION: GARLIC & ONIONS CAN BE TOXIC TO PETS, SO ALWAYS CHECK WITH YOUR VETERINARIAN FIRST BEFORE USING ANY PRODUCT, USE THIS PRODUCT ONLY AS DIRECTED. DO NOT TRY TO MAKE UP YOUR OWN FORMULA FOR YOUR PET. This combination repels fleas by building the pets vitamin levels. It may take a little time to build up the B vitamins in your cats so that they can be flea free but once they have this in their diet, you will not have problems with the fleas. Many times our animals are deficient in these nutrients and it invites infestations because of the poor quality of the cat foods available. Go to: http://www.petguard.com/cat-products/supplements/yeast-and-garlic
It is also available at Amazon.com:
I use the powder and mix it in with the dry cat food. It coats the cat food and our cats love it. I just use a scoopful with 2-3 cups of dry cat food. Mix it around so it coats most of the food. Our cats love it. Fleas hate to jump on an animal that has this combo in their system. It can also be mixed with wet food but for a small can I use less than a scoop. This product also comes in wafer form. I have not used that form, but would guess that it may be good for dogs.

I almost forgot to include the humans in the house as you may also be attracting the fleas. To keep my day care kids and our family flea free, I of course had to clean out the house. I also added nutritional yeast to our diets. Once we had the vitamins in our bodies from the nutritional yeast, we were no longer food for the fleas either. Here is some basic information about nutritional yeast.

I use flakes instead of the powder but it is a personal preference. Remember that brewer's yeast is not the same and tastes pretty awful. I did not have to use a lot of this just a little here and there did the trick for us.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5081166_make-use-nutritional-yeast.html
Notice that this shows how to make the popcorn and also says that nutritional yeast helps keep fleas away from the pets.

Here is another article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritional_yeast
This article states that nutritional yeast is similar to brewer's yeast. I beg to differ. Brewer's yeast is awful tasting (to me anyway), while nutritional yeast has a much nicer taste. Do go slow with it. I use about 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes on a big bowl of popcorn. The family has asked me to add more as time went on because they like it so much. I have accommodated them as it is a good thing for them to eat. It especially satisfies my meat eating husband of 6'4". He is always craving protein for all of that muscle.

Now for the cookbooks that give you ideas of how to use this product. "The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook" listed below has a recipe that I have used for a nutritional yeast gravy. I also like to put a little of the flakes into things like mashed potatoes, soups, etc. I only use a little so the family won't know that I added them. The below listed cookbook has a lot of different recipes for other items like tofu that I have used over the years that people loved and never knew they were made from "healthy ingredients." One of those recipes was Banana Tofu Pie. Guests eat this like there is no tomorrow and boy are they surprised when I give them the recipe. I am not a vegetarian, so they never suspect that I would serve a pie made from tofu. This recipe is great for growing boys who can't get filled up. The tofu base adds more protein to their growing muscles and fills them up without all the junk ingredients of the traditional recipe.

Other recipes in this book that uses nutritional yeast are: "Melty Nutritional Yeast ""Cheese,"" "Cheezy Crackers," "Yeast Crepes," "Macaroni and ""Cheese"" Casserole," and "Buckwheat Groats and Golden Gravy." I use the "Golden Gravy" recipe for mashed potatoes and everyone loves it. It even pleases the meat and potato eaters in our house. I have never tried the "Buckwheat Groats" part of the recipe. I do not follow the recipe exactly but that is just me cooking over a period of years. It gives the general framework. Many of the soups and other recipes have nutritional yeast in them although they are not in the nutritional yeast section.

I also have the following cookbook but have only recently used it for nutritional yeast recipes. I am learning to really like this book as much as "The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook." This cookbook is "The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak using Red Star Vegetarian Support Formula Flakes.


The brands that I have used of nutritional yeast flakes are as follows. I like these two brands because they come in a container that is easily kept for a long period of time. In the US these should be available in the local health food store or food co-op along with it being in a bulk food section.
The Kal brand:

The Now brand:

I hope this helps as it has been an easy way to keep my house flea free no matter where we have lived and no matter how many cats we have had (or kids). All of this will also help with dogs.

In this blog I have an article on how to get rid of head lice (Herbal Remedies - Head Lice) and keep them away for good, naturally with black walnut. This article will tell how to make up the black walnut. This would also be helpful as a spray on clothing and shoes before people leave or come into the house and also put a little spray on the cats and dogs. Varmints like fleas hate black walnut.

Please note that all products and brands listed above with www.Amazon.com are only to help the reader know what these products look like. I am not recommending that the reader purchase any of these products or brands from www.Amazon.com. You are free to surf the web for the distributor that you feel the most comfortable with or to look for these items in your local area stores. These are just my personal preferences.

2 comments:

  1. That's very new to me. In this case, drinking a cup of Marmite and use garlic in cooking will solve the problem of fleas for human.
    Wonder how the cats and dogs love the combine taste of Marmite, and garlic!

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  2. The PetGuard combines the yeast product with the garlic. I have to hold my cats back when I put the powder on their dry cat food. They just love the taste and want to just eat it in the powder form. I like to mix it up thoroughly so that their food is evenly coated.

    The Marmite sounds like our brewer's yeast or nutritional yeast. Whatever the kind of yeast it is very high in the "B" vitamins and this helps repel the fleas.

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