Bed bugs in our homes parasitize only on a person - their proboscis are adapted only for piercing a sufficiently thin and soft human skin. Only in the most "difficult" times for bedbugs - when people leave the premises for a long enough period - bugs bite domestic animals.
However, in general, this is unnatural behavior for bed bugs - even adult individuals of parasites with their long proboscis hardly pierce the skin of animals, and small larvae in most cases cannot feed on cats and dogs at all.
However, bugs are quite capable of delivering certain pet nuisances.
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“I couldn’t understand why my rat has bleeding wounds on its body. I thought it was a staph, but it usually just causes purulent boils.And here it is the bites that the animal itself is also scratching. Only a few weeks later I found that someone had started biting me. It turned out - banal bed bugs. It was a surprise that they bite a rat, I thought they only drink blood from people. Apparently, they somewhere near the cell initially settled and before it they were closer than to my bed. ”
Sasha, Moscow
Perhaps the only pets that suffer from bedbugs no less than humans are birds (including chickens).
Their soft thin skin is also available for piercing by the proboscis of the bug, as is human, and the parasites use this successfully. And chicken coops, they can settle in as successfully as human housing.
Bugs in chickens: how are they dangerous and how to fight them?
Chicken bugs do not exist in nature. Kurey bite or bed bugs attacking a person, or other parasites, which the owner of the bird can be confused with bedbugs. For example, fleas.
In the photo below - such "chicken bugs", clinging to the eyes of birds. In fact, this is typical chicken flea, different from bedbugs in small size and a tendency to eat in the daytime:
Bugs in chickens parasitize quite rarely, but if they appear in the hen house, they quickly colonize it and cause massive skin lesions in birds. The bug bites themselves are very disturbed by birds, and during mass attacks by chickens, egg production decreases, they gain weight more slowly, and young stock can be observed to stall. In addition, chickens constantly pluck feathers in places where they feel itching from bites, and as a result, decorative birds lose their presentable appearance.
In some cases, bedbugs can cause the hens due to the constant attacks of insects to leave their eggs even at relatively late hatching periods.
In the hen-house, the bugs hide in crevices and any dark narrow spaces: between the cages and planks in their walls, under a layer of droppings, in perches and nests. They usually bite the birds at night, but they can go hunting in the daytime.
In winter, bugs normally experience temperatures down to minus 10 ° C and therefore they almost always winter there.
On a note
Similarly, bugs can parasitize on any poultry, from canaries to guinea fowls. Only waterfowl (ducks, geese) are well protected from them by sufficiently dense skin.
To get rid of bedbugs in chickens, the bird is removed from the chicken coop, and indoors all surfaces are treated with Chlorophos or Karbofos in the same concentrations in which these funds are used in residential premises.
After this, a thorough cleaning is carried out: litter and garbage are taken out, all cages and perches are washed, the walls are cleaned. This treatment should be carried out twice with an interval of 10-14 days.
Bedbugs in cats and dogs
Bed bugs bite these animals very rarely - cats and dogs have too thick skin and thick wool.
However, bedbugs bite cats when the people leave the premises for a week or two, and the neighbors are watching the animals for the lack of another source of fresh blood, the bugs are simply forced to attack the animals.
The situation is similar with bedbugs and in dogs - only occasionally can parasites bite them in the absence of another food source. In this case, bed bugs usually bite dogs only at night, and only the body parts with the softest skin.
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“Our Toya began to constantly bite some parasites. I thought it was bedbugs, I was very afraid that they would be transferred to us. On his ears he constantly had bumps from bites on his neck.They took it to the clinic, they said that it was not bedbugs, but ticks, and it clings to them on the street. They said to buy a special collar or smear his withers with drops that scare away ticks. And by the way, the vet said that dog bugs do not bite at all. ”
Victoria, Irkutsk
If the "bugs" in cats or dogs are found during the day, and even in very large quantities - these are definitely not bugs. Most likely, parasites on an animal are ticks that have approximately the same size, but differ in the number of legs (the bugs have 6, the ticks have 8), the color (the ticks are usually gray, green or black, and the bugs are brown) and the lack of transverse strips on tele. In addition, when a dog detects a bug, it always tries to retreat, and the tick, having stuck, is still and looks like a small growth on the skin.
To confuse bedbugs with fleas is extremely difficult - fleas are very small and able to jump. Bedbugs run like cockroaches and cannot jump.
No special protection of cats and dogs from bedbugs is required: parasites attack them much less frequently than on humans. Accordingly, it is necessary to destroy bedbugs in the room in which they nest, and not on domestic animals.
Who else bite bed bugs?
Bed bugs were originally insects, parasites on small mammals in their burrows and nests. Most often in nature, bugs settle in the holes of mouse-like rodents, gophers and insectivorous animals. Here they constantly have access to food.
But it is much more attractive for bugs of a colony of bats - at least because these bats have several areas on the body that are not covered with hair. It is for such sites that the bugs bite.
In addition, the caves in which colonies of bats live have a more stable microclimate than any other places in the wild, even rodent holes. And so for bedbugs here is a real paradise: an abundance of food, constant temperature and a minimum of natural enemies.
It is interesting
The most famous "bug" caves are the caves in Turkmenistan - here the largest colonies of some rare species of bats are known. There are so many bugs in them that sometimes they lead to a massive freezing of newborn bats.
What bugs are dangerous for mammals and birds?
Generally speaking, various types of bedbugs that can bite a person or pet,in nature very much.
- For example, in water a dog may accidentally be bitten by a smooth or water scorpion — these are also bugs.
- Occasionally predators bugs their bite on an animal. However, such cases occur only when the animal inadvertently disturb the bug, for example, stepping on it with a paw or taking it, lying down on the grass.
More dangerous for pet bugs, parasitic constantly. Most of them just in the family of bug predators. With rare exceptions, these insects do not inhabit the human dwelling, but can attack an animal resting on the street.
There are few predators in our latitudes, and they do not pose any particular danger to domestic animals. But in the tropics, these parasites suffer many dangerous diseases, including the deadly Chagas disease, and therefore, when traveling, you have to protect yourself and protect your four-legged friends from them.
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I have a lot of bed bugs at home. I do not know how to get rid of them. That my children, that I myself - we go bitten by bedbugs. Of course, I myself take steps to eliminate them, but I am not good at it. What and how to do me?
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