American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) - The Clinical Nurse Leader; American Association of Colleges of Nursing's White Paper on the Education and the Role of the Clinical Nurse Leader; American Association of Managed Care Nurses; American Board of Managed Care Nursing; AONE Institute for Leadership Research & Education
1 Female fleas cannot lay eggs until after their first blood meal and begin to lay eggs within 36-48 hours after that meal. 2  The female flea can lay 2,000 eggs in her lifetime.  The female flea consumes 15 times her own body weight in blood daily.
Fleas can lay 20 to 40 eggs per day, and 10 female fleas can create almost a quarter of a million different life stages in a month. Newly emerged flea larvae can survive two weeks without a blood meal, and pre-emerged fleas (pupae/cocoon stage) can survive six months without feeding.