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Post by bouncy on Aug 9, 2020 15:16:00 GMT
A quick warning to check your orders.......
Most of you know I buy all my food for the year when I'm in Austria and bring it back in the car. This year, I returned with five bags of SAB. I had no problems with the first two. When I opened the third, I started to get a moth infestation. The opened and resealed bag I was using was was simply crawling with them, as was the airtight food bin that I use from day to day. I took the food to mum's for freezing, steamed the bin, and all was good. I started finding the odd moth in the spare room where I keep the unopened bags, but thought they were the remnants from the food problem. I went in to get a new bag today, and could hear the bags before I even reached them. They were alive!
I know it's just nature, but you may want to double check your bags before opening. As a reminder, the only (goo friendly) three ways to get rid of moths, waxworms, and eggs, are to throw out the infected feed, freeze the feed for 24hrs, or use a steam cleaner. Steam cleaning is an excellent way to get rid of any contamination if it's spread to the actual cages, as it's just hot water.
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Post by savvy on Aug 9, 2020 15:42:27 GMT
Yeah, I've had them here too, again from an SAB order from Hansemanns. They are indianmeal moths and will get into your food stuffs at home. Currently in the process of trying to get rid of them, but I already have a full freezer.
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Post by bouncy on Aug 9, 2020 15:46:48 GMT
Glad it's not just me, although it's a pain in the proverbial! I need to check the next cupboard out - that is where I keep the excess CostCo shopping. They better not have had a go at my loo rolls!
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Post by savvy on Aug 9, 2020 16:07:13 GMT
They will get into your clothes too. Wash and iron everything!
I'm going to order a new freezer especially for the degu food when I move. That way I can freeze everything on arrival. They can chew through plastic bags and thin cardboard - nightmare to get rid of apparently.
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Post by moletteuk on Aug 9, 2020 17:43:29 GMT
I seem to recall that it's normally flowers that attract them, the german forage pickers always stored their flowers separate from the leaves. I never picked many actual flowers so I didn't have a problem. This does tend to crop up on the forum regularly, it does seem like it's definitely worth doing a freeze on all forage entering the home if you have freezer space. I suppose you could try ordering non flower products or order flower mixes separately and freeze those. Does freezing definitely kill the larvae?
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Post by bouncy on Aug 9, 2020 18:12:11 GMT
I was told so, and nothing has reappeared in the half bag I froze at my mum's a month ago.
They don't seem to have spread, even to the food cupboard next to the goo food with packets of flour. There's a bag of other feed in there from an alternative source too, which is fine.
I had some dodgy seeds a few years ago, so the infestation was in the kitchen. EVERYTHING was moth-proofed, and I spent a whole day with all goos sat in the garden while I steam cleaned every single toy and cage part. Never want to go through that again. Squidgy et al had to be super patient because theirs didn't go back together again until the next day.
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Post by winic1 on Aug 9, 2020 19:36:37 GMT
You get moths in bird seed, too. Got an infested 50 pound bag once, took two years to get rid of them. Even after sealing and freezing all the seed (in every big plastic jar we could get our hands on, they got into the kitchen, into the cupboards. We had to toss lots of food, and all new foods got sealed in ziploc bags so the moths couldn't get into them.
And still we had moths. Had sticky moth traps up everywhere. Freezing and sealing everything. Still moths.
Until the day I reached into a pile of stored decorations, and pulled out the colored Halloween/Thanksgiving corn, you know--multicolored ears of dried corn hung up as decorations in the fall? HUGE SWARM OF MOTHS AROSE. The moths had been living (as larvae then moths) in the dried corn arrangement. Every kernel had a hole in it where a larva had lived, eaten, and emerged as a moth. Got rid of that, and mostly got rid of the moths. (Later found a dried corn sock, for heating up in the microwave, that had fallen under son's bed and been left there, completely chewed up and moth-larvae-poo-gooey disgusting, which had also been feeding and perpetuating moths.)
So, if you can't get rid of the moths, look for other sources of "food" for them. And, if you can, just run all pet foodstuffs through the freezer for a few days first, just in case.
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Post by winic1 on Aug 9, 2020 19:39:23 GMT
Grain beetles, however, do not die in the freezer. When the food warms up, so do they. (those little brown bugs sometimes found in pasta and other grain-based food.)
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Post by bouncy on Aug 9, 2020 20:39:38 GMT
Yeah, I had a load of them last year in Cyprus, but identified them as cigar beetles? I'm very good at storing my stuff out there, but they got in through some cocopops! I read somewhere that they are pretty immune to most insect repellent and sprays?
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Post by deguconvert on Aug 9, 2020 23:14:23 GMT
BLEH!! BLEH, BLEH, BLEH!!!! I feel . . . like I have to rub my fingers through my hair REALLY vigorously!
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Post by bouncy on Aug 10, 2020 10:18:38 GMT
I kept doing the same yesterday when I closed up one of the bags and decided to store it in the shed instead. Every time I moved part of the sack, more would fly up, follow me, etc.
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Post by savvy on Aug 10, 2020 10:45:41 GMT
It is quite satisfying to slam them between two hard surfaces though, or suck them up the vacuum cleaner.
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Post by winic1 on Aug 10, 2020 13:53:06 GMT
ah, but they're only little moths.
Now that I've moved to the south, we have these things called "Palmetto Bugs." Palmetto bugs are really just giant, as in up to 5cm, cockroaches.
Whack one of those with a shoe, and you have to mop up the floor.
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Post by bouncy on Aug 10, 2020 14:39:46 GMT
Sounds a bit like my visor when I was riding at the weekend lol
My dad's cat used to hunt any cockroaches that landed on the balcony. You'd walk into the living room each morning to potentially find a dead one and, occasionally the one that he got bored with and was still kicking!
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Post by winic1 on Aug 10, 2020 14:56:39 GMT
These are too big for our cats. I hear the one that's the most huntress-like hissing and poking around a corner or furniture, and I know she's found one, but she won't dare touch it. They're almost twice the size of her paws.
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Post by savvy on Aug 11, 2020 13:19:24 GMT
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Post by deguconvert on Aug 11, 2020 18:25:17 GMT
What an AWESOME find, Savvy!! Especially with several of you fighting the little eating and destroying machines.
It's a good thing they aren't cute like our degus are!
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Post by savvy on Aug 18, 2020 11:35:12 GMT
Update on the pheromone traps, I've just checked mine and I have 9 males stuck fast on the main one, the other one is inaccessible at the moment as it's fallen behind a bookcase. Yep! They work.
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Post by deguconvert on Aug 18, 2020 19:22:46 GMT
How do you know they are males? Does it have to do with the antennae?
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Post by savvy on Aug 18, 2020 19:38:05 GMT
The pheromone on the trap is of a female moth. To get rid of any variety of moth you need to kill the males. So the trap attracts the males leaving the females unable to lay fertilised eggs, thus breaking the cycle.
A moth only lives about 24hours but all the males do during that 24hours is breed.
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