RatPalace.com - Pet Rat Care and Discussion

Thu Feb 02, 2006 12:30 pm

I hope I'm posting in the right section. If not please feel free to move my post.

Lately I have been noticing small moths flying around my bedroom and just around the house. I kill them whenever I see them. The girls cage sits on top of an oak stand and when I opened the door to give them a snack I saw yet another moth. I took everything out (at this point I'm spazzing out here...I don't like any bugs) and I found more. I ended up killing about 6 or 7. It actually looks like they are laying eggs (or whatever they do) inside the oak stand. Is this normal? What can I do? Do I have to throw everything away that was in there? Their food is kept sealed in plastic bags so I don't think they could get in there. Obviously I can't put moth balls where I store their food. Can I put them somewhere else in the room? What can I do?!?!

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Crystal...The Ratties..Cocoa & Splinter...The Doggies...Jack & Molly

Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:19 pm

Sometimes packaged foods (Such as vita-kraft) are susceptible to weevils
and various other flying critters. The eggs lie dormant. I've even seen those tiny 'moths' fly out of pancake mixes that have been kept to long.

The objective of long term storage of grains requires the removal of moisture and air. If you have one of those Vacuum sealers it would
be the best way to keep your rat's food. Another way to store this stuff might be to keep it in the freezer, in small batches. Hope this helps.

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X: XERXES did die,
And so must I.

Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:21 pm

www.bugspray.com

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Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:41 am

Thank you. I have my vacuum sealer out and I will give that a try and see how that works. Thanks for the link Kate.

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Crystal...The Ratties..Cocoa & Splinter...The Doggies...Jack & Molly

Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:43 am

Ok I went crazy...I vacuumed everything that wasn't tainted and threw away everything else that I thought would have been yucky. Now that everything is back in order and vacuumed sealed I'm scared to even put anything else back under there. =(

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Crystal...The Ratties..Cocoa & Splinter...The Doggies...Jack & Molly

Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:53 am

yea,you're in the right post!!

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Donnie My Baby

Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:13 am

My family just had an outbreak of the evil, evil cabinet moths (I forget their real name) - hundreds and hundreds of these silly little moths that eat every darn thing they can get into - which is quite a bit. I think what my mom did was go through all the cabinets and put all our food into plastic sealable containers so they didn't have anything to eat. Of course she didn't tell us she'd fed the family food she had plucked moths out of until *after* they were all gone Rolling Eyes

That's my mom for ya. She put grubs in my dads gravy once for April Fools...

Aaaanyway...

I have no idea if these are the same moths you have, but in any case I'd try to find out what they're eating and try to do what you can to prevent them from eating it. If you cut off the food supply they've got nothing to live on and aren't likely to make a return once you've gotten rid of them. Also look into some kind of bug killer but I'm not sure if you'd find anything that's safe to use around the ratties.

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~Mikaela and the RitterRatten~

Blaze~Shadow~Luna~Chinchilla~Malt~Merry~Pippin~Nim~Tiri~Cinder

Tue Feb 07, 2006 5:20 am

I think they are Indian Meal Moths and I used to have them in a horrible way in Berkeley, California. I ended up putting most of my food in glass or hard plastic jars like canning jars. It really helps. They even get into spices. Don't use moth balls---very toxic!!! I think they can get into plastic bags, but the vacuum sealer may work.