Erm - unwanted critters

[Pebbles82]

Originally Posted by oddlyoblivious

Moths. Too bad cedar is so bad for hammies. Good Luck with your moths. Maybe Charlie was keeping him as a pet? It could happen right?

Ha ha - hilarious I just hope it hasn't been bothering Charlie.

[Pebbles82]

Originally Posted by souffle

Nancy is right - freeze the food and kill the eggs. If you have moths though they must be hatching and there may be grubs in the food so check that really well as they make a webbing stuff when they pupate and it isn't pleasant. They are often right at the bottom. You need to stop them as they can get in your own food and start breeding. It is because it is getting warmer and they are hatching out. Make sure everything is in sealed tubs and bags - even your treats and things like dog biscuits are risky!

Souffle that's what I'm dreading! Finding grubs urgh. I shall tackle it later today.

It's not that I don't like insects - I just don't like them en masse! Breeding in the house. I once lived in a house that had ants nesting in the cavity insulation and came down one morning to find the walls and windows literally black with flying ants, and a few giant queens walking around on the ceiling. The only way to get rid of them when they've hatched is hoovering and spraying - we had to evacuate that room! But you can kill the whole nest with Nippon if you catch them before they hatch into winged ants.

Anyway - I should have some of those pheromone strips coming today so if they are breeding that's supposed to stop it.

I did see two little moths on top of each other on the curtains a week or so back and killed them, so I guess I knew and stuck my head in the sand!

[BluerayDarkes]

I found a spider in my broccoli last week x.x

[Pebbles82]

Urgh - hope it wasn't an imported one! The strange thing was - Charlie was sitting in his nest as the moth crawled into his hoard and he didn't bat an eyelid. He didn't attack it and shake it to death lol.

[BluerayDarkes]

I really hope it wasn't imported but I had the whole thing thrown out anyway, never know if there was eggs on it or not. I don't think hamsters like to eat moths, all that dust that comes off them would clog their mouth.

[Pebbles82]

Good point - the ham is discerning Probably prefers dead insects to live ones. I just wish Charlie's new house was ready as if I'm going to have to upheave his nest and hoard it would be good to do the house at the same time.

It must be a very recent thing as he's only been in the cage since February and all was newly done out then - except for his nest - and a bit of his hoard, but all the substrate underneath the house was new.

[BluerayDarkes]

A live grub might be welcome xD When I was younger (way younger) I fed them live grasshoppers, they all went nuts for them specially the gerbils. The house will be ready soon!

[Coldpaws]

Arghhhhhh! I'm itching now too
Reminds me of when a fully grown bug crawled out of the small tub of treat mealworms we kept...after that we kept all food in cold places. It's not something you forget :O

I'm still laughing at 'What I want to know is - why hasn't Charlie eaten the little blighter.' Once I saw a spider run down into HBs Living World house, I never saw it again but wondered whether she'd freak out or eat it?
Anyway hope the traps sort out your moth invasion & Charlie's food is all ok.

[Pebbles82]

Ok I'm trying to work out what to do first. Part of me wants to sort the cage out first. But I'm thinking for the sake of one more day I'll put the pheromonoe traps near the cage first and catch the moths. If I clear out the cage before killing the live moths they may start on my food cupboard

Which might give me time to get Charlie's new house ready as well so I can kill two birds with one stone, give him a partial cage clean and put the new house in as well, rather than disturb him twice. I'm also getting a new bag of Harry Hamster arriving tomorrow which I'll put in the freezer for a couple of days. So that means waiting 3 days to do the cage clean as no point putting the food out that's been in the freezer till I've got rid of the lot of them, and Charlie needs to eat.

So Pheromone strips down tomorrow.
Harry Hamster in the freezer tomorrow.
Do the whole deed on Friday. Meanwhile I'll squash the one that keeps coming out and I couldn't catch it last night.

Yes I'm itching again too Coldpaws.

[zak]

I am on edge and keep looking around the room like a crazy person to see if there is any creepy crawlies lurking about after reading this thread. Reminds me of the time when I suddenly looked over to my far wall one night and saw a massive black spider coming down from the celling and it then proceeded to crawl into my budgies cage. I fled the room and didn't return until I was 100% positive it was gone.