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Pebbles82 · 01-15-2021, 05:09 PM

It’s a pain. Yes it is the warm temperatures. The moths themselves are not difficult to kill. But the females can lay 200 eggs a day and once the moths are out and about they head for your food cupboard and can lay eggs in there. Hence pantry moths. I found out the hard way four years ago. So to prevent that, kill any you see and keep an eye on the food cupboard. If you see a moth fluttering about there it is more cleaning. With my current outbreak I have seen four moths. One climbed out of the cage with Pickle on his tube! Two on the wall behind the cage- squashed. The cage is outside waiting to be disinfected and has larvae and webbing in. But I also found one of the moths in the kitchen very near the food cupboard- it has drowned and fallen in a dish with water in. So my grim task now is to completely clean out the food cupboard, wiping all packets and contents etc and cleaning out the cupboard with vinegar (vinegar kills the eggs apparently). Just in case because last time the little buggers infested all my food and it all had to be thrown away. Most of it is in airtight containers after last time but still have a few packs of cornflour, icing sugar etc that aren’t. They can chew through plastic and cardboard as well.

You can get pheromone moth traps to catch the females. Didn’t work when I tried it.

01-15-2021, 05:09 PM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: Maggots! It’s a pain. Yes it is the warm temperatures. The moths themselves are not difficult to kill. But the females can lay 200 eggs a day and once the moths are out and about they head for your food cupboard and can lay eggs in there. Hence pantry moths. I found out the hard way four years ago. So to prevent that, kill any you see and keep an eye on the food cupboard. If you see a moth fluttering about there it is more cleaning. With my current outbreak I have seen four moths. One climbed out of the cage with Pickle on his tube! Two on the wall behind the cage- squashed. The cage is outside waiting to be disinfected and has larvae and webbing in. But I also found one of the moths in the kitchen very near the food cupboard- it has drowned and fallen in a dish with water in. So my grim task now is to completely clean out the food cupboard, wiping all packets and contents etc and cleaning out the cupboard with vinegar (vinegar kills the eggs apparently). Just in case because last time the little buggers infested all my food and it all had to be thrown away. Most of it is in airtight containers after last time but still have a few packs of cornflour, icing sugar etc that aren’t. They can chew through plastic and cardboard as well. You can get pheromone moth traps to catch the females. Didn’t work when I tried it.