!!MAY DAY!! !!MAY DAY!! Advice Required! - Page 2

TheFeldhamster · 08-04-2012, 02:46 AM

Oh, I forgot to say - get yourself a moth trap or two. There are pheromone based ones on the market that won't harm you or any animals in the house. They "smell of females" and so attract the male moths which then stick to the sticky surface of the trap. To humans this odor is "invisible", errrm, "unsmellable"

PandaBaby · 08-04-2012, 07:15 AM

Hmmm this is fresh food we only got Monday week ago, and we put it into a sealed lunchbox tub. Unless it was previously in it before they packaged it up.

I will keep an eye out, all treats are sealed in sandwich bags and in a lunch box too now. So unless it was something from the scatter feeding in his tank or something got in from outside.

Do you think I should continue scatter feeding or get a bowl?

I am concerned with the scatter feeding that if he burrows in his bedding some food will fall under and we won't be able to get it so easily.

student1304 · 08-04-2012, 04:38 PM

It doesn't matter if the food is fresh or whether you scatter feed or use a bowl. The moths could be in the food from the store - the problem with the food at pet shops is they keep it on the shelves for so long.

I've had this happen to me. Newly opened bag of food from p@h, next day I found the larva in my hammys cage.

As said they are called indianmeal moths I think if you want to google them - they feed on the hamster food, when you look in the bag of hamster food there will be cobwebs there - they look just like something a spider would make.
If these are present just throw away the full bag of food and buy some more.
Check any new bags of food, and if you're concerned about it happening again you can store the hamster food in the freezer from now on. This will kill off any bugs/nastys. I think you can microwave it aswell but I'm not too sure on that one.
I just store mine in airtight tubs and check everytime I get some hammy food out.
Luckily they won't do any harm to your hammy - just an extra source if protein haha
Also when this happened to me, I went back to p@h and they replaced the food for free!

PandaBaby · 08-05-2012, 02:58 AM

After researching the moths for pics, thats exactly what it was..I did get the food from Pets @ Home but threw out the bag when I put the food into a sealed tub, plus girl kept the receipt when we brought back the water bottle for an exchange lol

Thanks for all the advice everyone and getting me to the conclusion!

Appreciate it =D

Arraminta · 08-05-2012, 03:07 AM

Eeewwww!!!

I'm so happy I feed silvers mix!! Mind you can hammies eat maggots? Only cause they eat mealworms? But still EWWWW!!

:0)

Arraminta x

PandaBaby · 08-05-2012, 08:18 AM

haha I know right..I just checked with Silver about her mix, so ordering it today. I also investigated the rest of his food and it seems fine, when we opened the pack we cut a small corner of it and took it from there, then when pouring into the tub just used same corner, didn't inspect the bag, know for next time at least. =)