Out of feed for two days... Help!

[Tatuana]

My weather is much like yours. Hot and humid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I know all about the grain mites **growls** They must taste awful too, because my chickens would no more gobble one down than I'd eat hominy. The thought of hominy makes me gag. I know the woes of only being able to get a certain size bag of feed too. Absolute smallest quail feed available is 40kg (88 pounds). Accounting for waste (read that as messy eaters), that's still over 1400 meals for quail!

I hate grain bugs. We got pantry flies from a bag of flour... four? years ago. We still have them. We've thrown everything out, cleaned dozens of times... But bird seed + huge household = they're now our new pets. Urgh.

Our local feed store only sells TINY bags! I end up buying a new one a week practically. I'll trade you feed stores!

 

[Ebony Rose]

I wonder if that permythrin (spelling?) would kill the pantry flies.

 

[paneubert]

I wonder if that permythrin (spelling?) would kill the pantry flies.

Permethrin will kill any invertebrate.

 

[Ebony Rose]

Permethrin will kill any invertebrate.

Does that mean that they'd be rid of their flour flies if they used that?

 

[paneubert]

Does that mean that they'd be rid of their flour flies if they used that?

It would kill the live ones, but most likely not the eggs. So it would take two treatments timed well enough to kill babies that hatch before they can grow up and lay more eggs. I also would not want to eat something with Permethrin on it. It is relatively safe, but is still not supposed to be in contact with food or water that will be consumed.

 

[Ebony Rose]

Thanks so much for your response. I don't have flour flies, but I have had grain weevils (they came in the dog food) *groans*... Seriously impossible to be rid of, it seems.

 

[Tatuana]

Thanks so much for your response. I don't have flour flies, but I have had grain weevils (they came in the dog food) *groans*... Seriously impossible to be rid of, it seems.

I think they're officially grain weevils I have. "Indian Meal Moths" are the most common types. Once you get them, you kind of want to set the house on fire to get rid of them. Doesn't help that my family is...ah, messy. Bit of a clutterbug my mom is. We've had them for I think ten years now! My mom won't clean as deeply as we need to. Like I said, I just consider them pets now.

 

[ChickNanny13]

When cleaning, did you get in all the cracks & crevices? Could try any product with permethrin, there's a horse spray that ready to use in a spray bottle that @Texas Kiki has mentioned for mites/lice treatment of chickens. I purchased the Permethrin 10/concentrate which needs to be mixed, still got some.

Wonder if DE (food grade) would help, sprinkle in the cracks & crevices. My Mom puts dry bay leaf in open bags & containers of flour, rice and toss in the pantry ... I do it too, think it helps and don't hurt. So got bay leaf planted outside & collect/dry leaves to use.

2x @paneubert It takes at least 2 treatments, 1st kills the live stuff, 2nd gets the hatching eggs the live ones leave

 

[Kiki]

The first one is labeled poultry.
The second one is not but I use them both.

Martin's PERMETHRIN spray

• Kiki
• Mar 22, 2018
• 6
• flies lice mites permethrin

IMG_20180322_102709

• Kiki
• Mar 22, 2018

 

[Tatuana]

When cleaning, did you get in all the cracks & crevices? Could try any product with permethrin, there's a horse spray that ready to use in a spray bottle that @Texas Kiki has mentioned for mites/lice treatment of chickens. I purchased the Permethrin 10/concentrate which needs to be mixed, still got some.

Wonder if DE (food grade) would help, sprinkle in the cracks & crevices. My Mom puts dry bay leaf in open bags & containers of flour, rice and toss in the pantry ... I do it too, think it helps and don't hurt. So got bay leaf planted outside & collect/dry leaves to use.

2x @paneubert It takes at least 2 treatments, 1st kills the live stuff, 2nd gets the hatching eggs the live ones leave

I got as many as I could. I'm not going to sugarcoat it - my mom is a hoarder. Not a full fledged one, but bad enough. We vacuum about once every two weeks. And our house is HUGE, so getting all the cracks is impossible. The moths even get into sealed food bags! You get them out of the pantry, they move to the bird seed. Get them out of the bird seed, you find them in a different food storage area. Get THAT cleaned... Find a box that had a small amount of seed inside it. Bam. Moths. They're not as bad as they used to be, luckily, but still annoying. They seem to prefer birdseed and oatmeal. I find them in flour bags a lot, though.

Like I said, I kind of want to just burn the house down to get rid of them. I *think* we have them mostly under control. I've heart heat might help kill em. It's regularly 100F outside right now. I'm thinking of taking all the food and leaving it in the sun for a day or so. Roast them out. I've tried dozens of traps to no avail.

It's even harder since we have finches, parakeets, cockatiels, rabbits, cats, a gecko, and once in a while a stray bird or field mouse/snake I rescue. It has to be beyond safe for animals *and* humans, but deadly to moths. I now just vacuum them up when I see the adults or larva in their usual places.