weevils in grain

[ellieroo]

My husband just bought 30 sacks of mixed whole grains, wheat, corn, peas etc. Those are in there But so are weevils you can see them and hear them if you put your ear to the sacks, YUCK ! This feed is for his racing pigeons so unlike chickens who would not mind bugs The weevils undermine the nutrition of the feed for racing pigeons. Any way Ideas on how to get rid of these bugs? Returning the feed is not an option Thank for any ideas !

 

[darkmatter]

Put the bags in a deep freeze for a week at a time.

 

[southerndesert]

Quote:
Also transfer to another container adding DE at 2% will work and prevent re-infestation, if freezing not an option the DE will work without the freeze....

 

[ellieroo]

The bags weigh 50lbs so the freeze is out. He was looking for something to kill the bugs in All the sacks at once?? That sounds like maybe not

 

[tclegg]

well it also ruins the nutrition for your chickens too...DE should work (like other poster stated)

 

[ellieroo]

Quote:
So open all sacks 50lbs each and put in and some how mix DE in all of them, and re seal Yikes !! Think I'll email him and go shopping for the day !

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
Thirty 50 pound bags is a lot of feed. He must have an enormous amount of pigeons.

At that scale I'd go with putting all of the feed in metal or plastic drums. Anything that is clean and did not previously contain toxic materials will do.

You should be able to get five to six bags of feed into each drum.

Now before you pour it in go get some dry ice. You can usually find a source by looking in your phone book or you can check out http://dryiceinfo.com/

Once you have the dry ice pour one bag of feed into the drum then take about a pound or so of the dry ice and wrap it in some paper toweling or put it in a paper bag. Set it on top of the feed you poured in then pour in the rest of the feed until the drum is full. Put the lid on and secure it, but not real tight. You need for the gas pressure inside to bleed off.

Do this with each drum then leave them alone for a few days. By then all of the weevils should be dead. After two days or so seal the lids down tight of the drums that you don't need to get into right away.

DE is not very effective against an already established weevil infestation.

I explain the dry ice method in more detail here: http://athagan.members.atlantic.net/PFSFAQ/PFSFAQ-4-1.html#co2_n2

 

[ellieroo]

A.T. that might be possible. He is an engineer so it will all make sense to him Thank You !! ps this was almost a yrs supply of feed, but he does have 120 race birds

 

[BoltonChicken]

t that scale I'd go with putting all of the feed in metal or plastic drums. Anything that is clean and did not previously contain toxic materials will do.

You should be able to get five to six bags of feed into each drum.

I agree. But at the point of transferring the feed, I would add the required amount of DE and be done with it. Forget the dry ice, etc. Most major feed makers add DE at the mill to keep out weevils, etc. Strangely enough, your feed supplier did not do that.​

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I don't know of any major feed mill that uses DE to prevent weevils. I do know they are allowed to use it as a flow agent to improve handling properties.

I've been using DE for years and it has some practical value in some applications, but it will not eliminate an already established weevil infestation even presuming the OP had some way to thoroughly blend it into their feed as it would need to be. Against some grain pest species it simply does not work at all.

The dry ice is dead simple to use pretty much just as I outlined above and it works.