Moths in dog food?
Anybody else have this problem? |
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| I've never seen moths in either did you call the store? |
| No, my parents buy our dog's food. (He's a German Shepherd) And not always at the same store. I've already bought the food for my new sheepie puppy. I sure hope there aren't moths in there too, we bought that at Petsmart. If there are I'll be sure to mention it to them. |
| I've been buying from Petsmart forever with no problem |
Hrrm. Maybe we should start buying Caesar's food from Petsmart from now on..that's the Shepherd's name. Heehee. When we were thinking of a name for him we were trying to make it one that started with either a C or S cause all of our other dogs had C or S names, and my mom thought of Caesar. I might post a picture of him on the picture forum sometime. Oh and I'm *still* deciding on the puppy's name. I think they buy Caesar's food from Wal-Mart, not sure. But I will mention it to them, thanks.  |
The puppy in your avatar is darling, he looks so serious  |
| I used to buy wild bird seed at Petsmart and had the "moth problem" a few times. I don't know what it is about the bird food. Never had a problem with dog food. |
| Heehee. You're right, he does. Maybe we should name him something like Sherlock! Er I dunno..what's a serious name? Ok, gotta go to work now. I'm so addicted to this forum! |
| I found wormy things in food from PetSmart once. They took it back no problem.
Grossed me out though. J |
| hmmmm, I'm a bit confused. Moths and butterflies don't eat dogfood or bird food.......most don't eat at all, or just sip/lap nectar. Their offspring in the form of caterpillars do eat......a lot. They can be found in your lawn eating the the grass and roots or up on stems eating your plant's leaves, etc. Soooo, if you have "butterflies" in your food.........you've got OLD!!! food.
Another concern is not moth/caterpillars, but beetles/grubs. Yes, these can get into dog food and bird food........once again, old-contaminated food. Time for a clean up campaign. Take the dog food out of the bags and put it into canisters or cans with tight fitting lids and store in dark, cool location. I keep ours in the garage. Never have more than a few weeks worth on hand and always read the expiration date on the bags. Anything more than a few months old, forget it!!! Yesterday I was at a local doggie botique and met the rep for Innova dog food. He said none of their food is more than 2 weeks old when it arrives at their distributors. So if you get your food "right off the truck" it is almost as fresh as making it yourself. |
| PS: Yes, I've gotten spoiled food from PetsMart. That's when I learned to read the expiration date. The food was 6 months past the date!!!! Boy did I give them HECK!!! They went to give me another bag.........and it was over due too!! |
| SheepieBoss-I love the name but is it true? |
| You bet! The kids know I am the Big, Head bitch here! |
| Bestdogsx4 isn't ALWAYS true sometimes just bestdogx1 |
| LOL, understand that!!
I have 7......a real herd. Looking forward to smaller pack but hate the idea of losing any of them.......  Alas ages are getting up there, youngest is about 6............ |
7? Do you breed or do rescue? I know about the age thing, 2 of mine will be 8 in June, the other 2 will be 7 this year. Seems like we just got them...hard to believe how old they are. Maybe time for a puppy or 2, I can't seem to get just 1  |
oh NO! I don't breed, I don't show. I'm strictly rescue. The Magnificent Seven are my own dogs...#7 is too old for placement, #6 is a foster that went to 3 homes after leaving me but now is back permanently as we have the temperment to handle her needs, #5 is a sheepie wanna-be or cross who we jealously kept because he's just tooooo cool  , the remaining were "our dogs." |
| That is so cool I'd like to foster but can't do it right now. I'm not sure how my guys would react to a new dog, Rosco for sure would love a puppy. |
| I had this problem in my last place. These little moths just wouldn't leave. Everytime I thought I got the last one, another one would be flying around the next day.
Some how they got into the rice in the cupboard, and then into the pancake mix. Only after a complete disinfecting of all the cupboards (including deep into the corners) did they disappear. I would check everywhere you have food. These little moths will go everywhere. |
| Those are pantry or grain moths (Indian meal moths).........I completely forgot about them!!! ARGH, age does wonders to the brain. I wonder about "Old Timers Disease" sometimes.........
Complete cleaning is the only way to eliminate, you are right, El Gato.....including throwing away all contaminated stuff. You can monitor for these pests in the future with pheromone traps. GardensAlive.com sells them, they cost about $5.00 a piece. They are Pantry Pest Trap or Cuboard Moth Trap. |
SheepieBoss wrote: hmmmm, I'm a bit confused. Moths and butterflies don't eat dogfood or bird food.......most don't eat at all, or just sip/lap nectar. Their offspring in the form of caterpillars do eat......a lot. They can be found in your lawn eating the the grass and roots or up on stems eating your plant's leaves, etc. Soooo, if you have "butterflies" in your food.........you've got OLD!!! food.
Another concern is not moth/caterpillars, but beetles/grubs. Yes, these can get into dog food and bird food........once again, old-contaminated food. Time for a clean up campaign. Take the dog food out of the bags and put it into canisters or cans with tight fitting lids and store in dark, cool location. I keep ours in the garage. Never have more than a few weeks worth on hand and always read the expiration date on the bags. Anything more than a few months old, forget it!!! Yesterday I was at a local doggie botique and met the rep for Innova dog food. He said none of their food is more than 2 weeks old when it arrives at their distributors. So if you get your food "right off the truck" it is almost as fresh as making it yourself. We're keeping the dog food in the garage now and will start checking the expiration date. We'll look into those traps as well. Thanks everybody for your help. |
| You are welcome. These pantry pests come with grains: cereal, rice, flour (yes, these are those creepy crawlies in old flour), etc. Good idea to keep all grains in sealed containers. No, I don't sell Tupperware, LOL.
sheepieboss |
| Hi. I just returned a bag of dog food to Petsmart because it was infested with Indian mealmoths and larva. Didn't discover it for 5 days, and my dog was eating the infested food all those days.
Now have to de-worm him, had to throw out ALL open food in my pantry. Several hundred dollars worth of food. PetSmart actually has a code on their register for returns of INFESTED food. That tells you how often it happens! This bag had been ripped, and they had taped it shut. A rep at Petco told me that pet stores are not supposed to sell bags that have been open. I will never go to PetSmart again. It was an expensive lesson. |
| I'm not sure you have to worm your dogs after this. Worming is for specific parasites, not general larvae. Still ask your vet, but I suspect Indian meal moth larvae isn't a parasite, it's just a guest on grain products.
sheepieboss |
| Several hundred dollars worth? Wow, you must have a lot of
dogs! Many things often come with eggs or larvae in them. I really don't think you need to worm your dogs for this, they are not going to breed inside your dog. You'd be surprised what an average person eats (as part of other food or drink ) on a regular basis and never even knows. Shellie |
| How strange..I have seen moths in my kitchen lately..at feeding time
INTERESTING |
| Moths pretty bad this summer. Indian Meal Moths contaminate dog food, bird seed, bread, anything left out. Best thing to do is eliminate the source. You'll find small worms crawling around that eventually turn into these moths. To kill these in the food before using them, you have a choice. Freeze the food for 7 days. This will kill any larvae that may have infected the food before you brought it home.
OR.. with bird seed, put it in the oven at 130F for an hour. This too will kill the larvae (not sure if you can do this with dry dog food). The IMM are a pain, but they are a fact of life. Hope this helps. |
| About a month ago I bought a huge bag of Bountiful dry dog food at Costco. In the past I've had problems with ants getting to the food so I emptied the dog food into large glass containers. Over the past few weeks I've been noticing little months all over the house. A few days ago I opened one of the jars for my dog (I have her 1/2 the time) and a bunch of months flew out.
The months definitely came with the dog food. So far I've been unable to track down the company that makes this product but will contact Costco. Rick |
| yeah my dog food has had moths in it once but then she started to barf her food out in chunks |
| Bountiful by Purina is definately a major source of these moths. The bags appear to be contaminated with the eggs. Putting the food in a tight container only traps the newly hatched moths in the container, until you open the lid. They quickly infest all grain products in the house. I don't worry about the dogs eating them. It's just another source of protein. |
| We also noticed moths these last few weeks, tiny ones,and killed so many and was wondering where they were coming from, and when I was doing something last evening, I looked over and saw a moth fly out of the box of milk bone dog treats ( not name brand ones) and I looked in the box, and there were moths and moth eggs in bottom of box. YUK. I tossed it outside in trash can and scrubbed down everything around it. I left a message for Vet to call Me this morning ( want to be sure it can not give some kind of sickness to My Pup) and I them scrubbed everything down. I have learned to check ALL dry pet food and pet treats now and keep them in sealed containers or ziplocks. |
| This is what I found on the Vet Health Editor HealthEditor If the moths in your dry dog food are ½- inch long, dusty-gray or beige-colored moths, they are probably the pesky but harmless (to people and pets) Indian meal moths (Plodia interpunctella, or “pantry moths”) and they’re probably in other dry foods, too. The meal moth is one of the disadvantages of buying thrifty dry foods (oatmeal, grains, bread crumbs, spices, pet foods) in bulk. These critters might have come home as eggs in the dry foods. Your first indication might be silky, webby clumps of food created by hatching larvae of the moths as they begin to feed (adults moths don’t feed, and they won’t live long after laying another round of eggs, but they certainly are annoying). While dry food contaminated with meal moth larvae, technically, is not unsafe to eat, the “yuck factor” will make you want to throw it out. Look through all dry food containers in your pantry, and check for other sources. Freezing newly bought dry foods will kill any meal moth eggs that might be there, as will heating in an oven for an hour at 140 degrees F. Sticky pheromone traps can catch adult male moths, but the best remedy is to get rid of all contaminated foods and hope for the best next time. Storing in tightly sealed glass containers makes it easier to monitor the food. Meal (pantry) moths won’t hurt your dog, and cats love to chase them. |
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