Bird Seed Moths

[luvgrey]

We do not feed our AG seeds, mostly pellets with added fresh vegtables. He does not like most fresh food, but will eat cooked mixed vegtables, apples and yams. We use corn cob bedding in the cage and have just noticed many little brown moths around the cage and other rooms in the house. I do not put many pellets in the bowls so I can change they frequently. I have noticed some powder in the bottom of the bowls at night when I change them. Are the moths from the pellets, as most sites claim, or could the moth larvae be in the corn cob bedding??? I keep the bag of pellets in a plastic box with a tight lid. Should I freeze the pellets for 72 hours to try to kill the eggs? I did get two moth lore traps and have caught about two dozen on them.

Thanks for any information you can give me on these pesty little critters.

[Luvparrots]

I would say probably the corn cob bedding. When I first got my grey, I have a large container full of corn cob stuff to catch the poop in under Ana Grey's boing. I had moths pop up in that room and so quickly got rid of the corn cob stuff and with it the moth problem.

[luvgrey]

Thank you so much for your input - what type of bedding do most people use for the cage (to catch poop)? I did see on a website (Bird Paradise in Burlington, NJ) that they do not recommend corn cob because the parrots like to eat it. We do not observe our grey eating any of the corn cob, but tonight when we changed the cage, it seemed as if the moths tripled in number, on the wall behind the cage, leading me to believe they were in the corn cob. Bird Paradise uses some sort of crushed, colored paper on the bottom of the cage, ever seen it? Thanks for your help (eke, there goes another one right past my face) and I didn't get it. I did try newspaper at first, but he kept trying to tear it up. Thanks again.

[Luvparrots]

I use newspaper cause my parrots do not go to the bottom of their cages.

[abbie21187]

I use newspaper but I have a grate on the bottom as well. I know what bedding your talking about from Bird Paradise, I live in the area and was there today. They have a coupon available for it online as well check it out!

[luvgrey]

Thanks for your reply. Our cage has a top play area where he sits alot - so newspaper would not work in that area, but would on the bottom under the grate. I will keep trying to beat this problem. Thanks again.

[luvgrey]

Wow, just think - out of hundreds of people on here you live near Bird Paradise - we are about 50 miles south of Burlington, so I order online at times. We have been there two times - it has such wonderful things, anything you could want. I will use the newspaper on the bottom and get some of the other paper stuff that they have - I will try it and see how it works. Anything is better than having these moths flying around. Our local pet store stands firm that they are coming from the bird food - I don't think so now. Thanks for your helpful information - I will look up the coupon they have. I ordered the moth traps from there and received them in about 3 days. Do you ever watch their TV show? P.S. any ideas to stop these little parrots from biting, he is almost two now - ha?????!!!!! I compared him to having a snake - never know when he will bite you HA! Don't get me wrong - never will have a snake in this house - a husband, parrot, poodle & moths are enough for me.

[Barbara2]

We had those moths several years ago. It definitely came from the bird store from the food in open bins. We usually bought bags but they were out so I got some from the bins. By the time we realized what was going on they had made their way into the pantry. We threw out food and obviously the bird food. Everything now is in zip lock bags and we don't buy loose food any more.