moths!!

[Ginevive]

I feel like the dirtiest snake mom ever. I keep Trigger, my corn, on aspen shavings. I changed his shavings last week (A week ago tomorrow, actually..) Well.. I looked in there today and see.. moths!! Three of them; about a half-inch in length. One was on the substrate and two were dead in the water dish.
They had to be in the shavings before I put them in.. maybe in larval form? I am about sick regarding this, and as soon as I am done eating dinner (I just got home, have a mild case of heatstroke too) I will strip his cage completely and go to newspaper.
None of my BPs nor my BCI have any in their houses. The BPs are all on newspaper save for the girls on Shredded aspen (different than the big shavings that were in an open bag out in the laundry room.) My BCI has the shavings too but I did not see anything in his cage.
EEEEEEWWW!!! is all i can say. Gotta love country life..! Gladly, I have a can of PAM here.. the tank is getting bleached out and treated.
I am also glad that this was it for the aspen shavings. I only use pine for the rats, and i checked out their tanks also; nothing.
EDIT: Done with dinner..! OK guys; I am going in. If I am not back in a little while, moths have flown off with me.. ::shudders..::

[Ginevive]

They looked like this (before I killed them..)


"You evil woman! Allowing me to live with moths!"


Tank, all bleached and PAMmed..

[Kagez28]

he does not look like a happy snake

[weirdbuglady]

Do you have any animals that you feed wax worms to? Because those look a lot like what I found when I opened an old can of wax worms... a moth fluttered out! Perhaps some escaped/you dropped some accidentally? I'm probably wrong but it's a thought. You said the bag was left open, perhaps some larvae had made their way inside to pupate. Don't think they would really bother the snake much though, in the wild they'd encounter all sorts of invertebrates every day.

[Ginevive]

A few more moths fluttered out when I opened the tank. I saw no larvae, but I am thinking that they would be tiny.. the moths were only about the size of my fingernail. They are like the ones that I see in the hay barn.. I was just glad to research and find out that they are not predatory, and do not bite
I killed all but one little booger.. hopefully my cat finds it/eradicates it. I only sprayed the PAM in once the tank was cleaned and new newspaper put in.
They could be from anywhere around here, lol. Hay.. dirtfloor basement.. and there was a bag of bird seed that was left open outside and then brought into the laundry room.
Luckily, none are in my rat feed (in a closed bucket), horse feed (in a sealed garbage can), or pig feed (I mix it in the rat food; sealed bag.) From what I read, they can really contaminate animal feed. I would bet that yours were in the worm enclosure to eat their feed!

[Nifer]

They look a lot like the seed moths. With 22 birds they're quite an issue in my house

[weirdbuglady]

Well the reason was because wax worms turn into wax moths... the can had just been sitting on a shelf for so long, forgotten, that the worms had pupated! Like when you find beetles in a lizard's tank, its from mealworms that managed to stay hidden long enough to pupate.

[Sausage]

They look a lot like the seed moths. With 22 birds they're quite an issue in my house

Yeah, I get those too in the birdseed.