Worms in cat food!

[gothra]

Can someone please identify these worms for me?? I bought a package of cat food to feed my roaches about 1-2 months ago; I kept them in a lidded container. While I was scooping it with my bare hand this morning, I noticed these worms crawling in there!! At first I thought they were superworms, but upon closer inspection, they're definately not.

Here are a couple pics:

The pointy red end is the head, and the blunt black end is the butt. They move around like a caterpilla - stretching and inching forward. I found 3 in there, and they're about 1.5cm long. There is one time that I didn't close the lid properly (that was about 2-3 weeks ago), could it be something that've gotten in there then? Or do you think they came with the cat food?

Sheesh, I've only used 10% of the bag, I think I need to throw it out and get a new bag now...

 

[acpart]

Could be a kind of grain moth, but big for that. Just feed them to your geckos.

Aliza

 

[gothra]

NOOO!!! I'm too skittish for that...

But do you think the cat food is still good to use? I don't have any loose bugs in my apartment besides silverfish, I wonder how these lavaes got in there.

p.s. Oh I just take another look at those worms, they were actually around 1 cm length.

 

[Dog Shrink]

Those are def. some type of grain worm/moth type insect. We see it all the time in some rabbitries that keep their kibbles in a trash can or something that doesn't seal really well. I wouldn't use the food because what if there are more eggs that haven't morphed into worms yet that you can't see and you feed that to your cat? Since you had it in a container and not in the original package while you stored it it will be hard to say if it came with the catfood or from your containment of the food. You could report it to the manufacturer and even send them a sample of the food and a worm and they'd I.D it for you and possibly give you a cupon for a new bag of food.

 

[gothra]

Ok, thanks Kel. The cat food was for my roaches though. I seriously think those larvae came with the cat food, perhaps there were holes in the original bag that I missed.

 

[robin]

ugh bonnie i would have freaked out LOL. i have grain moths in the house and it has been a chore getting rid of those and i can only imagine finding worms in the cat food lol

 

[Dog Shrink]

Oh then if the catfood is for roaches I'm not sure what the ramifications of feeding possibly parasite laiden catfood to roaches would be. Sorry.

 

[gothra]

ugh bonnie i would have freaked out LOL. i have grain moths in the house and it has been a chore getting rid of those and i can only imagine finding worms in the cat food lol

Yea, its was quite yucky I almost scooped up the worms with my hand. I have ZERO moths in my apartment though, just the 3 worms in the dry cat food. I had been feeding my roaches with those in the past month, so they've probably eaten some worm eggs already if they are there. I think I'm going to bake the remaining cat food to kill off any possible life-forms and continue to use them.

I also posted on the arachnoboards, and people say it's not uncommon to have grain moth larvae in dry cat or dog food...huh? I don't know since I don't have cats or dogs. :main_huh:

 

[Pinky81]

:stunned: :stunned: Ewwww just got the willies!!!!!

 

[RyuuKirin]

we've had them before in dog food that was old... pretty gross. i tossed it out, but it was for my dogs their eggs shouldn't be *too* small... how big is the kibble?

 

[BadKelpie]

Yeah, those are seed moth larvae (pretty sure). Kill them or feed them to your gecko, and get rid of the bag of cat food. NOW. If they turn to moths, they infest your cupboards. They chew through plastic. I had to throw away everything in my cupboards, they got in all the food that was in plastic, paper, or boxes.

Actually, take the food back to the store, get a refund.

 

[gothra]

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely get rid of all the remaining cat food, as I saw more worms emerging in there last night. Unfortunately I won't be able to get a refund since I didn't keep the original packaging and the receipt. Next time I buy a package of dry cat food, I'll bake them first before storing them in my tubberware container.

If anyone is interested to know, I think the brand I bought is "Nature's Best"; its suppose to be good quality cat food that uses real chicken meat...

 

[BadKelpie]

Yeah, sorry, I noticed right after I posted that you got it a couple months ago. Freezing works fine too. I used to have birds, and when I bought bulk seeds, I'd throw them in the freezer right after I bought them to kill any eggs and larvae.