# knat attack!!! aaahhhh!!



## carusoe13 (Feb 16, 2010)

help! so i went into my bird room and found a mass of knats just flying around in my, cage for carusoe!!! i've already cleaned every unclean area and scraped most poo so there's no trash for them too breed!!! although my mom is like keep them in your room for a day and bleach everything and i was like thats impossible!!! is there a safe product that is cheap or homemade???? and safe for birds that we can spray or like what can we do to rid the house of them????


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

What color are the gnats? If they are white then the bugs are coming from the feed. and you'll have to discard all their food and buy new stuff. 

Do you have any houseplants in your room that may be breeding fungus gnats? Fungus gnats really like wet rotting organic matter, this is why I'm asking. Do you have any fruit or food that might have spoiled? After that possibility is obliterated, you need to look into the cleanliness of your cages. If the gnats are coming from your cage, then you are not keeping it clean enough. Take the whole thing outside and use a sprayer and spray the cage down with water. Get into all the cracks and clean the tray really well. Then scrub the whole thing with hot water and dish soap. and spray it again. After the cage has dried return the birds to the cage. 

Birds don't usually get gnats in their cage unless there is something rotting or wet. It takes over a week for the eggs to hatch. When was the last time you really cleaned the cage? First off you'll have to look for the source of the gnats and remove it. Then you can concentrate on getting rid of any left over gnats. First off I'd remove the birds form the room as any fumes can be harmful to your birds. Follow your mom's directions on cleaning because she's the one you'll have to account to.


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## srtiels (May 1, 2009)

_*If the gnats are coming from your cage, then you are not keeping it clean enough.*_ 
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Not true if it is fruit flies. Which where I am at tend to be a problem right now, and no amount of spraying, cleaning changes that until they run their course and the season is over for them.

If it is seed moths there is no need to throw away the food. Just place it in the freezer for several hours to kill any larve. Keep it refrigerated. If the moths or fruit flies are flying around you can take a vacumn cleaner hose and suck them up.


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## carusoe13 (Feb 16, 2010)

ok thanks so much!!! that clears up some things. ok first off the knats or whatever they are are brown and flying and very small and your right mentha it was about time for me to change the trays, so i cleaned all of that up and moved my birds to another room that they normally spend playtime in and i took the one cage down that had all those knats in it and took all the toys and food and stuff out and i just scrubbed it down whith just a spray of lysol bleach and a lot of hot wateron a wash cloth and i am going right now to scrub again with just hot water and then i will let it airdry and move every body back into they'e cages again in about and hour. i moved all the birds so that i wouldn't need to worry about my baby tiel mocha coming to investigate so she wouldn't get in the way!! and so nobody elso would get in the way you know how curious birds get


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

You should not let your trays get so bad. You should at least change the tray paper every other day, preferably every day. If you plan on breeding anything you need to keep things clean. All that gunk accumulated in the trays can make your birds ill. I don't use Lysol around my birds, for one it makes me ill, so it can't bee good for birds which might be more susceptible to fumes. I use hot soapy water to clean my cages. 

Srtiels is right about fruit flies being really bad. It's best to not allow them places to breed. An easy way to trap them is to take a plastic 2 liter bottle cut the top off and invert the top into the bottle, pour about a quarter cup of fruit juice or apple cider vinegar in it with about half a cup of water and a few drops of dish soap. Tape the funnel part to the bottle and place it in a place where the gnats are known to be out of reach of your pets. It won't harm your pets, but it can get messy if they were to knock it over. The gnats, flies, whatever will go down the funnel and be trapped in there trying to get up the side wall, at night they will fall into the water and drown. You can then throw the whole bottle away. This is a safe trap for bees, wasps, flies, and any other flying insect, just change the bait for whatever species you're trying to trap.


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## carusoe13 (Feb 16, 2010)

thanks guys and i dried everything and all my birds are healthy and gd this morning and there are no knats anywhere in my birds room so thats a relief!!


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