Small Bugs in Commercial Mix

by zozzlezeb Sun 27 Dec 2020, 7:05 pm

Hey everyone! So I just found some small bugs in my bag of Tiny Friends Farm Rat and Mouse mix, which was immedialty thrown away. With my mice I mix commercial brands and pick out anything that isn't good for them then I feed them that mix along with their Science Selective lab blocks for mice. I bought the tiny friends farm bag from amazon and I've bought the same bag from the same seller twice and I've never seen bugs. I recently bought this bag and I've been using it for maybe a couple weeks? I pick out foods from the different brands so I know what they are getting in their mix of commercial brands before I feed them and I haven't seen bugs in the food I gave them so I hope none of the bugs got in their food. I went on amazon to see if anyone experienced the same issue and someone who gave it a one star also had the same issue. The photo they supplied was the same bug that was in my food. I was wondering if having bugs in commercial mouse mixes is normal and if bugs being in the food can be harmful to my mice?

by chiroptera Sun 27 Dec 2020, 7:22 pm

Honestly, the mice would probably enjoy having bugs in their mix - extra snack! Laughing

Mice are omnivores, and absolutely will eat bugs in the wild. Mine go wild for bugs that I offer them, whether I buy them mealworms or offer dead roaches. (Note - I'm talking about my own pet/feeder roaches that I breed, never feed your mice wild caught insects due to the risk of poison or parasites.)

That said, unless you're confident you can ID the bugs correctly to assure they're safe, I still wouldn't feed random bugs to your mice. Besides, depending on what kind of bugs they are, they might find your house to be cozy giving you another problem. So I wouldn't recommend keeping any bags of live mystery bugs for your mice. It's not shocking to hear that a bag of grains would attract insects, though I don't know if I'd say it's a "normal" occurrence. Just a bad batch.

I would definitely reach out to Amazon and request a refund or replacement as soon as you can. Amazon tends to be pretty good about returns so I think they'll do it. Especially if you have any pictures of the bugs in the bag.

Edit to clarify; it's very likely that even if the bugs did get in their food, it wouldn't harm them. So unless you see an issue, I wouldn't worry!

by zozzlezeb Tue 29 Dec 2020, 12:35 pm

Thank you! I'm going to definitely try to get a refund! One of my girls got ringworm recently and the other just developed like four small bumps on her. Two right across from each other on her sides and two on her back legs also right across from each other. So I wonder if these could be related especially the bumps because they developed very recently like within the time I bought the bag.

by chiroptera Wed 30 Dec 2020, 4:33 pm

It is possible that the bumps could be bites from the bugs, I'd recommend including pictures of them in your request for a refund, especially if you didn't grab any pics of the food with the bugs before tossing it out, it may help your case.

Some pics of the bumps on here might help us identify them one way or the other though, so it might be worth it to post them. Smile

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Small Bugs in Commercial Mix

Small Bugs in Commercial Mix

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Re: Small Bugs in Commercial Mix