roach infestation i need help!

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chinchillalover0927

chinchillalover0927

to many chin chips??
Joined
Sep 15, 2009
Messages
1,079
Location
picayune, Ms
i already had 3 ferret nations and just recently got another one maybe 2 days ago...i cleaned it outside and brought it into the room and it was lined up with the other cages..but hasnt been used yet..

today when i walked into my room i saw a "filth" roach..i killed it immediately and told mom, because we have never had them before and i keep my room very clean with the chinchillas...

all my cages are on one wall and at the end in the corner there is a box that was full of hay and a paper kind of bag full of wheat bran or germ, the shredded kind...when i went to move the bag i saw 5-6 roaches instantly on the top that ran! I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED. so i began to start ripping my room apart cleaning and moving things out of it....being that these things will take over so fast!!

i cleaned out the corner they were all in but still kept seeing them..it finally dawned on me when i looked and saw one on that ferret nation cage...keep in mind that i didnt see ONE roach while cleaning this cage outside or after it was inside but im almost certain that these roaches came out of this ferret nation...now im in frantic mode because there is no way i killed them all! I KNOW THEY ARE IN MY ROOM and im not exactly sure what to do to controll the situation....what if they get inside my other ferret nations if they arent already there! please tell me someone has some advice for me..im frantic and disgusted, and very very angry about this situation.
 
i cant move me, my mom, my dad, and all my 13 chinchillas to another house, thats just not possible im sorry...we do have a guest house that they could go in, but how long would they need to stay out of my room...??? we are trying to nip this in the butt immediately!
 
they would need to stay out of your room until the investation was completely cleared. I would keep them free from the room after treatment for at least a week to make sure no lingering affects of treatment remain.
 
i dont know but i know how quick they breed...i believe that they are inside that new ferret nation because i havent seen one roach in my room until today!!! all of a sudden they are everywhere after i brought that cage home 2 days ago!! i threw the cage back outside but im trying to controll my room and other cages...

what do i do about there cages?? if the roaches went inside theres already i need to keep them from breeding inside the cage holes.
 
The paper bag the wheat germ is in - is it like a grocery store paper bag? Roaches lay eggs on those so you should never store those in your house. Also, any recent cold snaps in your weather? they could just be coming in to avoid the cold. Still doesnt solve how to get rid of them but it might not be the cage. Also are they big or small? Small ones and big ones mean breeding...
 
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You can buy bait traps at the store, remove all other food and water, clean really well and put them out. Otherwise and exterminator, who will kind of just do the same things.

You could probably remove all animals from the house and do a fogger/bomb. If you have a close place for the chins to go to like you said for a couple days this might be your best bet. I would check to make sure the foggers will get the roaches, I'm not positive if they do or they don't.
 
Are these German cockroaches (Blattella germanica)?

Some strains of Germans are bait-averse and won't consume baits containing certain classes of pesticides. Traps are useful in monitoring but not in killing an entire colony. We use these for our field studies in infested apartments and houses for monitoring populations during treatments.

The best bet would be to use a fogger designed to kill roaches as nymphs can hide in the tiniest crevice and most roaches remain hidden during the day. You want to kill everything. If you leave one gravid female alive, she will drop an ootheca and soon you'll just have a new generation to deal with.
 
there are big ones and little ones :( so they are producing already because i saw tiny ones also... all the chins are getting pulled out this morning.
 
Try putting a THIN layer of FOOD GRADE diatomaceous earth wherever you see them- any cracks and crevices, along the sideboards. DE is not toxic to humans or animals and kills roaches and other crawlies. You can buy DE at a hardware store or a gardening centre. It is not as fast as toxic chemicals in getting rid of the roaches, but it works.
 
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how well did you clean the cage? honestly i think the cold made them come in, here in florida we get palmetto bugs. we've seen 2 in our house so far, my dads gonna spray around the outside of the house to keep them from coming in. we always get a few every year from the cold. since we dont get cockroaches here thats all i can say, but i imagine they are alike. after you get rid of them in your chin room make sure you spray outside along the perimeter of your house to keep them from coming back in. i honestly have no idea how they manage to get in our house, but they do. keep things clean too. check all the food and bedding you have in the chin room. it also might be a good idea to check all food in your house, just in case.
 
I dont think they came from the cage if there are already multiple generations in two days...likely they have come in or were already in the house.
 
I don't know about roaches but to prevent flour moths I heard (and practice) putting newly purchased bird seed in the freezer for 24 hours when you first bring it home. It kills the moths and eggs in the food if there is any. Maybe, in the future, you can do this with your bags of wheat germ or any other bags of animal food you bring in your house.
 
Try to find different housing for your chin's for like two days. Your local super market should sell bug bombs. Let it off in your room with the cages in there. It only takes a few hours. Then throw away and replace all there food and bedding and such, air out the room by opening windows and putting in fans for two days. And wash out the cages like CRAZY. Then leave them in the sun for two days, uv rays kills bacteria. Then you should be good to go. They are probably came in the food. I used to get awful beetle infestations from rat food. The rats just decided to make the beetles part of their diet. Yuck.
 
eroomlorac said:
I don't know about roaches but to prevent flour moths I heard (and practice) putting newly purchased bird seed in the freezer for 24 hours when you first bring it home. It kills the moths and eggs in the food if there is any. Maybe, in the future, you can do this with your bags of wheat germ or any other bags of animal food you bring in your house.
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After you take it out of the freezer, DO NOT open the bag for at least 24 more hours. Or else it will mold due to the condensation getting it wet. I also had to end up doing this with my rat food, and I stopped having a problem.
 
I'm so sorry to hear this. It sounds awful. I just hope that you can find out how they got in and get rid of them. If it were me, I'd probably take everything outside and go through everything looking for roaches. Go through anything you bring into the house and be sure that it doesn't have any bugs in it. (I hate bugs, I do everything I possibly can to make sure that I don't bring any into the house...)

The DE works pretty well with pests. I've used it on cats for fleas, hopefully that would work for roaches, too. But, like Sumiko said, all it takes is one female to make more babies and then you have to go through it all again. :(
 
Bombs won't kill all of them - we used to use them in the restaurants and they would just hide and come out later...you need to use something they will consume and then take back to the nests to kill the others. I would consult a professional - they can come treat your house for a small fee.
 
VolunteerChin22 said:
Bombs won't kill all of them - we used to use them in the restaurants and they would just hide and come out later...you need to use something they will consume and then take back to the nests to kill the others. I would consult a professional - they can come treat your house for a small fee.
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Baits don't work very well with roaches unless every roach consumes the bait. If there are other food sources around, most roaches will eat that food instead of the bait. Also, roaches do not have nests and they do not feed their young or feed the others (they are not true social insects like ants) so they will not bring the bait back to feed other roaches. They will harborage anywhere dark and do not have one single community harborage. When you deal with bait-averse roaches, they may not even consume the baits at all. It could work if the roaches you have are not bait averse but many times they are! I've conducted many field studies in roach-infested apartments and housing complexes for baits and very few have produced acceptable results.

Fogger treatments used correctly and for the appropriate room size should get into the small areas where they hide. A perimeter treatment can also prevent more from coming in - if they are indeed coming from outside. If the infestation is bad, a PCO should be consulted.
 
i have never seen one of them in our house until i brought that cage home...its very possible they came from the cage even with there being different sized ones...if they were INSIDE the cage bars there wasnt just one generation, there could have been large ones, small ones, eggs...

we sprayed my room and my mom sprayed inside the holes of the cage, its staying outside for a few days..

as far my hay, that box got trashed and all my hay was taken out and stored in the guest house, the bag of wheat germ got thrown out and was stored in a plastic tote... the entire room was sprayed
 
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