Goosemoose Pet Portal

This evening I was getting ready to make a new batch of my rat mix. I took  the dog food out and noticed something funny when I opened the bag. It had webbing in it. I looked closer and saw maggots (yuck :-X). It's Wellness lite formula. The bag has a zip closer, plus I keep it in an air tight container. I bought the bag about 3 weeks ago and used 3 or 4 cups for my last mix. I didn't notice anything then, but I didn't actually look for maggots at the time. I was really low on their mix yesterday so i gave them a handful of the dog food, so unfortunately they may have gotten ahold of a maggot. My question is if maggots can hurt them if they did injest some?
I am obviously returning this bag to the pet store that I bought it from. I don't usually buy from this bet store, I find them to be a bit dirty, but it's the only place in town that carries this dog food. I'm going to also call the dog food company. Someone, either the company or the store, did not store the food properly. I have the rats mix in the same room as the rats and it's always cool in there, and I would have seen something in their treats or other food items.

I had something like this happen with my chinchilla. We went away for the weekend and someone else was taking care of him.  When we came home I changed his food dish and there were maggots in it.  The vet said they probably had come in in his food.  The eggs were in his food.  He didn't live much longer after that.

I would call your vet and see what they have to say.  They'll probably just be able to answer the question over the phone and if its dangerous then you can bring them in to be checked out.

Maggots or grubs are probably considered tasty to a rat.  I don't think they'll be harmful, but you could call your vet to double-check.  It puts me in mind of the fact that rats like to eat mealworms, though, and that's a very similar sort of...  errr... food.

Definitely return the bag, and get a new one, though.

Maggots can't hurt them. It's just extra protein to rats. Remember, in nature rats eat bugs on regular basis.
HAve you had moths flying around the house lately?

I don't think it would harm them. On occasion I give my girls mealworms and they think it's candy! They go crazy for them! I can't imagine it would be much different nutritionally.

The rats are fine, so either they didn't get any maggots or it didn't hurt them. I returned the bag yesterday. I decided to just get my money back, I don't trust this store after what happened. I'll probably order some Timberwolf or something I know will not have bugs in it.
I actually have never seen a single bug in the rat room. All their food and treats are kept in air tight containers, I make sure to vaccume whenever I see any food on the floor. So I was really surprised when I opened the bag and saw the contents moving. It had to have actually been in the food to begin with, I would have seen something in their treats otherwise.

Someone once warned me about feeding maggots to my bearded dragon; saying that if you don't cut off the heads first, the maggots can eat him from the inside out. Now there's two problems with that story:

1. Maggots eat rotten/dying flesh... not healthy stomachs with acid in them
2. Those maggots get crunched when eaten by any animal

Glad the ratties are fine!!

Wow, you officially grossed me out.

I actually don't think my rats would even eat maggots. I tried giving them meal worms once and they just looked at me as if they were saying "your joking right? you expect us to eat THAT".

between cutting maggot heads off, and the contents of food moving, I am totally grossed out  :confused: :-X :icon_puke_r:

Those are Indian Meal moths... harmless and edible (if you're a rat)    they're not "maggots" (fly larvae) so they've not been in rotting corpses or anything.  They are simply bug larvae that exists in a lot of cereals and food products shelved for a long time.  The webbing  or cottony cob-webs is the tell-tale sign as are clouds of wee moths fluttering around your kitchen for some odd reason.

 :confused:


Most rats LOVE meal worms (ick!) and other bugs, btw.   Nutritious and delicious.      (for those wanting to give rats a wormy treat go for the store bought variety rather than anything you find in your yard, because they may have been exposed to pesticides or other bad stuff)

My rats love mealworms. I bought five just yesterday for my two boys to share. They love running around the bathtub chasing the tweezers I use to hold the mealworms up for them to eat, then grabbing the worms and snacking away.

So, the larvae should be safe for them. Just don't let them have any more, because there is a small chance of them getting diseases from the larvae.

i think those are superworms (giant mealworms) you are thinking of...and its not that they eat the eater from the inside out they just pinch/bite the inside of the mouth and throat basically fighting back..and they usually recommend that for younger reptiles as they arent as strong as an adult....

but yea...i dont think you have a maggot problem..maggots dont make webbing..atleast i dont think they do...def sounds like a moth larve thing  :confused:

Yeah, sometimes we get those in some things in our house. We used to catch the moths, and toss them in the nearest spider web. And I have handed the larva to the rats sometimes (which are quickly devoured, those things are tiny).

I think they are pretty harmless, since if you know what they have been eating (your Suebee's mix, what ever is in your cupboards), then it is highly unlikely that they have any pesticides in their systems, so they're safe to toss to the rats when you find them.