There are moths, some pantry moths, others larger random brown moths that drown themselves in my horse’s water bucket. Any ideas on how to stop this?
The barn is in Maryland. The stall’s bedded with wood pellets, kept very clean. It’s just the one horse/ stall. The buckets are scrubbed daily and vet proclaimed them human-worthy.
have the same issue with the outside water troughs, overnight several moths will try to learn to swim
I just dump and refill
Is there a light near the bucket or light reflecting off the bucket that’s attracting them? Maybe you could put a small battery powered light somewhere away from the bucket that the moths would be attracted to instead?
mine the only light source would be the moon
That’s what I’ve been doing too. The horses are outside overnight. If I don’t fill the buckets in the empty stalls overnight, the silly moths are still in the buckets.
I can try that.
Overnight, the barn’s dark and even when I do stalls at night, I use minimal light (it’s super dark outside and I need to be able to see when I go outside.
in the past we had bats that I believe kept these moths under control but we have had several owls that have been here forever that evidently ate the bats
I hate seeing critters die, all critters make me sad. Even moths.
For outdoor troughs, I wedge a big stick along the side to allow an escape route for birds, bees etc. They’re thirsty and sometimes seem to get stuck. That being said, I haven’t seen any moths in there.
Long way to say, perhaps try an escape route to see if that helps? If a stick is too dangerous in a small space, maybe even just a rope tied to a rock at the bottom of the bucket. Will give them a chance to climb out and dry up if they happen to fall in.
The cleanliness of the buckets isn’t what attracts or repels insects.
I fish drowned flies, wasps & the occasional moth from my stall buckets & the 50gal plastic barrel I use as a trough outside.
Horses aren’t bothered by anything I miss.
Barn has 1 small dim nightlight placed away from stalls that allows me to go into the barn when it’s pitchblack & not bump.into anything, so doubtful that light is attracting bugs.
I had a small net from Dollar Tree I used to de-bug the trough, for buckets in the stalls I just use my hands.
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