This time of year always seems to bring out the weevils. I just bought two bags of feed and I spotted a few of them on the bags. Is the feed still safe to feed? Anything I can do to get rid of them?
I’ve heard they’re not harmful to horses or humans.
They were unavoidable in Tennessee this time of year. The problem was worse in the higher quality feeds, because they didn’t have the fast turnover of the cheap all stock feeds that would fly off the shelves.
At first, I’d take the feed back every time I spotted a single weevil. But most of the time, the replacement bags would have them, too.
I tried different feed stores-- even some of the best and most reputable feed stores in the region would still have the problem.
I was making myself batty insisting there were no bugs in my horses feed (silly me :rolleyes:), so I had to lower my standards. If I saw just a couple weevils, I’d still feed it. But I’d definitely still return anything that was over run with them. And I became “that crazy horse lady” at the feed store who insisted on inspecting the outside of every feed bag before they loaded it into my truck.
Freezing the feed works. I’d only buy a couple bags of feed at a time and I stored it in a working chest freezer in the house. But that’s not practical in most situations.
Food grade diatomaceous earth also seems to help- I would dust the inside of the feed bin with it before adding the feed (think powdered sugar on funnel cake). Then I’d pour a layer of feed, dust the top, pour another layer, dust the top again, etc. It didn’t eliminate them completely, but it did seem to keep the numbers from multiplying.
Knock on wood, the weevil problem doesn’t seem nearly as bad where I live now. I think because there’s more horse activity and the feed stores have more turnover of stock.
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