Hay & Earwigs

[Furface]

A while ago I got a bale of horse hay from a farmer. It’s been sitting on my picnic table outside under tarps to keep it dry. I’ve been meaning to split it up & store it in the large blue Rubbermaid  bins but. alas, I was putting it off.

I just was out & filled up a box to give to the buns. I’ve filled up their smaller boxes & gave them each their smaller box. Then looked in the bottom of the larger box,, in the hay dust was 4 or 5 earwigs.

Should I panic & take the hay away from them? An earwig can’t hurt a bunny, can it?

Does anyone know a trick to lure them out of the hay? I’ll bin/box it up right away but I’d like to get them out of it 1st. Don’t really want those yucky things in my house! This is most of a square bale (50 pounds?) of horse hay & the buns love it so I don’t want to toss it out.  Obviously I cant spray it with anything.

The table is in a shady area. Do I move it to a sunny spot? Are earwigs attracted to beer or anything?

[Furface]

Eliminate hiding places. Search out and remove damp, dark hiding places such as leaf debris, wood piles, upturned pots and underneath stepping stones. This step alone will help more than anything else you can do.

Encourage hungry birds to feed near the hutch by setting out a bird bath or feeders. Birds hunt and consume amazing amounts of insects.

Make earwigs traps by mimicking their favorite hiding places. Loosely roll sections of newspaper, secure with a rubber band and soak in water until thoroughly wet.
Place the homemade earwig traps in areas where damage has been found. The traps should be in place before nightfall. Use several traps for best results.

Pick up the traps every morning. Earwigs will have found their way deep inside the rolls of newspaper during the night. Dispose of the traps in a plastic bag or tightly covered container. Do not compost.

Fill low-sided cans with 1/2 inch vegetable oil and place on the ground. Earwigs will find their way in and drown

OK I googled & found conflicting info on if they can hurt your bunny or not.
I also founf that info ^^^ on ridding an outdoor hutch of them (from Yahoo answers):

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Sorry, I can’t help you with the ear wig thing, but I was wondering. Do Earwigs actually go in one’s ear?

[bunnytowne]

I was watchign a discovery channel and they can go in the ear.  It had on it a person this happened to.  Yikes.  There was a Star Trek episode with ear wicks and I had looked it up once as well.  Ewwwww  I would not want that in my ear either.

They have some pretty bizarre things on that discovery channel.

[katie, max & penny]

okay, hopefully someone will know what i’m talking about so i dont sound crazy, but there was this TV show based on these weird books called Anamorphs, i believe? but the bad people would put wormy-ear wig type things in peoples ears.

sorry i’m not much of a help, furface. honestly, i would wait until i heard a definitive answer, maybe from a vet?

[MooBunnay]

ahahaha I used to read animorphs!!

Anyways, regarding the baled hay, I would recommend getting one of those large rubbermaid bins you can buy at Target or Ross, we have one and the whole bale fits in so we just put it in there as soon as we buy it.

You definitely want to shake out the hay before you give it to the bunnies and pick through it to make sure there are not any bugs in there. Every once and awhile we will find the random moth or grasshopper in the hay, but my husband picks through the hay to make sure it doesn’t make it into the bunny boxes. I don’t think that a couple earwigs would contaminate the hay, but you just don’t want to bring them inside.

[KytKattin]

I also agree in not worrying about it too much. Obviously you don’t want them in the house, but I seriously doubt they are going to harm your bunnies. I would be more worried about spiders and such and in the case of those, more for your safety than the rabbits. On an interesting note, back when we got 40 bales of hay delivered at a time (for horses) I once found a crunched up field mouse in it. Poor thing. 🙁

[jerseygirl]

I find dead earwigs sometimes but I shake out anything before hand. If anyone ever finds a small rubber boot in their hale bale – it’s mine, but you may keep it.

[Deleted User]

Dead vermin in hay like decomposing mice are the last thing you’d want in your hay. It can cause botulism.
I was going to buy a bale for the winter this year, but I think I might go with loose hay again.

[KytKattin]

The mouse wasn’t decomposing though, it was dried. Small animals like that typically just mummify after a while in dry climates like where I live. It’s only if the hay isn’t stored properly that it might become a problem. It’s why the neighbors can have the hamster go die under their fridge and never smell it (R.I.P. Ham-ham). I do think that the mouse was killed prior the the baling process, not entombed. That would make a difference too. At the stage I found the mouse it had no smell at all, I imagine that no bacteria were present in it or the surrounding hay at that point. Obviously, it might not be worth the risk if you have the option of buying loose hay, but for me, it’s what I can give my rabbits for free when I can’t afford BB hays.

[Deleted User]

hey KytKattin! I’m so sorry if this sounded like I was saying you gave something bad to your bunnies… It just remided me that when they make the round bales, mice, and sometimes even larger animals can get wrapped up in the center and die there. I have had a family of mice raise their young in my loose hay last fall… hay attracts them like a magnet. I didn’t use that portion.
Sorry again!

[Moonlight_Wolf]

I find dead earwigs sometimes but I shake out anything before hand. If anyone ever finds a small rubber boot in their hale bale – it’s mine, but you may keep it.

??
A small rubber boot? Like for a doll? LOL

[Isabelle88]

We buy our hay (timothy) at a feed shop and we bring it inside, take a portion for the bunnies and put it in a plastic bin then the rest we wrap in large trash bags and seal it, should I be worried about something getting to it or the set up being wrong? I keep everything inside upstairs for the rabbits.

[Deleted User]

Isabelle, the only thing I would suggest is not to seal the trash bags, hay needs to breathe. If it’s in your house nothing will get in. Hay attracts mice if you keep it open and accessible in, say, a garage, under a car port etc.

[Author]

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