using microwave to rid materials of bugs

[urbanflyman]

Ive heard u can use the microwave to get rid of any bugs that are in new material collected or attained from wild stock , only I'm not sure of how to do this ,can anyone help with this matter ,giving as much detail as possible on how to carry this out,

any help is greatly appreciated .

thanks...................

Personally I would feel happier deep freezing it!
Looking forward to the the contributions on this thread as we are suffering clothes moths at present. And they have not found a way to my capes yet.I haven't considered micro wave

[urbanflyman]

Originally Posted by Whingeing pom

Personally I would feel happier deep freezing it!
Looking forward to the the contributions on this thread as we are suffering clothes moths at present. And they have not found a way to my capes yet.I haven't considered micro wave

how long would i need to freeze materials for before putting them with my other gear.

[Macmagoo]

Deep freezing the items will only put the bugs to sleep not kill them. As soon as you thaw them the bugs will be back.

Are you absolutely sure about that?
Because (the circumstances are too long winded to go into ,but ) we got advised by the preservers at The Natural History Museum that things needed to be frozen for what I think was four weeks...........it was about ten yrs ago so I may be wrong on the amount of time. This was for some tiny bugs that where eating a taxidermy collection and it was to take out the entire life cycle.
I would love a definitive answer on this. And whether microwaving has any role to play.

[arkle]

Before the "age of the m/wave" & possibly the freezer the only 100% option you had was to use a sealed container with formaldehyde/formalin. These chemicals are, at best seriously unpleasant & involved to handle.

Microwaving objects for say 30 seconds has many advantages over a 4 week freeze. It WILL & does kill ALL eggs/larvae etc very effectively, unlike a freezer, which can kill but often just triggers a hibernation period. Unless items are properly sealed for freezer storage, what's to stop any of the contents of the bag from falling out & landing on other items stored in the freezer ?

[Bri]

I tend to take a belt and braces approach. 4 weeks in the freezer followed by a 30 second blast in the microwave. Not had an infestation yet.

[mayflyjunky]

Originally Posted by Whingeing pom

Personally I would feel happier deep freezing it!
Looking forward to the the contributions on this thread as we are suffering clothes moths at present. And they have not found a way to my capes yet.I haven't considered micro wave

I use alot of wild game and to be honest Ive had more problems with moths than mites. Once a moth larva gets in he does alot more damage than mites.

I used to freeze but now I microwave each skin for 10 secs, not for any particular reason just to see if there is any difference, this is prob wrong its trial and error.

I know for a fact freezing for just 4 hours will kill moth larva turning him black. To be honest after washing in detergent and freezing for a few days I cant see how the mites would still survive.

But just to be on the safe side I keep all my capes and skins seperately in zip lock bags.

Touch wood, ive been doing this for 3 years and never had a prob. The moth larva got in when i was away for the weekend and left the pheasant skin out.

Originally Posted by arkle

Before the "age of the m/wave" & possibly the freezer the only 100% option you had was to use a sealed container with formaldehyde/formalin. These chemicals are, at best seriously unpleasant & involved to handle.

Microwaving objects for say 30 seconds has many advantages over a 4 week freeze. It WILL & does kill ALL eggs/larvae etc very effectively, unlike a freezer, which can kill but often just triggers a hibernation period. Unless items are properly sealed for freezer storage, what's to stop any of the contents of the bag from falling out & landing on other items stored in the freezer ?

He He
I have just got this image of my client putting his stuffed pumas in a microwave. That would have been a scary thirty seconds. thanks for the info>

[spanielpup]

How can you tell that you have a mite infestation in your feathers etc? In my gardening days I used to used a product called Provado to kill vine weevil bugs and their larva which look just like a maggot in the soil. It turned out to be a brilliant treatment against red spider mites and I would just use it twice a year. After reading the active ingredients it turned out to be virtually the same as the flea treatment I was buying from the vet for £38.50 a throw. After that the dogs used to get a couple of dabs at the same time as the greenhouse and fleas became a thing of the past.
If I can find an infected cape I will give it a spray and see how it goes. I would have thought that most cage bird breeders would have a treatment for mites so maybe the pet stores is where we should be looking.