Uhhh, cat treat + flies question. IMPORTANT

[AngelZoo]

Didn't really have a short explination for the topic but here's the deal, if anyone can answer me tonight, if not I will jsut ask the dr. at our practice tomorrow morning when I go in for work.

First off, ever since we moved to this new apartment, I noticed we've had a bit to many fruit, or baby flies here then I'd like to see, we had non at our old place so I really wasn't sure where they came from exactly.

I have this container of cat treats, and I never leave it open for extended periods of times, and I SWEAR I have not recently ever seen any maggots or flies or other stores of buggies in the treat container.

Today I got it out and sat it on my desk to give a couple treats to my trio. I swear I placed the lid back on after maybe 2 1/2 minutes of feeding them a few treats.
About 5 minutes later, I saw one of these little flies out of the corner of my eye, seemingly sitting on the side of this clear treat container.
So I take my finger and go to squish the flie, nothing shows up on my thumb, but the fly was no longer on the side of the container, I saw another one, and attemped to squish that one, same thing happened. So I sat up said "what's going on" and looked the container for a little longer, and soon started to see a few buggy fly boddies moving around inside the top of the food in there. But I wondered if just a few had flown in by the time I opened the container to dispense treats and then closed it, so I started to see more and more, and finally I just tipped the container upside down and saw a very LARGE infestation of these small flies. *shudders*

I hate bugs...

At any rate, I ran to the trash, threw the whole container in there, and then took that bag out to the community trash bin.

1.) someone please tell me how I could not have seen this problem sooner??!
2.) Knowing that my cats ate treats possibly containing flies or maggots, what is my next step? As in, is there any harm these injested flies and such could cause for my cats, if so I need to get it taken care of asap!

Thanks!

[catcrazylady]

I wish I could be of help, but I have never heard of such a thing happening in a container like that before. I would say that I doubt there is any reason for panic. My cats catch flies in the windows and eat them whenever they are available! They are fine. It's always a good idea to ask the vet just in case they ingested fly eggs but I would think all will be fine until you can contact them. My guess is...we wouldn't want to know what they may have gotten into and eaten at some point and time!
Good luck and I'm sure everything will be ok.

[cubby31682]

Well I have had fruit flies, or what every they are. The best way to get rid of them, a few simple steps I take, number one put all fruits away. Number 2 either set out a small glass of sugar water, or wine. They like the smell of sweet things so sugar water will draw them to it, once they get in there they wont be able to fly out. I know there are a few other tricks but I can't remember them.

As far as your cat(s) go, I am not sure about that. I know my cat loves to catch flies. I let one in one time while I was on the balacony and he loved it. He stood by the slider as if trying to tell me to let more in. But with fruit flies or what ever they are, I don't think they would do any harm to your cat(s). Maybe you should call your vet in the morning and find out.

Katie

P.S. I hope this helps.