LOTS of bugs in my cage, attracted to sunlight

[BabySnow]

This morning I noticed a lot of tiny (smaller than 1 mm) bugs in my guinea pig's cage- they were grouped in the corner of the cage where sunlight was hitting it. There were about 3 per sq cm and maybe a 100 total. I've never seen these bugs before, and I haven't found them on my guinea pig. I caught some in a little jar and I'm attaching a picture to show.

When the sunlight was on them, I could see they were slightly translucent and beige in color. They have 6 legs and 2 antennae, with a longer body section in the back. I don't think they are long enough to be lice though.

I'm afraid they came from my hay. I've been using this hay for only a month, and I got it from Sweet Meadow Farms online.

If anyone else has found bugs with their Sweet Meadow Farms hay, please let me know!

I read this thread which seemed similar
http://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/374030-post1.html
but that thread just went on about who's giving the better advice and who is entitled to give advice in the first place. I'd really like to know what kind of bugs they are! ....because there are so many ;_;

[paula.m.moore]

Could they be silverfish?

[BabySnow]

I think they are much smaller than silverfish. I think silverfish aren't a fan of sunlight either.

The picture I posted has a lot of whitespace on the thumbnail (I just used MS Paint real quick) but if you click on it you can see the general shape of the bugs and their legs.

They're so small it's hard to find a match on internet bug sites. Ahhgh I feel like my skin's crawling @_@

[Janelle]

The picture looked kind of like an aphid to me.

[BabySnow]

Aphid! Ok, That gives me a new search direction. Thank you.

[Haley0489]

Oh yes, it does kind of look like an aphid...I also thought of termite, but I don't believe they'd be in a guinea pig cage, nor in the sunlight!

[Janelle]

Well, I know that aphids are out in droves around here right now, so timing would be right. I was out gathering fall leaves the other day, and there were gazillions of them all over the leaves.

[BabySnow]

There was one site I found about booklice, which look almost exactly like my bugs.
I'll try to post the link but I don't think it'll work cause I'm still a newbie.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/en.../booklice.html

I'm going to check outside to see if I can find these on the leaves like you said. I had my guinea pig outside recently!

Thank you everyone for all your help. I didn't expect replies so soon! Yay!

[starshine123102]

A few weeks ago I found a carpet beetle larvae on the blanket I use for lap time. I took it to my college's pathobiology lab to find out what it was.

I would look at carpet beetle things too.

[BabySnow]

After doing some checking for the source of these bugs, I'm pretty certain it was coming from the timothy hay I ordered from Sweet Meadow Farms. I bought a bulk box (14 lbs). By shaking out a little bit of the hay I found quite a few of the bugs.

The bugs are exactly like booklice/barklice except that booklice are supposed to like dark, moldy places, yet I keep finding my bugs moving to the sunlight! My house is pretty dry too, and we've never had a mold problem. Websites say that booklice also eat anything starchy, like dried foods, grasses, and book binding glue. I hope that's why they were on my hay. The hay isn't moldy at all.

My guinea pig really likes this hay, but I'm sorry I didn't make sure it was bug-free before I brought it into my house. Those booklice crawl EVERYWHERE! Places that make sense like on/in my books or in the guinea pigs litter box, but also in bright areas like on top of my desk (which is in front of a sunny window) and today I even found them on the ceiling (in the corners and mostly in front of the sunny window)
Everywhere but my books is easy to clean. Aghhh!

I took the hay out of the box and put it in 4 loose-packed plastic bags. The bags are outside under a covered porch now. I hope the weather gets cold so any bugs or eggs on the hay will die. It's a shame to waste all that hay... I hope I can still use it. Do you think that's safe?

Other pesticide-free methods of getting rid of booklice are microwaving infected items (yuck!!) or simply by drying your house out - but that takes longer for the bugs to disappear. Right now our humidity is at 41% which should be dry enough... I have my room's ceiling fan on too.

Sorry to write such a long post, but I wanted to have a conclusion to this, in case someone else has the same problem. Beware those bulk boxes of Hay! Is there an online hay seller recommended over the others?

[Janelle]

What a bummer! I'm glad you found the source of your problem, though. I get my hay from a local farm that also supplies some of the horse stables around here. I get an 80-lb bale of brome for $5! My pigs love it. It smells great and is nice and green.

[gooberific]

41% humidity is dry? You're joking. ;) It's much drier here. Boy, I don't miss Wisconsin or Chicago for that humidity, lemme tell ya!

I have to highly recommend Kleenmama's if you can't find local hay. http://www.kmshayloft.com/