moth explosion

i just had a moth explosion in my rabbitry. i have 6 bales of alfalfa hay in the second story of my rabbit barn (storage only) and I just went up there and was greeted with a face full of moths. their on the walls and stuff, and if you kick the bales they fly up. its not the worst invasion i've seen, but its not good. will this shorten the life span of the hay before it goes bad? more importantly, can i get rid of them? will they die when it gets colder, or will they burrow into the hay? thanks.

alaska has had a REALLY big explosion for the last 2-3 years, it was so bad that all the currant bushes (wild) and all the new (green) leaves were eaten in less than a week, but they left the garden alone, then in fall- Now(and we are days to week(s) away from freeze up) everything is covered with moths

They'll lay eggs, then die, and the eggs will hatch next year to repeat the cycle. They will eat and damage hay as well as anything else that is organic. If they are those stupid pantry/indian meal moths they are near impossible to get rid of. We got them probably 10-12years ago with some cheap hamster food and we still have some in the stable. After 2 years we did get rid of them from the house but it took sealing up and/or freezing absolutely everything and pulling all objects off the walls to clean up the cocoons. The less hay in the building during their late summer explosion the more control you can keep over the population. Remove old hay that you aren't going to use as soon as possible because they love to live in the old bales that have gone brown and seal up all feed in airtight containers and I do mean very air tight. I've found them in unopened packages before and they will eat grains and grain based pellets. Bug zappers are fairly effective but will need cleaned constantly because the moths fry to the metal grill around the zapper. There are also sticky moth traps with attractant but they are mostly useless in a full population explosion because they don't hold near enough moths. They are more useful to head off a population increase when you know you have moths every year or to clean the last few of the house.

They are DIFFICULT to get rid of. I got one contaminated bag of rice and we had them for a year. They laid eggs in the screw holes in our kitchen cabinets.

The only thing that helped kill the parents quickly was using a mixture of juice/soda/wine (something sweet that will give off a smell as it sits out) mixed with water and a few drops of a scented soap. Put a paper funnel in this and you ahve a moth trap. This will kill fruit flies as well.

Otherwise everything else is maintenance. Seal food tightly in containers with lids, throw out anything already affected, etc.