ant farms?

[HepCatMoe]

does anybody keep em to use as feeders? would it work?

i hear the pd's love ants, so it seems like an easy way to add variety to there diet... i am missing something?

[Ed]

Have you seen the size of the ants that are kept in the ant farms? Those are made for large harvester ants which would cause problems for most dart frogs.
If you are interested in trying to collect and rear ants there is some really good information in Journey to the Ant.

Ed

[Catfur]

I think a Harvester Ant sting would kill any PDF, they are substantially more painful than any bee or wasp sting I've ever had, and leave massive red welts. Not to mention in an ant farm, there is no queen, and thus no new ants.

[KeroKero]

In theory... you'd need to find species that the frogs you're feeding them to would take on a regular basis, find a queen, and set up a colony of them where you could harvest workers. Sounds great!

But... the ants I've seen kept in captivity are usually larger, more aggressive species (easy to see) rather than the ants that our frogs tend to like. If you could find a species the frogs like and set up a colony, that would be a great experiment to try. I wouldn't try with just any old ant tho...

[RBroskie]

im lucky to live in florida, most months out of the year i can go in the woods and crack open rotting logs looking for the tiny black ants that are all over the place out here. my frogs love them and this past time i went out something interesting happened. workers were trying to relocate larvae and when i collected them they held on to them right up until my frogs ate them. two for one deal! i wonder if that added much nutritional value as my understandind is that ants are mostly chitin and not all that nutritious. i use them as a supplemental feeder and they are relished. im still trying to find some termites around here. i have been unsuccessful with that so far.

[KeroKero]

I wouldn't exactly toss ants out as a bad food just because they are high in chitin... that's a bit of a herping wives tail that high chitin is always bad. High chitin is bad for herps that don't eat high chitin diets in the wild... but PDFs seem to deal with high chitin diets so it's not exactly a bad thing. If they were not all that nutritious, I wonder why so many specialize in eating them!

[RBroskie]

my frogs do seem to love them and thats enough for me! 8)

[bLue_reverie]

I'm actually giving a crack at an ant farm. I have a Lasius Niger queen and some workers in a farm. Problem is they have yet to leave the test tube and use their home and i would assume should have been laying eggs already but she has not. I don't know if it's a protein or sugar issue as she is getting both along with a healthy supply of water.

For the setup, I basically used an old 2.5 gal tank and set up another thick plexi box inside of that. So instead of a 2d ant form, it's more of a panoramic and filled it with fine sand around the outer border and 1/4" plastic tube tunnels which lead in and out of the colony in the middle. All of this is then placed in a big plastic tub filled with water to prevent any escape.

Anyone know of a way to maybe catch a queen in the wild? I believe it is best to catch them before they lose their wings but ants are not my expertise. My current queen may just be defective.

[syble]

i was wondering about ants awell. we have lots of ants around and I was thinking those little black ones would work well, particularlly if I could collect a coloney. will have to do some research as to how to do it though. In theory they could be as easy as pinheads to feed.
Thanks
Sib

[bLue_reverie]

just be careful with ants. i would feed very few at a time to make sure the frogs pick off any of them that does go in. ants by nature are aggressive. some were left in the tank (maybe 2 or 3) and they started biting. it came to a point where you could literally see the frogs avoid them, even when trying to feed so you know it wasnt hunger that was driving them back.