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Help! Ants Are Getting To My Dogs Food


Cheyd
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Help please!

We feed Merlin in the laundry and unfortunately we have an ant problem. Any food left in the bowl or on the ground is quickly set upon by lots of ants. I am reluctant to use too much spray on the ground as I dont want it to get into his food

Even if I leave a handfull of kibble out for him to eat, they will attack that also, its not just his fresh food

I have purchased a ant-proof bowl but to be honest its useless, the water channel is too small and the water evaporates too quickly

Can anyone recommend some way of preventing the ants from reaching Merlins food please?

I was thinking there might be some sort of surface that ants arent able to cross or maybe a better designed food bowl, this is so frustrating ggggrrrrr

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Solution: Don't leave food lying around in the bowl (or on the floor). :laugh:

It's better not to have food continuously available anyway. I always take the dogs bowls away after 10 minutes. There's never anything left in the bowls LOL but if there was I'd either throw it out or put it away and clean out the bowls till next meal time.

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I too had that problem till i took the advice of others on here and only gave my girl 15-20mins to eat her dinner. But if that's not suitable for your situation i'd try getting a shallow container with a big surface area, eg a cat litter tray or paint roller tray and filling that with a shallow pool of water, and then putting woofer's bowl in the middle - same thing as an ant-proof bowl but a much bigger moat to really drown the little suckers, :laugh:

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  NicGSDlover said:
I too had that problem till i took the advice of others on here and only gave my girl 15-20mins to eat her dinner. But if that's not suitable for your situation i'd try getting a shallow container with a big surface area, eg a cat litter tray or paint roller tray and filling that with a shallow pool of water, and then putting woofer's bowl in the middle - same thing as an ant-proof bowl but a much bigger moat to really drown the little suckers, :laugh:

Thank you but I dont actually leave the fresh food out for very long, and his kibble I like to leave just a little out for him to snack on, my animals have always self-regulated their kibble and I dont see any reason to stop that now.

Sometimes he will not eat straight away, especially if it has just come straight from the fridge, I try to bring it to room temperature but dont always manage that. The ants are so quick, and they loiter around his bowl all the time just waiting for something to be dropped.

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Yeah, i find that too. And sometimes if i'm going to be going out or something and feed Sophie beforehand i too leave her with some of her Kibble - i'm not a kibble-nazi with her, hehe. She used to be a pain though and just graze all day, which would be a nightmare when we start trialling etc. :laugh:

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"If you really want to do it, you can buy special bowls that have a moat(ap?) around them that you can fill with water " OP mentioned she had tried that.....

"I have purchased a ant-proof bowl but to be honest its useless, the water channel is too small and the water evaporates too quickly"

If you want to leave kibble down elevate it on a small piece of wood or something similar and sprinkle talcum powder around the edge of the wood. ants don't like talc. I wouldn;t sprinkle around the bowl itself to avoid any possibility of the talc being ingested.

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  Fit for a King said:
"If you really want to do it, you can buy special bowls that have a moat(ap?) around them that you can fill with water " OP mentioned she had tried that.....

"I have purchased a ant-proof bowl but to be honest its useless, the water channel is too small and the water evaporates too quickly"

If you want to leave kibble down elevate it on a small piece of wood or something similar and sprinkle talcum powder around the edge of the wood. ants don't like talc. I wouldn;t sprinkle around the bowl itself to avoid any possibility of the talc being ingested.

Thank you Fit for a King, :laugh:

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  Hollys mummy said:
Help please!

We feed Merlin in the laundry and unfortunately we have an ant problem. Any food left in the bowl or on the ground is quickly set upon by lots of ants. I am reluctant to use too much spray on the ground as I dont want it to get into his food

Even if I leave a handfull of kibble out for him to eat, they will attack that also, its not just his fresh food

I have purchased a ant-proof bowl but to be honest its useless, the water channel is too small and the water evaporates too quickly

Can anyone recommend some way of preventing the ants from reaching Merlins food please?

I was thinking there might be some sort of surface that ants arent able to cross or maybe a better designed food bowl, this is so frustrating ggggrrrrr

You have my sympathy. I had a live and let live attitude to ants until I moved to this house. I even quite liked them. I've never lived anywhere before like our place. I think it's because the house is built on sandstone and it is riddled with ant nests and tunnels. We can't hang out the clothes without having our feet covered in ants. We can't give our dogs bones outside without them being attacked by ants and they can't even curl up on the lawn most of the time. When we put their leads on at the top of the steps, their feet are being bitten by ants--took me a while to figure out why one dog never seemed keen to go for walks. These aren't big monsters or anything, just normal little ants. And they swarm around dead bugs, a drowned earth worm, dog poo, bird poo, possum poo, the garbage bins, garden fertilizer and a drop of anything that may be spilt. Even the hose and taps when it's hot and dry! And it's not just the ants on our property, they march into our place from next door or from the pavement. They bite first and ask questions later. Yes, I'm now ant-phobic! I think Epping may be buit on a giant ant nest ...

We only "manage" the ant problem. We now keep our bins away from the house, generally don't give the dogs long lasting bones in summer when the ants are worst. Feed the dogs their chicken wings inside on mats. Feed all the meals in the house and pick up and wash bowls straight away. I've heard that talc works but haven't tried it. We use ant baits in places that the dogs can't get to--you can stick them to surfaces--and Antrid. We also use ant powders, ant sand and sprays (yes, I hate them) when things are really bad but only in places that the dogs don't access. Every couple of years they even make an onslaught on the house--our last line of defense ....

Borax mixed with sugar is the "classic" ant killer. It's suppose to have low toxicity to dogs but who knows.

Good luck with your battle

Di (war correspondent, reporting from the trenches)

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Well i have to agree with others dont leave the food down,he isnt self regulating he is just picking because its there & hes telling you how he wants to eat not you.

The reality is he most likely isnt eating the food anyway because of the ants so defeats the purpose of leaving it out.

he has you well trained.

There is no way i would want ants setting up house

Edited by showdog
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  NicGSDlover said:
i'd try getting a shallow container with a big surface area, eg a cat litter tray or paint roller tray and filling that with a shallow pool of water, and then putting woofer's bowl in the middle - same thing as an ant-proof bowl but a much bigger moat to really drown the little suckers, :o

I agree with Nicole, put the kibble bowl in a shallow container that is quite a bit bigger than the bowl.

I leave kibble down during the day when I'm at work and often have ant plagues (not really but lines of ants all over the bathroom, kitchen and laundry), and they would get all through the kibble. Saxon's bowl is only small (as is he) so I put it on a plastic picnic plate and filled that with water. It worked well, and the ants seemed to just stop trying to get into the bowl - well, I didn't come home to lots of drowned ants.

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  Saxonpup said:
  NicGSDlover said:
i'd try getting a shallow container with a big surface area, eg a cat litter tray or paint roller tray and filling that with a shallow pool of water, and then putting woofer's bowl in the middle - same thing as an ant-proof bowl but a much bigger moat to really drown the little suckers, :o

I agree with Nicole, put the kibble bowl in a shallow container that is quite a bit bigger than the bowl.

I leave kibble down during the day when I'm at work and often have ant plagues (not really but lines of ants all over the bathroom, kitchen and laundry), and they would get all through the kibble. Saxon's bowl is only small (as is he) so I put it on a plastic picnic plate and filled that with water. It worked well, and the ants seemed to just stop trying to get into the bowl - well, I didn't come home to lots of drowned ants.

Thanks Di and Saxonpup :eek: That was the idea I came up with but thought I would ask incase there was a mat or something that ants just dont like to cross, bit like talc powder as previously mentioned

However it seems rather than helping me, almost everyone here just wants to judge me with how I look after my animals. Not that I have to justify anything to anyone but my family, my pets and my vet are all very happy with how healthy they all are. None of my animals are overweight either.

I look forward to reading more helpful responses!

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Oh it's not an implication that you're not looking after your pets or over feeding them - when i was given that advice it was for the exact opposite reason, that my dog wasnt eating enough. By making her meal a once a day thing that only lasted a set amount of time i could make sure i knew she was getting enough food in her, and encouraging her to eat up and put on some weight because food was to be eaten when it was available.

I was trying to be helpful - but take it as you will :o

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  NicGSDlover said:
Oh it's not an implication that you're not looking after your pets or over feeding them - when i was given that advice it was for the exact opposite reason, that my dog wasnt eating enough. By making her meal a once a day thing that only lasted a set amount of time i could make sure i knew she was getting enough food in her, and encouraging her to eat up and put on some weight because food was to be eaten when it was available.

I was trying to be helpful - but take it as you will :o

I do apologise sincerely if I have misinterpreted any answers

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One way to get rid of the ants without using sprays etc, is to sprinkle some corn flour around where they are(preferably where your dogs can't get to it) they then carry this back to their nest and the whole nest will eat it, can't digest it & therefor end up dieing :o

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