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Hello, what's up?
It's, uh, Mikey Bustos here, Ants Canada once again bringing you another tutorial on behalf of the Ants Canada ant store
you know in the past, it's been a long way for me
in terms of
getting the
You know, I guess, the formula right
in caring for ants learning about
you know just really how to
properly care for ants and you know the ant keeping hobby itself is a
fairly new
kind of thing and we're all really learning from eachother at this point because
Like I said, it's it's a fairly new activity
And craze. One of the things I wanted to share with you guys today
Which is so important to know in regards to keeping ants is: ant nutrition and feeding.
You essentially need to provide ants three things
And that's water sugary foods and protein and this next video will take you through
Exactly that so hope you enjoy it and here it is
By far one of the most important areas of ant keeping is nutrition and feeding
Providing your ends with proper nutrition is so vital to the success of your ant colony
The failure to grow or the decline of a captive ant colony is quite often a result of poor nutrition
So we wanted to create a tutorial on how to properly feed your ants
essentially providing your ants nutrition consists of three elements
a protein food source
a sugary food source and water
Failure to provide any three of these essentials will lead to malnutrition and eventually the death of an ant colony
Before we begin exploring these three elements
We should first address the best way in which to provide your ends with the food and water they need
For really young colonies of just a few workers some find it easier to provide food as close to the founding chamber as possible
And so they choose to place food directly into the formicarium as seen in this photo of
Lasius neoniger nantics eating a piece of cricket
remember that if you choose this method
place the food in a location where it will be easy to reach and clean up later
A better option would be to feed the ants in a tube
however the best option is to provide your ants with what is called an outworld
An outworld is like your colonies
Well, outer world
an area that will resemble the world outside of the nest
In the wild worker ants wander out of their nest and forage for food to bring back to the colony in
In captivity, matching this nest and outworld duality in their living space makes things more natural for the ants
Having an outworld also makes things a lot cleaner for everyone
As you can imagine, living in a moist environment underground in close proximity to each other
The Colony is constantly in danger of mold outbreaks other fungi, bacteria, and disease
so ants are actually very, very clean when it comes to organic material lying around
After eating what they need
Ants will literally carry their garbage out of the nest and dump it in their outworld for you to clean up afterwards
Having an outworld there for the ants to establish a dump site helps keep the nest clean and free of garbage
They will even dump dead bodies in the outworld
Okay, so let's begin with a protein source
Protein foods are essential for an ant colony. Particularly for the proper development of the Larvae
Adult workers of most ant species lack the chewing parts required to chew up very solid food
So many species of ants drag such food like the body parts of prey insects back to the nest
For the larvae which do have the chewing parts to consume and break down into a nutritious soup
that the workers can then consume
It's an efficient system that ensures that both adult ants and Larvae are fed protein accordingly
Proteins which consist of chains of Amino acids are the building blocks of life
and growing Larvae especially require these protein rich foods in order to grow
Colonies with lots of brood really rely on you to provide them protein sources
Examples of protein sources include insects, meats, moist cat or dog food, and, in the case of granivores, seeds
When the workers discover the food in the outworld
They will consume what they can of
the semi-solid food and then drag the rest back to the nest for further breakdown and for the larvae to work on
If you're feeding crickets to your ends remember that your ants are what its food eats
Therefore it is important that the crickets are gut loaded and healthy when fed to your ants
A simple container with dog food, veggies, grains, or other high nutrient cricket chow along with a cotton block test tube of water
should be good to keep your crickets nutritious as prey items
However, although protein is indeed important to a growing colony's diet
A diet exclusively composed of only protein sources can be fatal
A study in an australian lab found that ant colonies that were fed only protein foods
Led to mortality of the Workers due to protein toxicity
Furthermore they discovered that the mortality rate of the workers in
Colonies that had no larvae were much higher than that of workers in colonies that had larvae to make use of all that protein
This brings us then to the second essential to ant nutrition:
sugary foods
Sugary Foods are important for ATP, that is to say... energy.
It is important for adult ants.
Adult ants aren't really growing in the same way that larvae do, but are constantly moving and working
That is why sugary foods, which give the ants energy, are important for adult ants
Examples of sugary foods include fruits, honey, sugar water, seeds, cake crumbs
And if you can get your ants to feed from them nectar from blossoms and other plant exudates
In the wild some ants even tend aphids to drink their sugary secretions called honeydew
Whatever you provide your ants is a sugary food source, it is important that they constantly
have a sugary food source in their outworld to give the colony energy
So you ask, how much of protein and how much of sugary food should you be giving?
Well, we say, let the ants figure that out.
If you constantly provide the ants with both a protein source and a sugary source
They will naturally decide the ratio on their own
In this outworld belonging to a large tetramorium colony
a bunch of food materials are dumped into the out world on a bi-weekly basis
pieces of fruit, cut up insects, seeds, tiny pieces of meat
And the ants go out like in a buffet and choose exactly what they want to bring back to the colony and in what amounts
Every other week this out world is cleaned using tweezers
and more food items are placed into the out world for the ants to choose from
As your colony gets larger, a larger outworld is always better
The third essential is water, the universal solvent
Water is vital for almost all biological processes and living things
For larger colonies water placed in a test tube is always a good idea
Spring outworld decorations with a hand spray also provides your ants with a source to drink
ants need a clean source of water at all times and if your formicarium doesn't provide that
a water filled test Tube blocked with a cotton ball placed into your outworld
will give your ants water when they need it
Watching your ants gather food and nutrients for the colony is one of the most exciting things about owning ants
You may notice the ants transferring food from mouth to mouth a process called trophallaxis
If you see here in this picture You'll see the drop. That's transferring between worker and queen
You will watch as your ants drag pieces of food back to the nest for consumption and then dragging their leftovers into your outworld
It's a lot of fun
Offering your ants variety of food items is your best bet and in time you will learn what kinds of food they like the most
When you know how to properly feed your ants
Culturing a successfully growing colony becomes easy and very fulfilling.
This is Ants Canada signing out
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