Ant Trouble!

[adOggy07]

Hello!

So, this morning I go downstairs and look into Medusa's cage and see that there are hundreds of ants surrounding her waterdish! There were a few scattered near her cave where she was sleeping, but they didn't seem to be interested in the snake anyway. I looked in her home last night and there were no ants at that time. This is the first time I've ever seen this. The weird thing is, they didn't go for my dog's waterdish, but they went for the snake's?! I did get her a new waterdish recently (about 3 days ago), it was made of ceramic, rocky material. The one I was using before was a plastic kind. I live in a city that gets very hot over the summer and we always have ant infestations in our house during the summer. But, normally they go for the bread crumbs and such. As long as we are careful with food it usually resolves itself right away. I see a few here and there in my dog's waterdish upstairs, but never as many as I saw today in Medusa's waterdish! I don't get it?! Was there maybe some sugary substance on the waterdish that attracted them? I mean.. highly unlikely, but I'm just trying to ponder all possibilities here. Any ideas?

Does anyone else have this problem and what can I do about it? For now I've gone back to her old waterdish.. and I hope no ants come for that. I don't really know though as I've only had her for about 2 weeks and she's quite young and my first snake. Can these ants harm my BP? Will she be bothered by them? Thanks!

[tigerlily]

I can sympathise with you about ants! Those little boogers have been the bane of my existence. They leave a scent trail and will come back, if they found what they were looking for. I always follow the line and locate where they are coming in from. Try and chaulk up any openings. You can always those little bug motels too.

I can't imagine that they would be harmful to your snake, but I'd still work as hard as possible to eliminate the pests. Just curious what kind of bedding do you use? Maybe switch over to papertowels or newspaper temporarily?

[rabernet]

Oh yuck! I've read on Ralph's site that he sprays Provent-A-Mite in his doorways and nothing makes it very far inside. Perhaps a treatment of PAM will prevent them from visiting your snake again?

[Jeanne]

To control ants here, I use boric acid, it is a powder, I put it along any entry way the ants may be or might use, if you use it outside of your doors, you will have to re-apply the boric acid powder after it rains or gets wet..

here is info on it:
http://alsnetbiz.com/homeimprovement/boric_acid.html
http://www.biconet.com/crawlers/boricAcid.html

If you choose to try this, do not put it in such a place that a household pet would have access to it, this stuff is a poison.. "Boric acid is generally known as a desiccant; in other words, it kills by removing the moisture from the body of the target pests, causing severe dehydration which will affect electrolyte metabolism with the potential of metabolic acidosis. In fact, boric acid is a stomach poison normally ingested, along with the fact that it can also enter the blood by inhalation. Boric acid is an acid. Acid will decrease the pH level with the possible side effects of renal, respiratory, and cardiovascular failure. Symptoms and signs of boric acid poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, dysphagia, cold sweats, dyspnea, muscular debility, scarlatinal eruptions, subnormal temperature, cardiac weakness, cyanosis, coma, collapse, etc. Boric acid is 3 parts hydrogen, 1 part boron, and 3 parts oxygen"

[muddoc]

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest a complete substrate change. The reason I say this is that if your ball python had a bad shed, there may be some small pieces of shed in your substrate. Why does that matter you ask? I don't know why ants love shed snake skin so much, but I have noticed that sometimes when I have to aid a snake with a bad shed, I will do it right outside of the snake building, and alot of pieces of shed will hit the ground. By the time I go back inside and put the snake up, and mess around with some other stuff in the snake room, say thirty minutes, and come back outside, the pieces of shed are covered with ants. Anyway, it was just a thought, and may not resolve your problem, but it may just help.

[adOggy07]

thanks guys!

tigerlily, i am using papertowel substrate at the moment. maybe i should try newspaper?

as soon as i was able to get rid of all those ants in the cage, i replaced the papertowels with new ones and moved her cage to another part of the living room. i hadn't seen her shed or get in the process of shedding, but i will keep an eye out for that too! i imagine that is quite yummy for the ants.

it just kinda creeped me out, the idea of all those little ants on Medusa! i think i will try out the boric acid for the outside doorways of my house. Yeck! thanks again!