# Ant feeders?



## spawn (Aug 7, 2013)

I have some toads that eat mainly ants in the wild, but I cannot find any ant feeders for them. I found some websites selling western harvester ants intended for horned lizards (ironically called horny toads sometimes), but those have stingers, and I don't want to kill my toads.

Does anyone know of any feeder companies that sell any other kinds of ants? I know LLL and backwater also have harvester ants so they seem to be the big thing in the ant feeder business, but there HAS to be something else. I just can't find it.

I know there were a couple businesses in the UK selling ants on eBay last year, but I can't find any now.

If anyone remembers way back when we were allowed to have sigs, I had this sig:







It's that species that eats them.


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## Rick (Aug 7, 2013)

Carolina sells them. I assume they are for ant farms though.

http://www.carolina.com/catalog/search-results.jsp;jsessionid=6C788C0699E06C260E70B9960DB7AE38.stageworker4?_dyncharset=UTF-8&amp;question=ants&amp;_D%3Aquestion=+&amp;questionSaved=&amp;%2Fatg%2Fuserprofiling%2FProfile.searchTabSelection=Products&amp;_D%3A%2Fatg%2Fuserprofiling%2FProfile.searchTabSelection=+&amp;%2Fatg%2Fcommerce%2Fsearch%2Fcatalog%2FQueryFormHandler.search=Search&amp;_D%3A%2Fatg%2Fcommerce%2Fsearch%2Fcatalog%2FQueryFormHandler.search=+&amp;searchExecByFormSubmit=true&amp;_DARGS=%2Fincludes%2Fgadgets%2Fheader-search.jsp.mainSearchForm


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## hibiscusmile (Aug 7, 2013)

come over here, ant hills all over the place!


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## agent A (Aug 7, 2013)

i find tons of ants here, i can catch u a bunch if u want


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## Ranitomeya (Aug 7, 2013)

Is that Pedostibes hosii? Those're awesome toads.
I'm not sure there are any commercial sources of affordable ants that are not harvester ants. You should also be aware that some stingless ants are equally dangerous to use as feeders for amphibians. Many ant species are capable of spraying formic acid and would be at the very least a source of stressful irritation for an organism with a sensitive skin.

You can try to find local species of ants and collect them using cotton balls dipped in sugar water. Try to identify whether or not they have a harmful sting and crush them and smell them to determine whether or not they carry large amounts of defensive chemicals such as formic acid.


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## spawn (Aug 8, 2013)

@ Rick: thanks!

@ agent A: I need to culture them. Impractical to just go collect a bunch unfortunately.

@ Ranitomeya: They are P. hosii. They eat ants in the wild. They are from Malaysian rainforests, so they're going to be running into large, aggressive ants. Toad skin isn't sensitive like frogs.

I actually found a UK and a French website that ship queens! So it looks like I'll be going that route...


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## agent A (Aug 9, 2013)

spawn said:


> @ Rick: thanks!
> 
> @ agent A: I need to culture them. Impractical to just go collect a bunch unfortunately.
> 
> ...


i sometimes find queens after nuptial flightsproblem is it takes months to have a big enough colony for food use and many queens need to diapause first


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## spawn (Aug 11, 2013)

How big are the workers in the colony? I think I'm getting a pretty good bang for the buck with Camponotus ligniperdus. The workers are over 1cm long.


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