ants in cage!

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littlematchstick

littlematchstick

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2010
Messages
166
Location
ohio
so Im having a horrible ant problem already this year...but to my horror I found ants in my rats cage!! ugh! Anyone know how I can treat these little buggers in a safe way around my rats? I took all the food out of their cage and fleece and Im about to whipe down the entire cage..but what can I do to prevent them from reinfesting the cage!? Some of this is probably my fault because I am late night/in bed snacker..but no more! I'm currently cleaning my entire room and whiping things down..but I don't want to use anything unsafe around the little guys. Whats odd is, They weren't in the bag of pretzels I keep next to my bed..or in my dogs food bowl (not far from the rat cage)..but they're in the cage..and on my end table by my bed and also in my dresser! I've even had them crawl on me at night! I am so horrified..ANyone else dealt with this problem? If so- what did you do? (btw-the girls are in a critter nation--so I can move it out of the room if I have to- to spray bug spray in here..) But I cant keep their cage out of my room for a long period of time cause my family doesnt care for the rats
 
I've had this exact same problem. It was horrifying to discover and it made me feel like a bad rat mother. I did three things. The first one, I was very reluctant to do but I took the girls out of their cage and sprayed a bit of insect repellent on each of the four wheels of the cage. This didn't help a lot, so I ended up filling little containers of water and placing the wheels in them to form a moat around the wheel. This definately worked but because we had a major ant problem in the house, we also had the house treated by an insect pest company, that really got rid of them and we've been fine ever since. But at least the water option is rat friendly and is very cheap.
 
A thorough cleaning will help. I am normally opposed to killing insects/spiders, but for the sake of my rats I got those little ant traps to put near where the ants were coming in - not in the cage! If you try that, it's super important to make sure the traps aren't where your rats can reach them, and maybe you take them up and put them away any time the rats are having playtime. It would be horrible for them to get into one and possibly poison themselves. I used traps for a couple of weeks while the problem was the worst. Kept them out of the cage anyway.

Our house is very old and we have to put our bowl of dry cat food in a pan with water in the bottom like a moat to keep the ants out of the cat food.
 
I'd defiently do what your doing right now just as a first action, the wheels in water containers is a clever idea too! But at the end of the day bombing the room would probably help. We had to deal with a flea infestation, somehow the fleas made their way to my rats too and I ended up having to put flea powder around the cage, rubbed some of it into the cage fleece, and had to treat my rats. But sadly I think bombing for us was our best way to go because they kept coming back, even after a first bombing, had to bomb twice! Stubborn fleas DIE lol.
 
In summer I filled bottles with lemon juice and vinegar and I sprayed all around the house, outside. I do the same around windows and doors. Ants do not like this mixture. In pots, you can plant basil, ants do not like it either. It is interesting to block any holes or cracks that we see on our walls to prevent them from entering.
 
What Orangette said also along the lines of natural easy ways of getting rid of ants cinnamon is one of em I like it because its super safe put it on cracks whatever even sprinkle some on ants you see they take it back to the nest and warn the others of the danger ;) lol but ants hate cinnamon
 

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