Eww! Ants Won't Leave My Cat's Food Alone

IndyJones

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I've been having issues lately with ants in my house and now they won't leave my cat's food alone. Kabby likes to take his time to eat and the ants get to his food before he can finish it. I have traps down but the ants seem to prefer the cat food to the traps.

Currently I am putting his food in the fridge as soon as he walks away but I can't be on ant patrol all the time.

Anyone have any idea how to keep the ants from swarming his bowl?

The ants look like this (tiny things)
 

Kieka

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Depends on what type of bowl he has.

The easiest way is to create a moat around his food bowl. To do this, place his bowl inside a larger bowl and put about an inch of water in the larger bowl. This creates a barrier that will detour most ants from getting into the food. You do have to leave enough food in the food bowl so it doesn't float OR if the inner food bowl is a heavier material so it doesn't float.

If you can't moat your food then it is slightly more involved. Really, even if you can moat the food they tend to spread.

What I've done is trace the line to where they are coming in. Starting at the furthest point aggressively clean the ant trail. I use the enzyme cleaner for the cats plus mop or wipe surfaces with a water and peppermint oil mixture after. Between the two I've usually been successful in eliminating their trails. After that is done set the ant bait at the entry points. I've found the borax, sugar and water on a cotton ball is very effective against ants or Terro liquid ant baits. I've never had any side effects with either and the cats but I do try to set them up away from the cats. When I had one entry point along the floor, I put the bait in a shoe box and pushed the box up against the wall so the cats couldn't get to it but the ants could. Last summer I had to do five or six stations at one entry point because there were so many ants coming in.

Wait a week or so and the number of ants will start to drop. It really depends on the size of the colony and how long it takes them to catch on that it isn't a good place to go. While you wait, clean daily with the enzyme cleaner and rubbing down with the peppermint water. Make sure to clean any spots that you find stray ants. You can't just kill them, you have to get rid of the scent of them at the spot and to the spot.

If the ants are coming in a window or along a wall I also check the exterior of the house for corresponding ant trails leaving to the exterior opening. If I find it I use actual poison on the exterior of the house and spray a line about five feet wide to create a chemical wall of sorts at that point. I am not a huge user of poison and one can of it will last me years but sometimes it is better. I will generously water the area around where I spray the house just to try to minimize the impact. My goal is to remove even the hint of that being a viable trail.
 

orange&white

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Smear petroleum jelly around the bottom of the bowl. Ants usually won't crawl over it. You can set a small bowl smeared with Vaseline around the outside into a larger bowl and pour water in the larger bowl to create a "moat".
 

lisahe

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That's kind of an ominous-looking ant.

I seem to recall that someone mentioned this some (long) time ago and there were some decent solutions. But of course I don't remember what they were. We've had minor ant problems (we've even had carpenter ants) but are lucky our cats eat fairly quickly.

If you live somewhere that you can put ant bait outside, Terro liquid bait works pretty well. The big thing is to not get complacent when your ant population decreases: you have to keep putting the bait out on schedule. (We always fail on that count!)

Good luck.

And just as I was about to post, I see the other posts... another vote for Terro!
 

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I've been having issues lately with ants in my house and now they won't leave my cat's food alone. Kabby likes to take his time to eat and the ants get to his food before he can finish it. I have traps down but the ants seem to prefer the cat food to the traps.

Currently I am putting his food in the fridge as soon as he walks away but I can't be on ant patrol all the time.

Anyone have any idea how to keep the ants from swarming his bowl?

The ants look like this (tiny things)
Hi last week we ordered some plug ins electric ones thT are pet friendly they stop ants bugs etc we have started using them today have a look on amazon
 

Kieka

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It looks like that bowl would be okay for a moat. It depends on how heavy it is really.

I like the terro because it isn't a ton of chemicals. It is borax based and has a low toxicity for cats so a little won't harm cats if an ant dies in their water dish or food dish. The raid is mostly chemical based and they keep it under patent; makes me worry about a cat or even some critter outside eating dead ants on purpose or accident.

Here is a Canadian link, TERRO® - Shop Woodstream Brands
 

lisahe

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Terro's very effective, too! It's the only kind we've had any success with.

And IndyJones IndyJones even if that's a much-enlarged ant photo, the ant still has an ominous look to it! (Maybe that's because I recently tried reading a novel about ants...)
 
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IndyJones

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I actually keep a box of borax for the washing. Wonder if I could make my own terro...
 

orange&white

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I think if you just clean the area with Borax and rinse it, the ants will be "offended". I wouldn't leave it out where the cat might touch it.

I think boric acid is safe even if the cat stepped in a bit and licked it....but would need to research that...I'm going from memory on that one. Needs verification.
 

orange&white

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You could sprinkle a line of diatomaceous earth outside. That is safe to eat...but awful if inhaled.
 

Kieka

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I actually keep a box of borax for the washing. Wonder if I could make my own terro...
Homemade Ant Bait from source below is:
  1. Mix 1/2 C sugar, 1 1/2 Tbsp Borax,and 1.5 C warm water.
  2. Soak cotton balls in the mixture, and put them out near the mess of ants.
  3. The sugar attracts the ants, and they’ll take the Borax with it back to their home.
Yes -- Borax got rid of the ants!

Borax has low toxicity to cats and humans. It’s not something you should eat but if you touch a surface with it or your cat was to accidentally step in it and lick their paws it will likely not cause problems. It kinda depends on individual sensitivity but it is generally considered non-harmful for contact or accidental ingestion of it transferring by contact and being licked. It’s much safer then Raid in either case.
 

orange&white

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Definitely safer than Raid anyway. I still wouldn't want my cat directly exposed to it though.

I did make some homemade ant baits with borax, sugar and dampened bread a few years ago though. Kieka's post jogged my memory.

I poked holed in plastic disposable bowls to put the bait inside so the ants could get in, but not the pets.

 

lisahe

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Definitely safer than Raid anyway. I still wouldn't want my cat directly exposed to it though.

I did make some homemade ant baits with borax, sugar and dampened bread a few years ago though. Kieka's post jogged my memory.

I poked holed in plastic disposable bowls to put the bait inside so the ants could get in, but not the pets.

I can already see that these work by giving the ants the illusion that they're going to get some sort of condiment that came with takeout food. These little disposable bowls are, indeed, a very clever tactic!

Seriously, though, I also wouldn't want to expose a cat to Borax directly... but would also take that over Raid!
 

Tobermory

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I had a really persistent infestation of ants in the kitchen this spring. They were all over the counters and around the area where I feed the cats. They were also drinking from the cats’ water bowl. They started out tiny, but then I got bigger ones. I used Terro, too, but I was paranoid about leaving the traps on the counter—both for the cats and the humans—so I made two little “houses” for the two traps using butter tubs. Land O’ Lakes is a perfect size! It took weeks to get rid of them.

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7C854B1F-1489-4771-B0FA-B711D6FB4DBB.jpeg
 

lisahe

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Lo and behold, a few short hours after seeing IndyJones IndyJones 's first post, we killed our first ant of the season in the kitchen.

That's a great idea for the ant baits, Tobermory Tobermory ! We've only ever used the Terro outdoor ant bait but maybe we could try these, too, if we have a heavy ant year.

On a total tangent, do you like that butter/canola oil product? I've never used it but I often mix butter and oil in skillets for sauteing so wonder if, hmm, it might not be such a bad thing if they're mixed in one tub!
 

Tobermory

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On a total tangent, do you like that butter/canola oil product? I've never used it but I often mix butter and oil in skillets for sauteing so wonder if, hmm, it might not be such a bad thing if they're mixed in one tub!
I do like it although I don’t use it for much of anything but our weekly cinnamon French toast and on homemade bread on the rare occasions when I’m not too lazy to make it. Tastes closer to butter to me than some of the others, and it’s handy for quick use. For baking and most cooking, though, I use unsalted butter and olive oil.
 

lisahe

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I do like it although I don’t use it for much of anything but our weekly cinnamon French toast and on homemade bread on the rare occasions when I’m not too lazy to make it. Tastes closer to butter to me than some of the others, and it’s handy for quick use. For baking and most cooking, though, I use unsalted butter and olive oil.
Thanks, Tobermorey. Yes, olive oil is what I use for pretty much everything so if that were a butter/olive oil mix I'd be all over it! But "handy for quick use" is a nice thing.
 
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