Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I pulled a bunch of dirt out of my yard. This morning I noticed tiny ants building a mound inside my monitors cage. What should I do about this?

I usually use extremely hot water on fire ant beds in places where I do not want to use baits like in my chameleon cages or in my tortoise pen. It doesn't have to be boiling. The hottest water you can get out of your hot water faucet is hot enough to do the job.It works quite well however while it is usually not a problem in most monitor cages you should note that it will kill any plants it comes in contact with. That is the only drawback I have ever encountered with it. There are also a few orange oil based products that are effective on ants and other insects that are supposedly pet friendly however I have found that the remaining residue is quite nasty.

If they aren't fire ants, you can leave them be and they'll die off within a week or so. I've even had fire ants pop up in some of the dirt I've used and never had any problems. As long as they are seperated from the colony they'll die off and you shouldn't have any issues.

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OK thanks guys. Doesn't sound too bad then.

and if you are willing to live with the potential nuissance. If you have fire ants you definitely want to whack them. They can kill your monitor and God knows what else if they get out of your cage, and they will get out. Fire ant colonies can have multiple queens so just because they are separated from the colony doesn't mean the can't establish themselves inside. With other ants they may not be as dangerous but they can be a nuissance if they came with a queen. considering they are building mounds that might be a possibillity. As a kid growing up in Texas this would have been a dream come true (until my mom whipped my a**.). Having a cage with a built in ant colony sure would have beat taking pet horned lizards out to an ant bed every day to feed.

How did you ever get horned lizards?? Do you live in Austraila? They're deffintely one of the coolest lizards. Have any pictures?

For some reason I was tihnking of the Australian thorny devil when you said that. Sorry.

Apparently they feed them the same way we used to feed our Horned lizards (or horny toads as we used to call them.) or so I read once in an article on some zoo in Australia that used to raise them. The only difference is that they put a milk crate over top of them and left them there where as we would just watch them until they got full. But no I grew up on the northern edge of the original king ranch (Alice Tx.-named for one of King's daughters) not their property in Australia. In fact I used to wander up and down the San Fernando creek which runs onto king ranch property (not on the king ranch-nobody trespasses on that land.) looking for alligators as a 9 and 10 year old kid. Thank God I never got one, but I've been on the 'highway to hell" for an awful olng time. Oh yeah...to keep this on topic I used to catch racing lizards (cnemidophorous sp.) and pretend they were baby komodo dragons I always wanted a Komodo because T-rex's were extinct. Like I said "highway to hell".

I think he's talkin' about Texas Horney Toads. I remember as a kid mail ordering those things from Lubbock Texas. If I remember right they were like a buck and a half each, maybe less. Mind you this was back 40 plus years ago

Quig
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Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

They were not fire ants. I scooped the small mound and they have been gone for a few days.