8 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Ants on the Snail Farm 

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8 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Ants on the Snail Farm 

 

Ants and insect infestation in your snail pen are some of the reasons why your snails are dying incessantly. To stop the death roll, you need to get rid of ants and other insects in your snail pen immediately.

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Can ants kill and eat snails?

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The answer is, yes. There are some species of ants that will kill and eat snails.

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That’s why one of the problems many snail farmers face is that of ants invading their snail farms.

The moment you see the first set of ants on your snail farm, don’t hesitate to spring into action and eradicate them immediately.

 

If you allow the ants to take over your snail farm, you will wake up every morning to pick up dead snails on your farm.

How to get rid of ants and other snail pests from your snail farm

To effectively get rid of the ants and pests in your snail farm, you must do the following;

 

1. Securely cover your snail pens with mosquito nets:

mosquito nets prevent ant invasion in snail farm

As you try to prevent ant invasion into your snail farm, the first thing to consider is the construction of your snail pens.

How did you construct your snail pens? Are the pens well covered with mosquito nets?

To learn how to construct your snail pen effectively, check out these 6 different types of snail houses and how to construct them.

We all know that there are some ants with wings that can fly.

If those ants should fly over your trench and land in your snail far, subsequently, they will start reproducing.

 

When you do not cover your snail pen properly, these ants will crawl their way into the pens and destroy your snails.

A quick way to get rid of ants on your farm is to make sure they don’t find a place to settle in the first.

Use mosquito nets to construct a good lid for your snail pens.

Likewise, if you are running a free-range snail farm, make sure you cover the entire area with mosquito nets.

 

2. Dig a trench around your snail farm and fill it with water:

Probably not all ants can fly, however crawling termites, centipedes, and other insect pests can crawl into your farm.

One best way to prevent this is by digging a trench around your farm and filling it with water.

READ ALSO What Aquaculture Producers can Use Instead of Antibiotics

The trench could be a foot deep and a foot wide.

When constructing the pen, make sure you use good materials.

Also, add enough cement to make sure that water does not destroy the trench.

This is important because you will always fill up the trench with water all year in and year out as long as you still have your snail farm in that location.

Watch this video to see how to keep ants away from your snail farm using a trench.

 

3. Treat the soil in your snail farm.

By now, you already know that snails do most of their daily activities on the soil.

Whether it’s feeding, laying eggs or they just want to bury their heads, it’s all done in the soil.

Interestingly, most of these ants and insects that affect snails also thrive in the soil.

So, what can you do to prevent ants and other pests from killing your snails?

The best thing to do is to treat the soil. By treating the soil, you tend to destroy every living organism in the soil.

Also, treating the soil in your snail farm destroys the insect eggs buried in the soil.

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4. Plant pest-repellant plants:

Pest-repellant plants are crops you deliberately plant around your snail farm to wade off pests.

Some pests are allergic or respond negatively to certain types of plants.

By planting those repellant plants, those pests like a snake and other reptiles will not be comfortable entering your snail farm.

Rosemary, mint, marigold, and lemongrass can also repel certain types of insects and pests from invading your snail farm.

 

5. Remove all leftover food to prevent ant invasion on your snail farm:

Ultimately, most of the farmers who suffer from ant invasion in their snail farm suffer because they leave leftover food in the snailery.

Snail foods are mostly perishable e.g. fruits, and you know how quickly fruits spoil once you cut them open.

Bacterial acts on the fruit remain immediately, causing decay.

As the fruit decays, it attracts all manner of insects to the snail farm.

It’s best for you to remove any leftover meal every morning and replace it with a new food tray.

If you want to know the kind of food snails like eating, check out these 7 categories of essential foods for snails.

take out leftover snail food to get rid of ants and pest

READ ALSO Diseases Affecting Snails And How To Avoid Them

6. Remove unhatched eggs from your snail hatchery:

Once you take your eggs to the snail hatchery, it takes anywhere between 21 – 40 days for most of the eggs to hatch.

If after 40 days you still have eggs that did not hatch, make sure you take them out of the incubator immediately.

Also, remove all snail eggshells from the hatchery after hatching.

The smell of broken or rotten eggs can attract ants and other insects to the hatchery.

By removing the leftover eggs and eggshells, you will be keeping all those pests away from your snail farm.

If you are having a problem hatching most of your snail eggs, check out this best way of hatching over 80% of your snail eggs.

 

7. Sanitize the snail farm regularly to eliminate pests:

Anything clean is good. Just the way human beings maintain quality levels of personal hygiene, snails also need their environment to be neat.

If you want to prevent pests from affecting your snail farm, you must sanitize the snail farm regularly.

Clean the trays you use to serve snail foods. Also, wash the drinking plates and serve only clean water to the snails.

Don’t forget to also remove all leftover food and till the soil at an interval.

Tilling soil helps mix the snail feces with the soil and leaves room for healthy roaming in the snail pen.

Don’t forget to also sanitize all your snail farming equipment to make sure they don’t house any insects.

 

8. Use organic pesticides to destroy snail pests

One good way to ensure that soldier ants and other insects do not end up destroying your snail farm is to use organic pesticides.

 

Some of the organic pesticides for snail farming include’

pyrethrin

lime sulfur

sabadilla

garlic

onions

tomato leaves (crushed)

tobacco water

snuff

neem oil

Before using any organic pesticide on your snail farm, first, harvest the snails on your farm.

You can also spray organic pesticides a few days before stocking your farm with snails.

Doing this will help destroy stubborn soldier ants from attacking your snail farm.

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