One of the hobbies that is fast catching up the attention of many American’s is Ant Farming. An Live Ant farm is typically a man made artificial ant colonies used as a habitat for ants. Ants, these small insects with their well organized social world and divisions of labor has always fascinated most of us and have drawn more attention in the recent times. The development of an ant farm depends on the choice of the person intending to build them but at the end of it becomes quite a learning experience that stimulates our mind. In most of the cases, ant farms are built as a hobby by fascinated individuals and children or and in the other cases are built for the purpose of research. Whatever the purpose of building an ant farm is, it truly offers exciting disclosures into the captivating and complex life of ants.
Ants are members of the phylum Arthropod that creates colonies that may cover large territories. They are known to be the most hardworking animal or insect on our planet. They could teach the children a lesson or two about hard work.
There are a lot of initiatives that companies or individuals come up that uses ants as educational aide to children. One of the ideas is the live ant farm for kids. Kids like to explore and exploring the ants while they are doing their daily activities will be fun at the same time a learning experience for kids.
There are a lot of ways of obtaining a live ant farm for kids. You can even make one at home. You may use unused fish tanks or damaged one for as their habitat. If you don’t have a fish tank, you may use plastic containers, jars or ice cream containers. Use the transparent one if possible so that kids can see the ants in action.
The next step in the process is putting sand inside the tank. This is where the colony of the ants will reign. You may put plastic trees or any decoration on top of the sand to make it more presentable. Then place the ants inside. It is advisable to choose ants with darker colors compared to the lighter ones so that they can be seen clearly. These ants will make tunnels in the sand and there is a big possibility that it will collapse since it is not their natural environment. To avoid this from happening, with the use of medicine dropper you may dampen the sand with water.
Once their habitat is ready, you next assignment is to collect ants to place inside the habitat. It is not really difficult to do this. You can go to your backyard and get ants from their ant hills or get them from their nests. You may also create baits like putting sweet food outside or maybe drop juice or soda on the soil in your backyard. But the problem now is capturing the Queen of the colony. You may do this during summer which is the mating season for ants. She can be easily distinguished because she is the largest in their group.
The next thing to do is to place you ants inside their new home. You may use a paper funnel for this. In order for the ants to stay still during this operation, you may place them inside the refrigerator for around 5- 10 minutes. This way their mobility is impaired and you don’t have to worry for the ants to escape. Securely cover your colony so that these ants will not be able to go out. Open the cover once in 2-3 days just to allow air circulation. Once they are in, make sure that they are well fed. You may give them small amount of fruits, vegetables, pet food or even insects that have died. Do it every 2-3 days. Make sure to keep this at a minimal amount, this could cause mildew formation in the sand which could harm the ants. Make sure to also give water to them. Do this every day and make sure it’s not too much.