Has anyone else got an ANT WORLD? Please come and talk ants with me

[FrannyandZooey]

Right we finally scraped together about 25 nervous looking ants and introduced them to their spacious new accomodation. Several promptly died and the rest spent a couple of days running around, much to ds's delight:

"We've got PETS!"

"Mummy look they are having a RACE!"

"Those two are very funny they just bumped HEADS!"

"Now they are having an ANT CIRCUS!"

So I was thinking this has got to be one of the best things anyone had ever bought him. Now on day 5 the ants are

well

I don't know where they are. They have gone somewhere. Underground? There is a tunnel. It doesn't seem to have ants in it. There is bugger all sign of life. Is this it? Are the first few days the only time you get to see them doing anything? Or have we killed them all? What do I tell ds?

these were the only blighters out of the whole garden that we could convince to crawl up a pencil

perhaps they thought it was a coach trip to Margate, see the attractions, shopping time included

instead it is the bleeding ants retirement village

or maybe they have succumbed to some kind of Heaven's Gate mass suicide?

god the responsibility of keeping ants went right over my head

That'll learn yer

as they say in Norfolk

THey've not escaped have they? ds's did - twice. First time I happily scooped them up from the dining room table. 2nd time I squashed them.

I expect though taht they are actually very busy tunneling away. Look very, very carefully at the tunnels and you might spot them., They also like to hide in the cornesr near teh edges.

I actually found ours quite fascinating until tehy escaped for the second time.

you want to tempt the younger ones
play a bit of .....
whatever young ants listen too

leave some alcopops in the garden

and then grab em!

yes I may start poster campaign

"an ant is not just for Thursday"

"except in Franny's house"

gosh sorry talcy please feel free to move on, I am wittering dreadfully and you are doing a sterling job of not running away

ooooh lots of good advice here

I will examine corners

play some death metal in the garden

try to read some suitable stories to prepare ds for the possibility of bereavement

no, tis okay
i am finding it mildly entertaining

or are you telling me to fark off nicely

yOU KNOW,
WORMS ARE FUN TO KEEP

OOPS SORRY BOUT CAPS

GOING NOW
HAVE FUN!

worms

have had a good nose, there are signs of life but a few have definitely copped it the remainder look quite sluggish. I have given them some water (you just drop a bit in that little top lid thing is that right?)

I thought they were meant to take the dead ones out to the feeding pod bit? These ones are just SLATTERNS

Yes they carry their dead friends out...unless they are too duffered to carry them.

oh dear

yes it looks bad doesn't it talcy

I need AntSupernanny

Do they eat their dead friends?

i had a gerbil
it ate its friend

I'm toying with getting one of these 'cos DS is petitioning for a pet.

Eeegh!

No they just remove them neatly

well unless there is ruddy CANNIBALISM going on in there as well

blow me anything could be happening, I don't know lionheart

perhaps I will just be left with one HUGE ant licking its lips

lionheart it works VERY WELL on the "I want a pet" front

however five days in and we appear to have duffed it up already

rofpmsl

now i am going

good luck franny

i wish you well

oh fine just leave me now in my hour of need why don't you talcy

I'm quite tempted, despite the potential for a decimated colony.

The only drawback is that DS requested something you can cuddle.

A little boy at the school took American snails in to show and tell.

Huge, slimey buggers, by all accounts, but you can stroke them.

Can you vibrate the container? It works for worms, doesn't it?

pleeeeeeeaase don't mention giant snails

I had this VERY iffy experience once in Amsterdam zoo with some LSD and a giant snail

erm no you can't vibrate them, it would make their tunnels collapse. Why would you want to?

So they would come to the surface and you could do a head count, of course.

(Sorry about mentioning the other thing).