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?

popped back in before i logged off,

LSD ? Snails?
rofl

sorry for your loss though

Do the instructions have a troubleshooting page?

Are you certain they haven't done a collective bunk (someone did mention escape earlier)?

Stick a bit of tape down one side - so it covers teh clear plastic a bit. The ants will probably all congregate under there (they liek peace and quiet) then you can peel it back and do a head count!
By teh way, they like banana better than apple.

ah now the experts are gathering

let's gloss over the snail thing

erm there is not troubleshooting as such

it says "What should I do if ants die in Ant World?" "Your ants should not die if you follow the instructions carefully"

oh well thanks a BUNCH

lol, but isn't part of the fun having to replenish them with the little ant-catcher things?

but lionheart

if you take ants from a different colony and introduce them into Ant World there will be a WAR

it says so on page 7

Ant Carnage more like.

Ours was not a success. We think dd1 gathered two different species of ant. Ant wars broke out, they seemed to attack each other and dead ant bodies littered the place.

I will now read whole thread.

That's a very good point (although it would be the perfect cue for a lesson on Darwinianism, or Marxism).

Perhaps you might release the ants you have in your possession back into the wild and start a new colony with ants collected from a friend's garden?

Don't gloss over snails. They were by far the most succesful World in our garden. A positive paradise.

oh god

start again?

how many more innocent victims must we subject to this torture in the name of science? Can we not learn from pointydog's mistake?

Ah - different colonies. That must be what dd did wrong.

I am insisting on glossing over snails, I'm afraid. I will get quite scary about it if necessary.

Snails live in perfect harmony. Var easy to catch. You can even use nail polish to distinguish them just like on the wildlife programmes.

Ants are twitchy little critters.

Normal garden snails, not those African monsters.

Also saves your plants.

Ants are not a foot across and slimy

end of.

ah

well they are not slimy even so

and they don't give me flashbacks

I know someone who ordered one of those butterfly kits. Very successful. SOunded like a thing of great wonder and beauty.

You handle snail by its shell though. Slime free.

And you won't need to touch it at all - leave it to your boy.

ooh really

my mum offered to get one of those, then we decided perhaps better for an older child

on a similar note a friend told me about a safari park where they have loads of butterflies inside. You walk round with bowls of nectar and they land and drink from them

But 25 ants should not weigh too heavily on your conscience, if perchance, the might of mumsnet cannot save them.

oh actually I am lying I think it was birds

NO SNAILS THANK YOU

well if they had died for some higher cause lionheart I could maybe square it with my conscience

but it hasn't been a very noble end for them has it?

Butterfly Farm near me. Bit hot. Few ants in there too, ruining things.

Don't go for jittery pets. I vetoed a hamster for that very reason.